Apparently Jalapeños Can Burn on the Outside.

This week's accomplishment was not too difficult, but it was a memorable one.
   I have recently become a sales ad and coupon addict. Well, not an addict exactly, but I have been planning my meals around the sales on meats and produce. (No different than my grandmother used to do, with the exception that I don't own a deep freeze.) This results in cunning meal plans that utilize every grocery I buy in multiple ways. If I purchase something not on the pantry list (carrots for example), it will most certainly be used in more than one dish.
   Pork Loin.

   That was on sale last week and Brandon had been requesting it for a while, so that is what we purchased. Now, I have an arsenal of pork loin recipes in my huge recipe notebook, but I rarely get the chance to cook it, so I pulled out one of my favorite books, The Bride & Groom First and Forever Cookbook. (My mom bought it for me at a school book fair in the teacher's lounge.) It has become one of my favorite go-to's for classic recipes. It embraces just about everything that Jamie does in cooking. It uses simple ingredients from the earth and prepares meals in a simple and delicious way. Anywho, so I chose:
Pork Loin with Mango Salsa and an Apricot Glaze
(Pssst! It was originally a Blackberry glaze, but I am a confident cook now in my kitchen and I knew I could skip on buying blackberry vinegar and preserves if I just substituted with an apricot glaze recipe I already knew.)

   Here we go. Something new. I have always wanted to try mango salsa and had never just buckled down and bought the ingredients to make it. The only ingredient not usually in my pantry was the mango, so this wasn't even a huge investment!
   I began with searing my pork loin in a pan with some S&P and some oil. Searing is supposed to seal in the juices and whatnot, but Alton Brown did an experiment one time to see if it made a difference and he said it really didn't. I went ahead and seared it anyway because I thought the pork gods might strike me down if I didn't, and I really wanted to stick around and try that salsa. Popped the loin into a hot oven with a meat thermometer in it, thank you, Megan! (One of the best gifts I've ever received.)
  
Then I started on my salsa.
Mango, Jalapeño, red onion, lime zest and juice and some salt. I began with the stuff I already knew how to cut up. I decided not to seed the entire pepper, because it seems like there's not enough heat in them if you do. (This would prove problematic later on.)
   Now, if it hasn't been brought to your attention already, Mangos have a sort of horizontal core to them. I haven't done much research, but that's what I found out. I peeled the entire thing with a knife like an apple and attempted to cut through it with no success. There were two sides that simply were not permeable. So my mango bits were uneven by the end of the slaughter. But Jamie says that it makes it looks rustic and I agree with him. I tossed my salsa together and had a taste. It was very hot. I added a bit more lime juice, removed some bits of pepper and added more salt, but it didn't help. Rationality told me that the pork and the sweet apricot sauce would even out that heat level, so I covered it up and continued making my sauce in a pan. I started with chicken stock, some honey and some apricot preserves, which is not exactly how I'm supposed to make it, but it tasted good and had a nice syrupy texture, so... good enough.
   On to the part where we taste it. I set the table and poured some tea into the glasses and left the pitcher on the table, as I knew we'd probably need it with all that spicy salsa.
   I was right.
   Whew! That was soo hot and the only thing I can account for is that the jalapeños sat in the bottom of the bowl with the lime juice while I was fussing with that foreign mango and this juice proceeded to coat everything else in that bowl with what can only be described as "Liquid Heat." The glaze did even it out a bit and the pork was really yummy. The baked potatoes served as a palate cleanser. There were so many flavors! We had sweet and spicy and sour and savory and the bite of the onion and tang of lime all in one bite. The best part was I had it for lunch a day later and it was not nearly as hot the second time!
  The entire time we're eating dinner and watching Sons of Anarchy my top lip is burning like crazy and I'm under the impression it's just the salsa.... I was wrong. I hopped in the shower later and my fingers and knuckles on my right hand were burning too. The heat from the water just intensified what I hadn't noticed earlier. The natural oils from the peppers had literally burned my skin. I had to bandage my entire hand in huge band aids in order to even sleep! And as I'm laying in bed, I'm thinking about my kitchen adventures....
   'This was supposed to be fun. This shouldn't have resulted in this stinging pain in my hand.... I mean, I have some pretty sweet knife skills and haven't cut myself in a while, and so long as Brandon doesn't "goose" me when I've got my hands in the oven, I usually don't burn myself... he should've known better than that anyway... oh well, he apologized. Man that burns! What other injuries await me the coming year as I experiment in the kitchen?' -  Then it hit me. That's what this is all about. It's about learning. The trick is taking negative experiences and turning them into wisdom and positive experiences into memories to look back on.
 
   A Quick Sidenote: For the first time in my life I believe I am weight conscious. Not that I think I'm overweight, I'm not one of those. But hopefully we will be having children soon, and my body will be changing when we do get pregnant. I want my body to be healthy, and just when I start considering my caloric intake and such, Jamie tells me exactly what I need to hear: 
   "My philosophy to food and healthy eating has always been about enjoying everything in a balanced, and sane way. Food is one of life's greatest joys yet we've reached this really sad point where we're turning food into the enemy, and something to be afraid of. I believe that when you use good ingredients to make [meals] they all have a place in our diets."
God Bless that man.
   And here's a shot of my very own *thinspiration* and inspiration for the joy of cooking and eating. Apologies, Jamie, for not featuring you more prominently in this post. More of your recipes to follow!