Herbed pork loin roast and mashed potatoes

 It turned out perfect! Again, cobbled together my own recipe but followed cooking temps and time from a pinterest post.

Bone in Pork Loin Roast.

1 ~5lb bone in pork loin roast

4 or 5 cloves garlic sliced 

2 tbs olive oil

approx measures of:

1tsp rosemary

1 tsp marjoram

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp sage

1/2 tsp parsley

salt and fresh ground pepper 

 

Total volume is about 2 tbsp of herbs.  

 Pre-heat oven to 425 

Pat dry roast thoroughly then sprinkle generously with salt and pepper on all sides. Drizzle olive oil over and rub in to cover all surfaces. Cut small slits in all soft meat areas and insert slices of garlic, doesn't have to be perfect some can stick out a bit.

Sprinkle herbs little bit at a time and pat into meat, do not try and spread. When herbs are all applied.

Place on rack in shallow foil lined pan, add about ¾ - 1 cup of water in bottom of pan (this was from a recipe that had vegetables in the pan as well but I did it anyway).

When oven is heated, place pan on middle rack of oven and cook for 15 minutes, then turn temperature down to 350 and cook for 1 1/2-2 hours. Internal temperature should be anywhere from 145 for medium rare to 160 for medium. I went for 145 and checked in different spots to make sure it was thoroughly cooked. At the end of an hour I pulled out the roast, inserted digital instant thermometer, set to 145 and turned the pan around to finish cooking for another hour. 

When temperature reaches desired number turn off oven and take roast out. Do not cut immediately and let rest for 15 minutes at least in order to let the juices distribute and stay in the meat. Crucial step here.
 

 Let me tell you this is a do again for sure! The cooking gods were with me on this and my diligence in following the directions paid off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost perfectly juicy due to mistakenly inserting forks to move the roast let a little of the juices out but not too much. It was moist and tender all the way through.

Mashed potatoes were a combination of white and Yukon Gold served with turkey gravy augmented with some pan juices from the pork. 

One thing I need to say is, when a recipe is called 'herbed roast' whatever there had better be more than one herb. I saw one recipe that was just salt, pepper and rosemary. That's one flavor. I was originally going to just use Italian seasoning but went with a less is more using just three or four plus the salt and pepper. Can't rave enough about how well this turned out.