All About the Pork That Came to Stay

so this past 2 weeks has been a little light on the actual cooking, but we have had some delicious food, and tried a few new things as well. we had friends come and stay with us a couple weeks ago and one of my fave things to make for company is peppercorn-encrusted pork with soy caramel sauce. it's tasty, fairly simple, and all the family loves it. we also had another staple in our home: spicy yogurt-marinated chicken and ate it with a new couscous recipe: hansen's beverage thai-style couscous. so yummy! even glenn liked it, and he doesn't particularly care for the cous, he's more of a rice guy. the recipe is this week's "new love" so you should be able to see it to the side. we had a great time with our visitors and loved all the kitchen help! one of our little caleb's favorite things to eat is pork and his favorite pork recipe is maple-mustard pork, which we also had last week with some sweet potatoes and fruit. oh, how we love pork let us count the ways.....a couple nights ago i tried a nice soup, pork and pepper. now, i didn't follow the recipe exactly. for example i used sweet tato's for the white, omitted the tomatoes, put in dried thyme, because my fresh had well, run out of time. and i added some jamaican jerk seasoning instead of the optional jalapeno. the pork and broth were amazing. the tato's too soft, and the peppers? i really wanted to just take them all out. i love bell peppers, but this recipe had me rethinking my pro-pepper stand. my thoughts next time: cook the soup with large chunks of peppers and remove them at then end, oh and also add the sweet tato's half way through the simmering section. oh, and char-sil. yummy! and appeases the rice-guy since we serve it with rice. a side note about hoisin sauce here-be wary and choose wisely. the wrong hoisin and your dish will turn into sadness and your kids will nickname it "poison sauce". kikkoman is pretty good, the best i can find out here in ny, but back home i bought kee kum luck, or close to that name. it's a very pleasing looking jar and very good hoisin. it seems that the more expensive the better the sauce. oh so much pork, but that's what happens when it's time to clean out the freezer! happy cooking!