At The Fenton's: Rôti de porc poêlé avec purée de pommes de terre à l'ail et pois

Today was my first day of cooking with my new favorite read; "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." I must say that I probably should have read these recipes and memorized them step by step, because there are so many steps to trace back to. What I decided to make was a casserole-roasted pork, that has been marinaded for a few hours, garlic potatoes and snow peas. The snow peas were just steamed with salt and pepper, you can't afford to put anymore butter after you see how much butter there is in the potatoes! Mark and I rated the recipes as we ate them, giving the pork a 9.5 out of 10 and the potatoes 9 out of 10. It was a pretty good start to this French cooking journey.

Our super delicious meal!

I chose to make a simple marinade with lemon juice and herbs. I only had a 1 1/2lb boneless roast, so I just made the measurements the recipe called for. If you have a bigger roast, I would suggest to double it for optimum flavor. What you need for the rub is:

Salt & pepper

3 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp olive oil

parsley (I used dried)

1/4 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

clove of garlic, mashed

You rub the salt and pepper all over the meat. Mix everything else together and drop the meat in and turn the meat all around a few times. Marinade for 6 hours or so. I only marinaded it for 4 and it was fine.

When you go to cook your meat, it says to use pork fat. Well all I have is olive oil, and I'm honestly not going to go buy pork fat. Preheat the oven to 325F.You heat oil in a pan, or whatever you're cooking the meat in. (I do not have a dutch oven, or a casserole I can put on the stove so I used a frying pan.) You brown the meat on each side to sear it. Then you take out some oil, leave about a tbsp and add a tbsp of butter or so. Add 1 cut up carrot, 1 cut up onion and 2 cloves garlic with skin on, some thyme and a bay leaf. Stir this,cook and cover for 5 minutes. Put all this mixture into a casserole and cover and cook for an hour and a half or so. Mine only took an hour and 15 minutes, but it was smaller.

When the roast is done, just stick in on a plate to rest. You take all the juices & veggies from this, put it in a pot and take the skins of the garlic too. Put in on the stove, and bring it to a simmer. Add 1/2 cup white wine or so. Simmer for a few minutes and mash up the veggies and you have some super delicious but strange gravy. It was so good, Mark kept trying to eat it!'

Remember to pat the roast dry and remove any excess marinade!

Now the potatoes are a little different. I just used two big potatoes, and it made quite a bit of leftovers, so I'll tell you how she has her recipe and if you have to, you can halve it like me.

Just make some plain mashed potatoes with about 2 1/2lb potatoes, and add some salt and pepper and some butter if you want. You might not want to after you make the garlic sauce.

For the garlic butter sauce you need-

2 heads of garlic

4 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

1 cup boiling milk

salt and pepper

Cook the garlic and butter on low heat for 20 minutes, covered until garlic is soft, but not brown. Blend in the flour into the butter and garlic, cook for about 2 minutes or so. Turn off the heat and add boiling milk and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil again for about a minute. Blend it in a blender or puree it if you like. I just mashed it with a masher because the garlic is so soft. Add to potatoes. Mix and then add some cream to them if you like. I added a bit, because Julia said so!

We definitely don't cook like this anymore. I'm not a person who eats fried food. I honestly can't remember the last time I had a french fry, but I think french cooking is fabulous with all its fat and flavor. No wonder the french stay thin, you can't make this rich and flavorful food and pig out. Enjoying it in moderation is definitely the key. And it's always moderation for me, I always eat everything off a small plate unless it's pasta, because it's messier.