Easter Dinner: Honey Baked Pork Roast

I was going to make turkey and then ham (too much sodium!) and then I couldn't decide.  I came across this recipe and got a pork picnic roast on sale - $10 for 5 lbs, so went with it .  It's been a long time since I've had roast pork so this felt like quite the nice splurge.  My side dishes were going to be roasted baby carrots with tops, mashed baby creamer potatoes with roasted garlic and lastly, gravy.  Very simple.  The recipe also supplied directions for a honey mustard sauce to serve along side the roast so I opted to do both - that, and the gravy.


Unlike the recipe said, I trimmed most of the fat off along with the tough skin.

It felt like a pound of fat came off.  I made a wet rub with the spices and honey and some Dijon mustard.  I rubbed the roast down.  I put this on a rack in a cast iron pan with a cup of water in the bottom.

I put into the oven.  I mixed up the sauce for the roast.  This was tangy from the vinegar and spicy from the cayenne pepper.

I'm guessing it was to contrast the sweetness of the roast though there was some honey it too, but I did use less than called for.  I liked it, my son did not.  I put it in the fridge until dinner.

I put a halved head/bulb of garlic in tinfoil.  I seasoned both sides with S&P and olive oil and put in the oven for an hour wrapped tightly in the foil.

It smelled lovely when it was done.  Half way through cooking, I took the roast out and basted it.

I topped up the liquid 2 or 3 times throughout the cooking process.  I got a baking sheet and lined it with parchment.

I tossed the carrots with extra virgin olive oil, fresh thyme and S&P and put them aside until the last hour of the roast being ready.  Then I also turned the oven up to 375 too.  I started the potatoes and then put the carrots in.

I took the roast out to rest and made gravy.  I poured the juices from the board into the gravy.

I squeezed the garlic into the potatoes and mashed with some unsalted butter.  The carrots were perfect.  I served.

Dinner was delicious.  We had no complaints and cleaned our plates.  The roast was a little tougher/dry than I would have liked though.  That surprised me as I've never made a tough pork roast before.  I especially didn't think it would get tough being cooked low and slow like I did it either.  That being said, it wasn't leather chewy, and I sliced it nice and thin so it was fine.  Let's just say it was "well done".  The outside crust was the best thing on it.  The gravy was sweet-ish so the sauce created a nice counter-balance.  The potatoes and the carrots were killer good.