Mario Batali's Arista Toscana

Happen to catch a new show on in the day time called "The Chew", a fun cast with varied recipes throughout the program.  Mario Batali prepared this recipe for pork it looked so good and seemed pretty simple to do so that was dinner that night.  I find the biggest stumbling block to cooking is deciding what to make, many times I stare at what I have available and then figure out what I can make without going to the grocery store.  Although I am .7 of a mile to the grocery store there are times you just don't want to go out again.  This was simple & hearty, always great when you can throw something in the oven and then use that baking time to get things done.  I served it with Japanese Sweet Potato mashed with toasted pecans which has a dark purple skin but inside is almost white, it had a slightly milder taste than our traditional orange yam.

Mario Batali's Arista Toscana

---adapted slightly

Ingredients:

Garlic Cloves (he calls for 24.....seemed a lot to me so I probably halved it0
2 Fennel bulbs sliced thin
    -----save Fennel tops (fronds), throw out ribs
4 large onions sliced thin
1/2 c olive oil
6-7 pounds Pork Loin Roast (he calls for bone in, I used boneless but would love to try it              again with the bone in cut just couldn't get it that day)  
salt & pepper
3 c whole milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°

Smash 1/2 of garlic into a paste and put in bottom of roaster pan, add onion slices, fennel.

Make slits into pork and stick garlic cloves into them, salt & pepper generously.  Pour milk, some oil onto onion mixture, then lay pork on top of onion/fennel mixture, lay fennel tops over pork.  Roast 60-75 minutes reaching internal temp of 145° then remove meat to carving board.
Blend 1/2 of onion fennel liquid mixture in blender adding a drizzle of olive oil to form a sauce consistency.
Arrange slices of pork over the rest of sliced onion/fennel and pass blended sauce in gravy dish.

I used the emersion blender.