Scrumptious Sunday – Gourmet Burger and Fries Remix

Welcome to our first Scrumptious Sunday! Each Sunday I’ll post something scrumptiously food related. I’ll share recipes, cooking tips and mouth-watering food porn. If you have a food-related post, please link up with me using the linky below.

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Last Night I invited my pal Sarah over for dinner. She was having a rough week and I thought I’d treat her to a nice home-cooked meal of comfort food. What’s the most comforting, sinfully delicious food on the planet?

Burgers and fries.

But I couldn’t do just plain old burgers and fries. They had to be upgraded, adult, gourmet burger and fries. After browsing the aisles of my local Whole Foods Market, this is what I came up with: Balsamic Herb Marinated Pork Loin and Gouda Sandwiches with Mustard Roasted Red Potatoes.

Dang. Did that make you immediately drool? Wait until you see the food porn!

I started by marinating the pork loin roast in Lawry’s Balsamic Herb Marinade. As a BzzAgent in the Lawry’s summer campaign, I was given several free marinades and seasoned salt to try out. Exciting! The Balsamic Herb Marinade is awesome and I’ll definitely use it again.

I let the pork roast marinate for three days in a zip lock bag in my fridge before searing both sides and baking it for 1 hour and 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Let me just say that it looked amazing when searing!

Once it came out of the oven, it was just awesome and I had to seriously fight the urge to nibble. I also had to hold back the hubby! I did cut off a small piece for us to taste before preparing the sandwiches.

While the pork rested, I put the prepared potatoes in the oven for 50 minutes at 425 degrees. These potatoes or gourmet fries as I like to call them, were inspired by Ina Garten. She has a recipe in her At Home cookbook for these potatoes, but I adapted it for my own taste and using the ingredients I had in my fridge.

I took 2 tablespoons of Grey Poupon’s Country Dijon Mustard, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, with salt and pepper to taste and tossed 2 lbs of red potatoes and 1 sliced vidalia onion in the mixture. YUM!

The potatoes came out of the oven looking amazing! They were the perfect accompaniment to the awesome pork loin sandwiches. They were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The onions were caramelized and delicious. I chopped some fresh parsley and chives and sprinkled them on just before serving. Perfect!

The pork rested for about 30 minutes before I sliced it and started building the sandwiches. Doesn’t this just look completely luscious?

I used an ultra-yummy aged Gouda cheese for these remixed “burgers” and it made all the difference. I knew I wanted to use a really tasty gourmet cheese for the pork, so I asked the manager of the cheese shop at Whole Foods for some advice. I told him what I was making and he suggested an aged Gouda. Boy was he right on the money! This cheese was awesome!

I took 1 clove of minced garlic and some olive oil and brushed it onto both sides of a lightly toasted organic ciabatta bread. This added another layer of flavor! I always like to add flavor to each ingredient as I go along. It just makes the dish so much more complex and people don’t know what exactly makes it taste so awesome. But I do!

Since the sandwich was going back into the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese, I brushed on a little extra Lawry’s Marinade for added flavor. Wow! It really intensified the flavor of the balsamic marinade, and the gooey Gouda took the sandwich to a whole other level.

I left the sandwich open-faced and put it back into the oven on a pizza pan for about 10 minutes at 425 degrees.

When it came out of the oven I piled on some organic spring mix lettuce and sliced the ciabatta loaf into four good-sized sandwiches. Go big or go home, right?

It was a great evening to say the least. Good food. Good friends. Good day.

With that, now it’s your turn to share your foodie post! If you don’t know what the deal is with Scrumptious Sunday, here’s the low-down:

If you want to play along…

• Grab the Scrumptious Sunday badge and include it in your post. (the code is in the the right column)
• You don’t have to be a foodie or even a good cook to participate in Scrumptious Sunday.
• You can write a rant about how much you hate cooking, how stand mixers scare you or even how frustrated you are about feeding your kiddos veggies. Whatever! I only ask that your post be food related.
• You can even do like me and post some food porn. People love drooling over photos of food!
• It’s a linky, so please visit the blogger ahead of you in the list and as many others as you have time for on Sunday.
• Leave a comment below my post here when you link up your post.
  (Doing so notifies me via email that you linked up.)

I look forward to reading your posts!

Virtual hugs,

Do you like to eat? Stop by Mama's Hungry for delicious, easy-to-follow recipes!

Tagged as: burgers and fries, gourmet