Table For Two

Hey, y'all

I'm so excited about today's show because let me tell you what's going to happen

It's going to be a table for just two today, me and Michael

and I've got a fabulous menu planned for us. I'm going to do an herb-crusted pork loin

I'm going to be doing a curried fruit that's going to be fabulous with that

and then a rice that's just full of all kinds of mushrooms. And to start our meal off with a little appetizer

I've got an eggplant dip. But wait until you see our dessert

I'm going to do a mocha fondue for Michael. So I hope y'all come on in and join me

because I love company while I'm cooking. Okay, I can't wait to get started on this meal

because it's truly going to be delicious. I'm gonna be making an herb-crusted pork loin

that's just covered in fresh herbs, and then I'm gonna be making a rice dish

to go alongside of it. It's filled with three different kinds of fresh mushrooms

I'm gonna be adding shiitake, portobello, and then just a regular white cap mushroom

And I've got a half a stick of butter over here in my saute pan

and we're just gonna throw our mushrooms in there. this is three cups of mushrooms

If you have a particular favorite mushroom, you know, you can just go with one

But like I said, I think this is interesting, you know, having a variety

So now I'm going to add one onion that's been diced. And we're just going to let that saute away

until it's kind of soft. I think I'm going to go ahead and add a little black pepper to it and a little bit of salt

All right, let's step on over and talk about our pork loin

You know, this is one of my favorite meats to prepare because it's so simple

It's so easy and it's so delicious. You know, it requires very little attention

I'm going to cook this on a rack, but I'm going to put it to the side because I want to come in here and really get to my meat

Now, I'm going to rub it with some olive oil. All right

Now, for the herbs today, I've selected to use thyme, two teaspoons of fresh thyme

I'm using two teaspoons of fresh basil and two teaspoons of fresh rosemary

And now I've got four cloves of garlic that I've minced up

and one tablespoon of salt. And we're just going to mix those together

Those fresh herbs look so beautiful. I think I'm going to start by peppering my roast

and Michael likes a lot of pepper so I'm really gonna coat this good just for

Michael. Now I'm just gonna begin by taking my herbs and rubbing those in my

meat and you really want to massage them in. This is already smelling so good

Now I'm gonna flip it fat side up and I'm gonna kind of let it sit there with as much of those herbs as I can get on top

Now I'm gonna slip my rack back underneath there. Put it back on the pan

I'm gonna drizzle it with the rest of that olive oil. I'm gonna put this in a preheated 475 degree oven and I'm gonna roast it for 30 minutes

minutes, and then I'm going to lower the temperature to 425 degrees, and I'm going to let it cook

for another hour, and it's going to be incredible. So in the oven, this goes

So in the oven, that goes. I want to come down here and wash my hands

I got to get that oil and anything that was on the meat off of my hands

It's important, you know, that we wash our hands often during cooking

In fact, sometimes I feel like I've washed my hands until they've got wrinkles in them

So come on back down here and let's finish putting our rice dish together

Now, I've got five cups of rice that already had cooked up

And I just going to add that to our mushrooms and break that rice up

Tell you what, these spoons that God invented, they're the best kind to have, you know

All right. Now I'm gonna add just a little soy sauce, because that's gonna be a nice flavor

There's no rule for this. You can add as much as you like. All right, now I'm going to toss in some green onions

Give it a little taste. That's perfect. I'm just going to push that to the side

I'm going to take a quick break, and when I come back, I want to show you how that herb-crusted pork loin turned out

And then guess what I'm going to be cooking to go along with it? A nice, hot, hurried fruit dish

And later, a delicious garlic eggplant dip. And for dessert, a wonderful mocha fondue

Hey, y'all, welcome back. Look at this. This proves that time really does fly when you're having a good time

Already an hour and a half. And look, our roast is done

I'm gonna let this rest for about 20 minutes, but I'm real excited over this next dish

You know, I have been eating this dish for years, but the more I talk about it

the more I find people who have never had it. So I don't know if it's just a southern thing or what

It's a hot curry fruit dish, and you're not gonna believe how good the curry is

with all that fresh-baked fruit. Now, we're gonna start off with one stick of butter

I'm going to put in a half a cup of light brown sugar

and about a tablespoon of curry powder. Now, you can determine this

Curry is a strong herb. I'm probably going to use about two teaspoons in there

All right, and then we're going to squeeze the juice from one lemon

and this is going to give our butter a nice tart flavor

Okay. All right, I see a lemon seed in there. Somehow he got past me. We're going to keep him out of there. All right. Now let's come over here and talk about the fruit we're using

I'm using a fresh pineapple, fresh pears, fresh peaches, and fresh apples

Now for the apricots, it's not apricot season, so I turn to the dried apricot

These are just perfect. All right. I'm going to go ahead and core this with one whack

There we go. All right, I'm just going to slice this into chunks

Now, I've taken my pears. I've peeled and cored and quartered them

along with the peaches and the apples. I've treated them the same way

So let's just start piling our fruit in our dish. You can see why this is a wonderful dish with pork

all the perfect flavors. Now for color and for flavor, I can't make this fruit dish

without some beautiful maraschino cherries. And we are in the south, so I definitely think that pecans are in order

There's nothing that we won't throw a nut in. All right, so I've got those all mixed up

So in the dish it goes. Now don't worry about it being too high because, you know, as fruit cooks, it shrinks up

Now let's just pour this over our fruit. Mmm. It's truly stunning

So we're going to pop this in the oven. We're going to bake it at 325 for about an hour or either an hour and 15 minutes

So just keep an eye on it. And no more than an hour and 15 minutes

it should produce a dish that looks just like this. Almost looks like a dessert, doesn't it

So let's come on in now, our meat has rested. I've got my rice ready

So let's cut into our pork loin and see what we have

Mm, doesn't that look delicious? All those herbs on top, oh my God

goodness. And it's just still full of juice, y'all. By no means is this dry. Can you see

all the moisture coming out of it Yum This is going to be a great meal All right now I going to come in here and just mound up my rice

These are the cutest little measuring cups. I bought them at an antique shop

They're old, but I just love them. Love having the little handle on them

Now let's come in here with our pork. Looks delicious. All right, now I'm going to come in here and put just a little fruit

That looks pretty good, doesn't it? A perfect plate for two. So, what you say, let's dig in

He'll never know. I'll go underneath. Mmm

It's delicious. And the rice just goes right on in there with that pork roast

and that fruit just steps on top of that pork and gives it a fabulous flavor

Well, y'all, this completes our meal, but I've got to have the starter and I've got to have the ending

because that's definitely missing. So coming up next, I'm going to be preparing Michael and me

a wonderful fresh eggplant dip. But here's the kicker, y'all, and you're going to want to stick around for it

How does a mocha fondue sound to you? I'm so excited about this next dish

because I just dearly love an eggplant. And we eat it all the time down here in Savannah

but we slice them real thin and deep fry them. So I'm always anxious to find new ways

to eat one of my favorite vegetables. Now, I've got one of our eggplant prepped

and you can see the cloves of garlic sticking all in that eggplant

So let's go ahead and get the other one done. And like I said, just randomly we're going to stick that garlic in

because I'm going to be making an eggplant dip that has a little Mideastern taste to it

All right. There we go. Our eggplant is slipped in there. Now I'm going to take a little extra virgin olive oil

and I'm just going to rub this on the skin of our eggplant

Now we're going to put this in a preheated oven, 350 degrees

and we're going to roast this off for about an hour. So let's pop this in the oven

Eggplant looks like such an exotic, romantic food to me. I guess the color and the shape of it, it's just dramatic to me

All right. Now, I have two eggplants here that have roasted for one hour

and they have cooled because I have to peel these, and it would be very, very hard to peel if these were piping hot

So come on back down here. I want to share with you how we're going to put this dip together

and all the great flavors that's going to be in it. And you can see they've shriveled up a little bit, hadn't they

They've become very wrinkly after that trip in the oven. So I'm just going to cut off the stems

And now we're just going to peel this. And you can see that it's going to peel fairly easily

kind of like a sweet potato. after it's baked. Okay, so there we go

Just gonna tear that apart, drop it in the food processor, along with those cloves of garlic

Okay. Here we go again. We're just gonna slip that skin off

My skin will come off in strips. There we go. And if we have a little bit of skin on it, it certainly won't hurt it

I love the skin of eggplant. Now, I'm going to start by adding four tablespoons of tahini sauce

And this is like a roasted sesame paste. And you can find this in your ethnic section of your grocery store

you know, along with your Asian and your Mexican foods. And that goes along with our eggplant All right Now we going to add three tablespoons of lemon juice And always use fresh I don ever recommend

you using the bottled lemon juice. It just really takes away from it

All right, now I'm gonna add three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Now I'm gonna throw in a teaspoon of house seasoning, which is your salt, your pepper

your garlic. So let's put our lid on, and we're gonna just puree it for a few seconds

Now I'm gonna add some fresh flat leaf parsley, and this is probably about three tablespoons

And that should get it. All right. Whoops

Over here I've got a bowl that's been lined with that wonderful Boston leaf lettuce that

I do love. Now I'm just gonna pour our dip right in there

that remind you of a very mid-eastern dip? Now I'm going to sprinkle it

with just a little paprika. And this is very, very good, especially when you're wanting

to serve people maybe just a little something different. Now I've made some pita

chips, and all I did was deep fry these. You can do them in the oven, though, if you like

I just dropped them in the deep fryer and sprinkled them with a little garlic salt

and parsley. Well, let's dip in here and see what we got

Mmm. Michael's gonna love it. He's gonna scoff them down. But I tell you what he's really gonna

like. Coming up next, mocha fondue. So y'all don't go anywhere. Y'all, this

whole entire meal, I I have been so looking forward to getting our dessert ready

Michael Groover is gonna love this. A mocha fondue. Now, I've got 3-4ths of a cup of heavy cream

that I've brought to just a light bowl. And now I'm gonna add one pound of a semi-sweet chocolate

that I've chopped up so it'll melt easily. Right in there with that cream

And it's not gonna take that long to melt. All right, now to our chocolate

I'm gonna add a fourth of a cup of a coffee liqueur

Mm-mm-mm. I'm already going into a chocolate coma. This is that simple, y'all

So I'm just gonna pour our chocolate into our pot. So just that simple, we've got it all ready

Now the thing I like about a chocolate fondue is because you can let your imagination run wild

Whatever you've got is great for this plate. plate, but today I've chosen

bananas and fresh strawberries, pound cake, marshmallows, biscotti, and last but not least

a fresh pineapple. So let's go on over to the table because I know Michael is going to be

soon to follow. Hey, darling, I knew you were going to smell that chocolate

Everything looks wonderful. Doesn't it look Yummy? I've got a meal fit for a king for you

I can't wait. I have roasted you off a fabulous herb-encrusted pork loin

I've made you a rice full of those wonderful mushrooms that you love. And I've got an appetizer for us

It's an eggplant dip. And then look at the curried fruit. Are you excited over that

I am. And what is this? Well, this is your dessert, your special dessert

So what would you like to taste, darling? Biscotti. The biscotti. Okay

I don't think that's going to ruin your appetite. I don't think so

There you go. You enjoy that while I tell everybody goodbye. Y'all, I've had great fun being with you today

Say mm-mm. So glad you dropped in and visited with me while I prepared a great meal for a table for two or a table for 12

And as always, you know that Michael and I send y'all loving best dishes from our table to yours