Braised Pork Loin with Carrots and Sweet Onions -- Scalloped Potatoes -- Sauteed asparagus

A few weeks ago I bought this beautiful 3lb piece of pork and wanted to do something special with it. I decided to bust out the slow cooker!

After seasoning the meat with salt and pepper you want to sear all sides of the meat in your choice of oil. I choose to use a sweet onion since we were going to be braising, the onions will absorb all these juices you are cooking with and really take on their flavors. We braised the meat in red wine, soy sauce, brown sugar, a little ginger, and two sprigs of fresh rosemary (we have found this GIANT rosemary bush that grows right next to the sidewalk on our walk home from the gym, and regularly pick a sprig or two on our way home). We let the pork cook for 3 hours. Make sure to remove the sprigs after cooking, if you eat them they will be pretty bitter.

To go with the pork, I thought it would be a great opportunity to use these beautiful purple and pink potatoes and fresh crisp asparagus we bought from the Ballard Market.

We settled on classic parmesan scalloped potatoes

• Cook an onion and a clove of garlic in some butter until fragrant and softened. Don't skimp on the butter here, at least 1-2 tablespoons. I used around 2.
• Stir in 2 tbsp of flour, some salt and pepper.
• Add 1 1/4 cups milk. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly (but don't let it boil and don't stop stirring or it will burn)
• Grate cheese and mix into sauce
• Place half your thinly sliced potatoes into a casserole dish, pour half your sauce over. Layer the rest of your potatoes on top and add the rest of the sauce. 
• Cover and bake at 350 until you can puncture your potatoes easily with a fork and your sauce is "boiling" (around 30 minutes). If you want to get a nice brown top you can uncover and turn your broiler on for a couple of minutes (I choose not to broil mine, but wish I had).

For the asparagus, we wanted to keep them simple. They are kind of Kelsey's specialty. I have not yet mastered the ability to cook vegetables. So she sauteed them in some olive oil with a clove of garlic, adding a little lemon juice on them at the very end. Season with kosher/sea salt and pepper.