When I was a boy, cartoons were hand drawn and hand coloured. Entirely computer generated (CGI) television shows did not exist. What little CGI came sparingly from big budget movies that could afford to "push the digital envelop." However, more often than not, the effects were laughable by today's standards. The cult-classic movie Tron is the only exception.

To fill the void, we had the late Jim Henson's beloved muppets. Daytime children's television was dominated by Sesame Street, which was renamed Sesame Park during the early 2000s. Back in my day, parents taught their children how to cross roads, so no one worried about the show being filmed on a street-based set. Prime time included the Muppet Show and its oftentimes cheesy guests. That said, when the last of Gen X'ers were children, we all knew and celebrated Big Bird, Snuffy (Snuffleupagus), Oscar the Grouch, Elmo, Telly, Cookie Monster, Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Skooter, Gonzo, Bunsen and Beeker.

My favourite muppet, and this should come with little surprise, was the Swedish Chef. His 2 minute sketches on the Muppet Show were always too short. Each, began with the toque blanche-wearing and bushy eye-browed chef waving kitchen utensils and singing his signature song in his characteristic mock Swedish. His song always finished with "bork bork bork" and his hurling his utensils behind him. He then proceeded to introduce his dish with more mock Swedish, interspersed with some heavily accented English. Afterward, the sketch degenerates and his ingredients usually get the better of him.

I would like to argue that the Swedish Chef made a significant cultural impression. Here is evidence:

Firstly, google offers a Mock Swedish language mode for its Search Engine

Google Borked

Secondly, Firefox has a plug-in that displays web pages into Mock Swedish

Firefox Web-page Borker
Source: Mozilla.org

Here's foodiePrints, according to the Firefox Borker

foodiePrints Borked

Thirdly, the word "borked" is colloquial and has its own entry on UrbanDictionary.com

Something is "borked" when it doesn't work correctly or misbehaves, generally due to negligence by the person(s) that are responsible for it. e.g.: This website is borked. That mechanic borked your car.

According to the entry, the etymology of "borked" comes from combining one part broken and one part Swedish Chef.

To celebrate the Swedish chef, the following are selected Swedish Chef sketches that have been uploaded to YouTube.

Roast Turkey

This one was posted to digg.com during the American Thanksgiving.

More follow after the jump...

More after the jump...

Normally, finding food on your shirt means that you've inadvertently gone "Jackson-Pollock" with whatever it is that you're eating. However, if you find food on a t-shirt and a gifted graphics design artist is involved, it's a completely different story. Hilarity ensues. This is especially true if you're a designer and illustrator named Glenn Jones from Auckland, New Zealand and you run the GlennzTees.com.

Designed in New Zealand, produced in Texas, and printed on American Apparel tees, here are some great t-shirts from Glenn with food on them.


Food Fight!
Source: glennz.com


Ghosted!
Source: abduzeedo.com


Smoking Masher...
Source: abduzeedo.com


Powered by Mentos and a Dream
Source: glennz.com


Forky Wins
Source: glennz.com

Cheers Glenn! Keep up the good work.

When it comes to pizza, Italy is the country to goto to immerse yourself in its history and its majesty. It is the founding country of pizza, so there should be little surprise that Italians are passionate about pizza. Who made it first? What is traditional? What regional specificities are best?

In fact, they are so passionate that an association, called the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana (the True Neapolitan Pizza Association), drew up rules governing authentic Neapolitan pizza. Last June (2008), they published their rules in the European Union's Official Journal, making them legal and binding.

Accordingly, to be an authentic Neapolitan Pizza:

1. it must be no more than 35cm in diameter
2. its crust must be no thicker than a third of a centimeter at its center, rising to 2 cm at the edge
3. its tomatoes must be of the San Marzano variety and they must be grown in soil from the base of Mount Vesuvius
4. its oil must be extra virgin and come from the Campania region
5. its cheese must be buffalo mozzarella and come from the Campania region
6. it must be cooked in a wood-fired oven for less than two minutes

Neapolitan pizza is pizza that comes from Naples. A report from the BBC explains that the Queen of Savoy was first served the pizza in 1889. It was made specially for her to represent the colours of the national flag: red tomato base, white mozerella, and green basil. The preparation would later be named after the her, the Margherita.

What do the new rules mean? Firstly, "Neapolitan pizza" becomes a regional specialty, similar to varieties of French wine or German beer. Secondly, anyone selling Pizza Napolitana in Europe will be subject to strict inspections. Proponents feel that the Neapolitan pizza, as a cultural icon, will be protected. Opponents feel that overarching rules stifle creativity and threaten business. Some restaurants, including celebrated establishments in Naples, have been substituting ingredients or varying the procedure for generations.

Personally, I feel that we take pizza for granted and demand so little from pizzerias that quality has been sacrificed. While there is both a time and place for pizza as sustenance (food for the stomach), rules like those in the EU demonstrate that people also eat pizza to feed the senses (food for the soul).

Besides, if such rules were binding in Canada, we wouldn't have the sorry excuse for a Neapolitan pizza from the sole remaining Café Baci in the National Capital Region (77 Promenade du Portage). The former Café Baci in Ottawa's Byward Market is now a Japanese restaurant. Though, the employees still take calls for Café Baci as my better half discovered one weekend.

Considering that I purposely went to an Italian restaurant to try my first Margherita, Café Baci failed twice.

• Nothing was genuine. The crust was literally hard, obviously spending more time than 2 minutes in an oven. And, it tasted of nothing. The cheese, on the other hand, tasted like it was processed.
• Good restaurants use the freshest ingredients. The basil on my pizza was dried. It was the 9th of June! Fresh herbs are in abundance at local shops or open-air markets. There is no excuse!

To add insult to injury, the pizza, which was far less than 35 cm in diameter, cost a whopping $14.00. With drink, taxes, and tip, the meal cost me $20.00.

For those of you who would like to see how a Margherita should never be made, here's Café Baci's business card.

Business Card
Please note that a coke will set you back $2.00 at this restaurant.

It is a telltale sign that neither Café Baci's menu nor its receipt spell the name of the pizza correctly. A "margarita" is a tequila-based cocktail, not a preparation of pizza fit for a queen. Then again, Café Baci's incarnation is barely fit for consumption at all.

Particulars:
77 Promenade du Portage
Gatineau
(819)771-2224

This morning, during my daily rounds of technology news sources, I came across the following screen capture for a really interesting tool exclusive to Apple's Iphone platform. Called "SnapTell Explorer", the tool provides instant product information for any CD, DVD, book, or video game. All the user needs to do is capture the cover and the application will identify the product and find both ratings and price information online. This is, by far, one of the most useful and tell-tale signs that pervasive or ubiquitous computing is coming to pass. It also demonstrates that computer vision is improving. Nevertheless, the screen capture was horrifying. This is not because of the tool. It is because of the cookbook identified: The Twinkies Cookbook

According to its publisher:

In 2005, as part of Twinkies' 75th anniversary celebration, Hostess put out a call for recipes, asking people to share their ideas for cooking-yes, cooking-with Twinkies. Hundreds of people from across the country responded with an amazing collection of homegrown, creative, and sometimes wacky recipes. Nostalgic, colorful, and a delight for the whole family, this is the perfect book for the Twinkie lover in all of us.

Published in 2006, the "The Twinkies Cookbook: An Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection from Hostess" is currently being sold on Amazon.com for $10.36 USD. The book is also available in Canada (Amazon.ca: $12.37, Chapters.ca: $12.88).

According to its reviews on the Amazon website, the book contains recipes that include twinkie-related preparations of "pigs in a blanket" (with real hot dog wieners), twinkie sushi (with green fruit "leather"), twinkie burritos (chocolate, strawberries, and twinkies in a corn tortilla), and even a twinkie wedding cake.

According to Wikipedia, twinkies hail from pre-war 1930's and originally came with banana and not vanilla cream. Invented by baker James Dewar, they were intended to fill the product gap for strawberry shortcake when strawberries were out of season. Modern twinkies, contain no dairy. Hence, they have a long shelf-life that has been somewhat exaggerated into an urban legend. Contrary to popular belief, twinkies have expiry date less than a couple months after their manufacture.

My most recent reference to twinkies comes from an episode of Chef Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. During the episode, he and his "guides" visit an abandoned Hostess factory in Cleveland, Ohio. There, they walk up to a spigot that is connected to a series of pipes, still containing high fructose corn syrup. Chef Bourdain samples a taste. Afterward, someone narrates that even the factory's infestation of rats want nothing to do with the syrup.

Happily, a twinkie-related cookbook isn't the end of this entry.

This morning, the World Wide Web gave pause when I discovered a cookbook for twinkies. This afternoon, it also gave me relief. Apparently, a group of enterprising youths put together a website to host their experiments with twinkies. "Twinkie the Kid" (right) is its mascot. There, twinkies are shocked, burned, dissolved, and dropped; all in the interest of furthering the frontiers of science!

The researchers also feel that "twinkies" should be an acronym for "Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations."

Kudos to twinkies scientists! Perhaps the Nobel committee will take notice.

Why is it that some of the more interesting Thanksgiving-related "food-stuffs" appear after the Canadian Thanksgiving? It always seems that the American Thanksgiving (4th Thursday of November) is celebrated with more pomp and pageantry than its Canadian counterpart (2nd Monday of October). More magazines are devoted to the preparation of turkey and "fixings." More television shows put out Thanksgiving episodes, especially on the Food Network. More advertising is spent on both Thanksgiving and "Black Friday."

Perhaps the disparity has something to do with "Black Friday." "Black Friday" is the Friday after Thanksgiving. It is considered the unofficial first day of the Christmas shopping season. In Canada, Thanksgiving's statutory holiday is Monday, which means Canadians get an extended weekend (3 days, instead of 2). In the United States, the statutory holiday is Thursday, which means that Americans are obligated to work the following Friday. However, because of "Black Friday" sales, worker absenteeism spikes that day. Are Canadians given a day's rest, while American are encouraged to "work off" the turkey while shopping?

As an example of American Thanksgiving-specific food-stuffs, take the following poll that I gleaned from the TV.com website last year:



Television Chef Poll: Whom would you want to prepare Thanksgiving dinner in your home?
Even the Canadian counterpart to the Food Network, foodnetwork.ca, has yet to do anything similar.

Though, I am somewhat concerned by the popular choices. Accordingly, the top three TV Chefs polled were Tyler Florence, Gordon Ramsay, and Giada de Laurentiis. Tyler Florence is an American chef, whose various cooking shows, including my favourite: "Tyler's Ultimate", celebrate American cuisine. He is an appropriate choice. Thanksgiving originates in the new world as a harvest festival celebrated by "pilgrims." As such, it is a North American tradition. Giada de Laurentiis serves up contemporary Italian dishes on her show. Gordon Ramsay is a British chef of the classic French tradition. When he's not balking at the kitchen brigade in any of his dozen restaurants, he's trying to uplift the world's opinion of British cuisine. Thus, neither chefs (yes, Giada has chef's papers from le Cordon Bleu) cook food that normally celebrate Thanksgiving. To my utmost surprise, down home Southerner Paula Deen and Bobby Flay faired poorly.

And, here is a more recent list of novel ideas for Thanksgiving leftovers from the, Yahoo.com-affiliated, Better Home and Garden Magazine's website.

1. Bountiful Herbed Turkey and Waffles
2. Sweet Potato Pankcakes
3. Slow Cooker New World Chili
4. Quick Potato-Topped Beef Bowls
5. Layered Turkey Enchiladas
6. Mile-High Turkey Panini Sandwich

Source: BHG.com
Similar whimsical or unorthodox recipes did not appear during the Canadian Thanksgiving...

BTW, the Sweet Potato Pankcakes link leads to a cupcake recipe.

BHG's Novel Ideas for Thanksgiving Leftovers
"Pank" is more than likely a typo.

Regarding leftovers, my better half and I have been hosting Thanksgiving dinner for family and friends during the past several years. This year, we instituted what I hope will become a tradition for leftover turkey. We sent our guests home with freshly-made turkey pot pies. They were put together and baked during the dessert course. Ingredients included leftover turkey breast meat, freshly sweated vegetables, a milk bechemel (seasoned with summer savory), and sheets of puff pastry. Since, we serve Thanksgiving dinner Sunday evening, my guests have something ready-to-eat for lunch the next day.

Anyhow, cheers to my American neighbors! Have a good Thanksgiving!

To Canadian content providers, shape up! Next year, you'd better show me the turkey!

As per foodieprints' previous entry on food nostalgia, food can be characteristic of a culture or a generation. Food can also be characteristic of a stage in life. Take for instance, the following list of "Foods You Loved as a Kid" from 1000awsomethings.com. At 893 diggs and 75 comments, the 928th list of "awesome things" demonstrates that North Americans share some common food-related experiences from childhood.

Here is the subset that I identify with:

1. Mac 'n Cheese
2. Chef Boyardee
3. Melted Cheese on a Bagel
4. Cheese Spread Cracker Kits
5. Lunchables

Source: List adapted from 1000 Awesome Things blog

Here's my list with several additions:
Mac 'n Cheese

Two Varieties of Mac 'n Cheese

Original KD

No Name Mac 'n Cheese
Even though I have since discovered the comfort food that is baked Mac 'n Cheese, I have a soft spot for the stove top version. I even remember tucking into a plate of KD with diagonally sliced hot dog wieners and a little ketchup. It's gourmet food to a 10 year old.

Interestingly, Kraft recently decided to update its packaging, making the noodles much more orange. Considering that cheddar cheese (processed or otherwise) seldom comes in such an unnatural hue, it's a wonder why...

New KD Packaging

Oven Baked French Fries
I remember Jay, his coke bottle glasses, and his plate of crinkle cut McCain Superfries from the 80s when his commercial originally aired during Saturday morning cartoons.

I also remember pestering my parents for Superfries. Fries were a rare treat on the lunch table when I was a kid, but, when they were, they were often accompanied by baked chicken nuggets.

Every so often, my better half and I decide to revisit my childhood and pick up some President's Choice "all breast meat" chicken nuggets and a pack of straight cut McCain fries from our local mega-mart's freezer section.

Oven Baked Chicken Nuggets and French Fries
While I'm not sure what happened to Jay, I'm all grown up and I still enjoy oven-baked fries from time-to-time.

Bagel Lunchables
Truthfully, Lunchables never made it into my brown paper lunch bag when I was a kid. Given that at least 2 generations of kids are familiar with them, I decided to see what I missed. Because the classic cracker-based Lunchables I saw my classmates unpack in the lunchroom are somewhat extinct, I purchased a modern version, called a Lunch Mate. It came with a bagel, a tube of cream cheese, a fruit snack, and "hickory sticks."

Modern Lunchable, called a Lunch Mate

Tiny Bagel

Cream Cheese in a Tube

Fruit Snack with Hickory Sticks
Quite frankly, the proportions didn't make much sense. The rather bready bagel was too small to accommodate the large portion of cream cheese included. There seemed to be twice as many carbs as fruit.

Regarding the fruit snack, it reminded me of beef jerky. I actually wondered if it were reconstituted from the pulp that is extruded by industrial juicers after they extract juice from fruit.

Soda Pop in Glass Bottles

Orange Fanta

Bottle Cap, dated 1997
Pop used to come in glass bottles when I was a kid. These days, Coca Cola seems to be last of the soda giants to package its drink in glass bottles. The bottles are also smaller and more likely a marketing ploy to connect with older "Classic Coke" drinkers.

Imagine my surprise when Jenn comes home from a business trip to Toronto one weekend and pulls out an honest-to-goodness full-sized soda bottle. She found it in an Indian corner-store. Interestingly, the bottle cap dates back 11 years. Hopefully, the contents are somewhat more contemporary...

Cheese Spread Cracker Kits

Three Pack Kraft Handy Snacks, now with Rectangular Ritz Crackers

Underside of Blister Pack

Opened Handy Snack

Processed Cheese and Cracker Goodness
I distinctly remember Handy Snacks and their plastic red spreader coming with white soda crackers and not Ritz crackers. Then again I also remember when Nabisco decided to sell Ritz crackers "bits" already sandwiched with cheese. I guess Kraft and Nabisco decided to team up and encourage kids to DIY.

After a couple decades, Handy Snacks taste about as artificial as they did when they were popular on the playground of my grade school. The novelty wore off for me when I decided to pack a Handy Snack to eat during the break between sessions of my evening French course. I had to go purchase a drink because the liquid plastic cheese coated my throat and the salty Ritz crackers dried out my tongue. I'm grateful that the cafeteria cashier was able to understand me when I pointed to a half eaten Handy Snack and paid for my bottle of water. She smiled and shook her head.

One of the reasons that I am a foodie is because of the cultural significance food can take.

At a macro-level, food can be characteristic of geographic regions, representing a shared history. Take for instance French food. The charcuterie tradition demonstrates that, at some point in their shared history, the French people ate from nose to tail, most likely as a necessity for survival. This means that families needed to find ways of making less desirable cuts edible. What could be seen as peasant-style cookery is an important part of the fabric of French cuisine. Think fatty pork rillette, liver pâté, and cured pork or poultry sausages (saucissons). Rillette and pâté are terrines of ground organ meat. Cured sausages are preserved processed meat products. Even the celebrated "duck confit" most likely came from the necessity of preserving meat for leaner times. Traditionally, confit is cured meat that is braised and stored in its own fat. In this state, the meat can be left for months. No refrigeration is necessary.

At a micro-level, food can be characteristic of a generation. Take for instance what the Topless Robot website thinks are the top 10 "extinct" candies from the decade that encapsulated my youth (the 80s).

1. Hershey?s Bar None
2. Chocolate Fruit Roll-Ups
3. PBMax
4. Nestle?s Alpine White
5. Dweebs
6. Willy Wonka?s DinaSour Eggs
7. Fortune Bubble Gum/Gold Rush Bubble Gum
8. Bonkers
9. Candilicious
10. Drink Flavored Gum: Dr Pepper Gum, 7-Up Gum, A&W Root Beer Gum, and, Gatorade Gum

Source: Topless Robot

We, "last of the Gen X-ers", remember making candy runs to the corner Quickie or Becker's to pickup any one of the above candies with change. Just looking at the list brings back some sweet memories. In fact, the local Sugar Mountain candy stores in Ottawa have geared their offerings to exploit this sweet nostalgia.


Elgin Street Sugar Mountain Display

One of candies that didn't make it to the list are Popeye Cigarettes, which, even in the 80s, found themselves renamed "candy sticks." Popeye cigarettes have the same texture as "Rockets", but have a different taste. According to a colleague, who still loves these candies, they are best purchased at local gas stations. Sugar Mountain's are almost twice as expensive, but "fresher."

Interestingly, it seems that Popeye Candy Sticks may have been re-branded by a recent summer blockbuster: Iron Man

Iron Man Candy Sticks
Source: Dr. Beef's Action Figure Flickr Stream

I've yet to see Iron Man candy sticks in the stores, but I am definitely on the lookout. I also want that Iron Man action figure. It looks to have pose-able hands.

Particulars:
Sugar Mountain: The Confectionary Co.
286 Elgin Street
(613)237.8790

Last year, we saw a knee-length skirt, made of Lindor Lindts, an example of wearable chocolate. This year, I bring you wearable chocolate, taken to a new height: a runway of chocolate fashion.

Chocolate Crinoline

Chocolate Shoes

Chocolate Heart Blouse

Another Chocolate Decorated Skirt

Chocolate Vest

Slivered Chocolate Ensemble

Chocolate Toffee Candy Dress

Chocolate Fondant Angel
These wondrous images come from the United Press International website (UPI.com) and their coverage of this year's 14th annual Salon du Chocolat exposition in Paris, France.

According to Shannon Hughes Grochowski, owner of the "Chocolate et French Lessons" blog, the exposition featured French, Swiss, Belgian, Mexican and Japanese chocolate makers.

Just imagine the enchantment of attending such an event, the constant smell of chocolate in the air, and being able to sample chocolate made by international masters of their craft.

A friend and colleague recently left the shop, so I volunteered to arrange a lunch for the members of our office to get together, celebrate her new position, and wish her well. As we all work in Hull (aka: Gatineau), I asked for suggestions for a local restaurant. A number of people suggested that "Le Troquet" would be best, so I made reservations there. It could fit just about everyone in the office. It serves food that our departing colleague enjoys.

With respect to the restaurant itself, Le Troquet is true to its namesake. As per a previous posting on foodiePrints, a "troquet" is a small bistro that serves home-cooked food in an informal atmosphere. With its wood furniture, warm colours, bright interior, mahogany accents and menu, Le Troquet fits the bill. Better yet, according to its website, Le Troquet is celebrating it's 10 year anniversary, so it is a well established restaurant.

All in all, I think everyone had a good time. Some ordered pasta dishes. Many ordered sandwiches. Me, I ordered the day's special, a ham sandwich and a salad. It would prove a poor choice.

Odd Sandwich

Mind you, I have no qualms about the salad. It was fresh, well portioned, and the dijon mustard dressing was bright and savory, but neither too tart, nor oily. The sandwich, on the other hand, was odd. Its ingredients follow: freshly baked crusty roll, several slices of seeded ripe tomato, provolone cheese, deli sliced black forest ham, and, get this, candied leeks. The candied leaks ruined everything for me. They seemed sweated in far too much sugar, making them too soft and much too sweet. They imparted no onion flavor at all and had a texture similar to seaweed. I had to pick them out to finish my meal. Others around the table had similar reactions. My table mate even asked "What the heck are these?"

Price for my odd sandwich: $10.11 including taxes, but not tip.

Next time, I'm sticking to the menu. Even though it is only available in French, the menu features recognizable classic bistro fare...

In all fairness, I should note that our departee's ham sandwich and Caesar salad looked great. She seemed to have enjoyed it immensely.

Particulars:
Le Troquet
41 Rue Laval
(819)776-9595

It doesn't take much to see something in the following advertisement, given the current turmoil in the financial markets and witnessing its impact on the global economy.

Be There When the Market Turns
Source: darkroastedblend.com c/o digg.com

I can identify with the image. I'm sure a lot of my readers can as well. The question is, are you the one serving the hot dog or the one being served.

According to wikipedia.net, the advertisement comes from Dagens Industri (often referred to as DI), a financial newspaper from Sweden. It was founded in 1976, producing two issues per week. In 1983 it increased its periodicity to five. In 1990, six.

With respect to hot dogs, it has been said that Toronto hot dogs compare well with New York hot dogs. While I have yet to try an authentic New York "dirty-water" hot dog, I can say two things: 1) Toronto's hot dogs are great and 2) Toronto's hot dog vendors are hardcore!

Toronto Hot Dog Stand
I took the above picture of a hot dog stand at the corner of Bloor and Younge on January 9, 2008. Torontonians can get their hands on street meat in the middle of a Canadian winter.

In Ottawa, on the other hand, hot dog vendors are few and far between when the temperature drops below the freezing point. I don't blame them, but Ottawans have to take things into their own hands to get their hot dog fix.

For instance, have you ever heard of a "pigs-in-a-blanket"? I hadn't, so Jenn picked up a pack of Schneider's Barbecue Hot Dogs and a tin of Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough to quiet my hot dog cravings. Here's what turned out:

Boil up some wieners until "the seam shows." Remove and let them cool. These are the "pigs."

Boiled Wieners

Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough comes rolled up in a tin, already perforated into triangular sections.

Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough

For the "blankets", separate the secions with a pizza cutter (a knife produces too much drag) and roll each "pig" in a piece of dough.

Crescent Roll Dough

Arrange on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

Ready to Bake

Place in a pre-heated 400 F oven as per the instructions on the Crescent Roll packaging. For us, it took 5-7 minutes for the "blankets" to puff, brown, and cook through.

Done!

They were an interesting sight and had an equally "interesting" flavour. Unlike traditional croissant dough, which is yeast risen and buttery, crescent roll dough uses a large amount of chemical leavening. Though cooked, the dough still tasted of baking soda.

Even so, this is a fine winter hot dog concept.

I'll have to try the recipe again with a scratch biscuit dough and substituting sausage for wieners...

When the barbecue grill is buried under several weeks of snow fall, my cooking arsenal is cut by a third. I am left with my beloved convection toaster oven and my trusted electric household oven, typical of many other condo dwellers. Imagine the quandary when pork loin roasts again went on sale and I was left to my devices for Sunday dinner.

Gratefully, my better half saved me a tin of Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough from her making me "Pigs In a Blanket."

Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough
With a can of self rising dough, my thoughts immediately turned to pork wellington, which is traditionally made with tenderloin. I only had a large pork loin, so I made do. I carefully butchered out several lengths of lean meat from the pork loin, reserving enough of the roast to stuff and tie.

One turned out. I chalked the other up to a "learning experience."

For the stuffed roast, I sautéed some mushrooms in butter and caramelized one finely chopped large cooking onion in a tbsp of canola oil.

mushrooms and onions

Reserving a third of the mushroom/onion mixture, I butterflied the remaining pork loin roast, stuffed it, and tied it. I then preheated the oven to 350 F and arranged the roast on an oiled broiling pan.

Stuffed and ready for roasting

To accompany the stuffed roast, I put together two pork wellington portions by topping the lengths of excised pork loin with stuffing and wrapping everything in 4 connected sections of crescent roll dough.

Lengths of Loin and Stuffing

Wrapped For Baking

I too arranged the pork wellington portions onto the broiling pan and placed it in the oven.

Ready to meet the heat

During the baking process, I noticed that the moisture collected under the grate of the broiling pan softened the dough, so I removed the pork wellington portions to my convection toaster oven, set to 350 F, until the internal temperature of the meat reached 145 F.

Pork Wellington Portions Done
As you can see, while browned, the crust split.

Pork Wellington Portions Sliced
The meat was surprisingly moist and took on the flavours of the stuffing, but the device left much to be desired visually. The bottom was also soggy.

On the other hand, the stuffed roast turned out beautifully. It was pulled from the oven when the probe thermometer read 155 F.

Beautiful Stuffed Pork Loin Roast
After letting it rest for 10 minutes, each slice proved juicy and flavourful, tasting faintly of mushroom and caramelized onion.

I guess Pillsbury Crescent Rolls make a poor pork wellington. Back to the drawing board!