A Sweet & Savory Dinner ~ Featuring Truffle Honey
Pan-Seared & Roasted Pork Loin Wrapped in Bacon
Demilune of Baked Butternut Squash & Apple with Truffle Honey & Rosemary
Sauteed Purple Cabbage with Truffle Honey, Balsamic Vinegar, Caraway Seeds
My generous friends at Gourmet Attitude in NYC, purveyors of fresh truffles and fine truffle products, sent a gift box called the “Trio Boutique” containing three jars of fancy truffle products ~ truffle honey, truffle carpaccio, and white truffle cream. Merci and Grazie! We thought it would be fun to cook three separate dinners, each featuring one of these preserved truffle goodies.
For the first truffle dinner, lean and mild pork loin was enhanced with thick smoky bacon. Nutty butternut squash was baked with gala apple and laced with truffle honey, rosemary and butter. Then for contrast, purple cabbage was sauteed with onion and butter, flavored with balsamic vinegar and toasted caraway seeds, finished with truffle honey. This rather common combination of pork, apples, and cabbage was elevated by the truffle honey and the pretty demilune squash presentation with a rosette of colorful cabbage. It’s a meal that exemplifies uncomplicated effortless elegance.
The Recipes
Pan-Seared & Roasted Pork Loin Wrapped in Bacon
Cook bacon until just past half done, drain on paper towels. Wrap bacon around trimmed pork loin medallions, secure with toothpicks. Coat the top and bottom of the medallions with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Sear in a hot pan over medium-high heat for 4 minutes per side. Finish cooking in a 425° oven for 4 to 6 minutes or until the pork is cooked to your liking.
Demilune of Baked Butternut Squash & Apple with Truffle Honey & Rosemary
Slice the neck of a peeled butternut squash in half lengthwise, then slice into half moons under a quarter inch thick. Slice cored apples to the same shape and thickness. Layer the squash and apples in a buttered overproof pan or baking dish.
Drizzle with truffle honey, top with rosemary sprigs, season with kosher salt. Generously dot the top with butter. Bake at 375° until the squash and apple are tender, about 35 minutes.
Drizzle a bit more truffle honey over the baked squash/apple just before serving.
Sauteed Purple Cabbage with Truffle Honey, Balsamic Vinegar, Caraway Seeds
Slice half of a purple cabbage into ribbons. Saute half a diced onion in butter until light golden brown. Add the cabbage, a sprinkling of toasted caraway seeds, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Toss, cover, and cook until the cabbage is tender, about 10 minutes. Add salt to taste. Drizzle with truffle honey and toss again. Garnish with a purple-blue rosemary flower and sprig.
Trio Boutique
Truffle Love Giveaway
The folks at Gourmet Attitude would like to share their products and their Facebook page with us!
For a chance to win this fabulous Trio Boutique:
1. “Like” the Gourmet Attitude Facebook page HERE.
2. AND leave a comment on one of Taste With The Eyes’ Truffle Love Dinner posts.
3. That’s it. Bonne Chance and Buona Fortuna!
Truffle Carpaccio
Ingredients: summer truffles (tuber aestivum vitt), olive oil, salt, flavorings.
Truffle Honey
Ingredients: acacia honey, white truffles 3% (tuber albidum pico), flavorings.
La Tartufata (White Truffle Cream)
Ingredients: porcini mushrooms 84% (boletus edulis and relative group), olive oil 12%,
white truffles 3% (tuber magnatum pico), salt, wine vinegar,
vegetable extracts, spices, flavorings.
Retail $73
Truffle Love Dinner Series
This Sweet & Savory Dinner ~ Featuring Truffle Honey
is the first in a series of three Truffle Love Dinners.
A Heavenly Dinner ~ Featuring Truffle Carpaccio
the second in the dinner series is now posted.
And please stop by later in the coming week to savor meal number three…
I hope one day to be able to sit at one of your elegant dinners. These products look wonderful and I must have them. Being a New Yorker, I will stop by their place when I come back from my trip.
When I was in Italy I so wanted to join in on a truffle hunt. I just missed the season but maybe next time.
What a wonderful gift. And your photos are gorgeous as always.
Oh my heavens this sounds wonderful! AND I have never been able to get bacon cooked to my liking when I wrap it around something, thank you for pointing it out that it should be cooked about halfway first!
Whoa, the truffle honey on butternut squash sounds AMAZING! So beautiful and creative. And what a wonderful giveaway! Love the photos too, just stunning.
Thank you Eva. The baked squash with apples and truffle honey really surprised us. So simple and easy, yet so sublime!
LL
What a gorgeous plate of food, LL…the pork is so simple and yummy and your squash with the truffle honey must taste heavenly!!! I DO taste with my eyes when I visit you, and everything tastes marvelous 🙂
PS…I like Gourmet Attitude 🙂
Hey, I’m coming too. You can’t just have Norma!!
Simply lovely! I think we have to change your initials to three Ls!
You are so lucky to get such gift and the pork feast truly does justice to it. Beautiful photos and plating! 🙂
I love this dinner. Manages to be both elegant and homey at the same time. Brava!
I don’t know what truffle honey is but I am in love with it already! What an impressive dinner.
It seems like pork and bacon are on both our minds – yours elegant, mine more pedestrian. Those products from Gourmet Attitude are really a good quality and elevated that dish to something extraordinary. You’ve also reminded me about some red cabbage sitting in my fridge that I want to transform into something similar to your recipe.
Well, I made the pork loin, the butternut squash and apples, the cabbage and it was fabulous!! The pork was so tender….and the squash…wow. I think that little bit of honey just made the dish. I used clover honey and then, sprinkled it all with a little bit of truffle salt which I happened to, actually, have in my pantry. Thank you Lori Lynn for the great ideas!!
Beautiful meal….Love the presentation, LL! You are very lucky….Great gift!
Another amazing creations using the product. You are the perfect person to present their products – everything looks so good and I want to buy this. 😀 Well, hoping to win for now. 🙂
The butternut squash and truffle honey looks like heaven. A fabulous give away.
That looks amazing. I really want to try this recipe.
Just staring at your photos make me drool like there’s no tomorrow. I’ll definitely make all of these for dinner tonight.