A Big Piece of Pig!

Let me introduce myself before I get going on the current post. I am Matt, Coco's husband, and I love to cook and eat just as much as my wife. Coco asked me to be the guest blogger on tonight's post, A Big Piece of Pig.
Occasionally, the wife needs a night off from the kitchen. This is where we usually decide to order Chinese or get a quick sandwich out somewhere, but last night I decided that I was going to make dinner. I stopped at our local market and perused the sale items. That is when I saw it. A large piece of pork loin, about 4lbs, that was on a crazy sale. I had no idea what I was going to do with it at this point, but when I see 4lbs of pork loin for $6.83, I will find something, believe me. After picking up some other items I cruised home to show Coco my find. I was as proud as a cat bringing its master a freshly killed bird. "Look Coco," I yelped. "4lbs of loin for $6.83! Don't you think that's a great find?!" Coco was happy with my pick, but reminded me that 4 lb's of pork for 2 people is a little much. Even though I have to agree, I was thinking of the leftover pork sandwiches, the diced pork in my salads, the ground pork for homemade sausage. I could harldy contain my glee.
I decided a simple rub of salt, pepper, and jerk seasoning would suffice for the pig. I rinsed it off, patted it dry, and sprinkled the seasoning on. I proceeded to throw this in the oven at 250 for an hour. After that hour, I added a 1/2 cup of Worcestshire and threw it back in to slowly bake in it's own juices for another 2 hours. In the meantime......
This is where my cooking can get downright dangerous. When I have a large piece of meat that is cooking slowly for multiple hours, my mind whirls like a dirvish thinking of all the glorious sides that can accompany the main meat course. I decided on a couple things. With about 3lbs of fresh asparagus in the fridge, this was a no brainer. Fresh asparagus is one of our all time favorites. The only problem is coming up with a new and refreshing way of preparing it. I decided to blanch the aparagus and then pan fry it with some bacon and jalapeno pepper. Not really a new and exciting method, but when you put bacon in anything, you are guaranteed a sure winner. Next I had a 3 lb sack of B size red taters. I chose to simply boil until about halfway cooked and then finish them under a skillet of onions and about a T. of the bacon grease I had from the asparagus dish.
I tossed together a green salad and I was thinking that I was done. Now, I could have easily grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat down on the couch and waited for all of this to come together. But the last time I opened the fridge, I saw last night's leftover sitting in a tupperware container. 1 large filet of Tilapia looked at me as if to say,"If you don't use me tonight, more than likely I will find my way to the garbage can. Please! Please! Please, find something to use me up in." That is when it came to me. Why not really surprise the wife with an appetizer?! I grabbed the tilapia out of the fridge and proceeded to grind it up with my stick blender. When the fish was ground up finely, I added a T. of mayonnaise, and a few pieces of crusty day old French bread, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and a small dash of Tabasco. I whipped this up and served it on pieces of crusty bread. Viola! Poor man's whitefish spread! Tasty indeed!
The wife enjoyed the meal and she was right when she told me that we would have tons of leftovers.