Carrot Soup with Toasted Almonds

This carrot soup is surprisingly comforting. You'd think with the carrots and the apple cider that it would be super sweet, but the thyme, curry, and chicken stock balance it out very nicely. I've made this soup so often in the past month! Everyone who has tasted it has loved it. Enjoy! Original recipe from epicurious.com

Ingredients:
1 cup shallots, sliced
1 bay leaf
1/4 t ground ginger
3/4 t curry powder
1 t thyme, chopped
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 small potato
1 1/2 lbs. carrots, peeled and diced
1 3/4 cup chicken stock
1 cup apple cider
1 1/4 cup water (add more or less to get desired consistency)
3/4 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Directions:

Cook shallots, bay leaf, ginger, curry powder, and thyme in butter in a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until shallots are softened and pale golden, 6 to 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel potato and cut into 1/2-inch cubes.

Add potato to shallot mixture along with carrots, broth, cider, water, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until carrots are tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Discard bay leaf.

Purée soup in 2 batches in a blender until smooth, transferring as blended to a large bowl (use caution when blending hot liquids). Return to saucepan to reheat if necessary. Serve soup sprinkled with almonds.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Pulled pork is ridiculously easy to make if you have a slow-cooker and it is so tasty. All you need is a slow cooker, a 2-lb cut of pork shoulder (you don't even have to cut this meat up), root beer, and your favorite BBQ sauce (I used Tubbs BBQ sauce -yum!).
In the morning, add the meat to the slow cooker and add enough root beer to cover the pork. Turn the cooker on low, and let cook for 7-8 hours.
Once you get home, simply add the BBQ sauce and place the pork in a bun! If there is a lot of root beer left in the slow cooker, you might want to take the pork out of the slow-cooker and add the BBQ sauce separately. We added some raw red onions and some carrots to complete our meal! This is great for having people over- it will feed many. Enjoy!

Pork Tenderloin with mashed sweet potatoes and roasted carrots

Pork Tenderloin
Pork tenderloin is one of the easiest (and cheapest) meats to cook! To prepare the pork, we rubbed various herbs on the tenderloin (we used rosemary, thyme, and oregano) along with garlic and olive oil. Then, place in a preheated oven (350F) and cook for about 30 minutes. We have a kitchen thermometer with a probe that let's us know when the meat is ready (I highly recommend) - here is a link: Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Probe. Once the meat has reached the proper temperature, take it out of the oven and let it sit for 10 minutes. This pork would be great with a wine sauce or a mustard sauce to accompany it.

Roasted Carrots
I LOVE carrots. And I particularly love carrots that still have the greens attached to them. I don't know why, they just seem to taste better to me. Roasted carrots are very simple to make and they look really nice on the plate. We peeled our carrots - this is unnecessary if you thoroughly scrub the dirt off before seasoning. It's just a matter of preference. From there, add a healthy amount of salt and pepper (Kosher salt is the best) and olive oil. Place these babies in the oven with the pork and roast them until they are soft. We noticed that our carrots were still a little crunchy after roasting (hey, maybe you like crunchy carrots) so I think the next time we cook these carrots we might boil them for 10 minutes before roasting them in the oven.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Marsala wine
2-3 sweet potatoes
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
1/8 cup marsala wine

1. Cut up the sweet potatoes into 1 inch chunks. Boil until soft, about 20 minutes. Strain the sweet potatoes.
2. In a large bowl, add the remaining ingredients and the potatoes. Mix well.
That's it! You're done!