Perhaps the Most Appropriate Name for a Food

Last night Joey and I were adventuring again.  Well, I was adventuring.  He was just eating dinner.  (He's not a picky eater, so new food isn't as stressful for him.)

We wanted to use the crock pot because it looked so fun!  I have a booklet of recipes for the crock pot so that's where we found our recipe.  We chose Maple-Sage Pork Roast.  Any recipe that involves multiple pounds of pork can't be that bad, right?  Well, as long as it's not so spicy that it feels like it's trying to chain smoke it's final pack of cigarettes on it's way down my throat.

Two items in the recipe were on my "Do Not Eat" list: onions and butternut squash.  Fun fact: when I was a baby, I ate so much squash and carrots that I turned vaguely orange.  Like a fake tan from beta-carotene.  I loved squash.  I think my body decided to turn me against squash to avoid the inevitable Oompa Loompa jokes.

Back to the cooking.  So the recipe called for maple syrup, pork, beef bouillon, and carrots.  All of which are definitely at the top of my "Do Eat" list.  It also involved garlic and sage.  We put all of the ingredients into the crock pot and let them cook for 8 hours.  So easy!  I'm definitely sold on crock pots!

8 hours later, we put the pork shoulder on a platter and all the veggies in a bowl.

Behold the yummy-ness!

Behold the....  Well, at least there are carrots!

The recipe also suggested making a gravy from the juice left over in the crock pot.  This is where the maple flavoring was most concentrated.  This was also one of the most disgusting things I had ever seen.  I'm sure you'll agree.

Joey described it best: "Troll bogies."

So how were the "Do Not Eat" foods?  I confess I did not eat the onions.  Joey had some and said they tasted pretty much like raw onions.  I definitely haven't reached that level of adventure yet.  I did, however, eat the squash.

The butternut squash tasted legitimately like butter and nuts.  What a straight-forward, honest name!  The texture is a bit mushier than I like, but the flavor was above adequate.  It was the most time-consuming part of the prep, so that might have factored in to my feelings.  I could definitely eat it if someone else was making a dinner, although I don't think I would order it at a restaurant or prepare and cook it myself.  But I would totally make this roast again (I even blanched the remaining squash in case I liked it!).  If I'm not up to prepping squash, there's always potatoes!

Squash and I are not going to rekindle our love affair any time soon, but maybe we can hang out sometime.