I’m not a chef, cook or whatever the term is for someone who knows how to prepare their own original dishes. But yesterday I created my own recipe for the first time ever.

And, I’m told, it didn’t turn out half-bad.

So, being the shameless self-promoter I am, I thought I’d share it with my very limited blog following. You are, after all, a relatively small sampling of people; just enough that unanimous rave reviews can be construed as my launch pad into culinary greatness; but not so many that I can’t save face if the consensus is that my recipe sucks.

My wife Monica chose a beautiful pork roast from our local butcher to be prepared on New Year’s Day. Unfortunately, her New Year’s morning was spent in the local hospital ER being diagnosed with a nasty case of pneumonia. She promptly crashed in bed when we got home — a Nyquil and Cipro-induced coma of sorts.

It was now up to me to prepare the roast, and Monica was unavailable for questioning.

All I wanted to know was the basics: what type of pan to use, what temperature and how long to roast it.

That’s all.

The basics.

What I found was that no one on the web is willing to put their name to such a rudimentary set of instructions. Everyone needs to present the next addition to the Waldorf Astoria’s pork selections. I read plenty of great recipes that certainly made my mouth water. But they were all too time consuming, required too much coordination or too many ingredients that I knew I didn’t have. I did, however, see some consistent themes that answered questions about temperatures and baking times, while also educating me on things like “carry-over,” which is the perplexing phenomenon that a roast continues cooking — even gaining temperature — after being removed from the oven and allowed to sit for a half-hour before carving. I also learned that the key to many award-winning roast recipes is a good glaze. I’m familiar with glazing a ham, but had never done this for a pork roast.

I hit the kitchen and started rummaging for ingredients to make my own glaze. I looked like an alcoholic trying to find the Maraschino cherries. I had the germ of an idea. Suddenly, as with my writing, I soon found myself weaving a tapestry of complementary smells and flavors onto my medium — in this case, an unsuspecting pork roast — with unabashed creativity.

Did I mention I’m a shameless self-promoter?

Here’s what I created.

It even has a cool name:

Apple Orchard Pork Roast (I know, right?)

Ingredients:

1 – 4-5 lb. boneless pork roast

1/2 C. (or so) clover honey – or apple blossom honey if there is such a thing (it supports the cool name)

1 tsp. (I’m guessing) of cinnamon

1 Tbsp. Liquid Smoke (or whatever ten shakes of a bottle is)

2-3 apples, cored and sliced

Onion powder

Salt

Pepper
Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375-degrees.

Wash and pat the roast dry. Place in a roasting pan. Add just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.

Combine honey, cinnamon and Liquid Smoke in a small glass bowl. Spread this on the roast with a basting brush. Hint: I then stabbed the hell out of it with a steak knife in the hopes of “injecting” the glaze into the roast.

Place sliced apples on and around the roast.

Sprinkle with onion powder, salt and pepper as you see fit.

Place roast in the oven, covered, for approximately 4 hours or until a meat thermometer shows an internal temperature of 140-degrees. I don’t own one of these, but recommend it, since I had to guess mine was cooked sufficiently.

Remove from the oven, cover the roast loosely with aluminum foil and let stand for 20-30 minutes before carving.

Serve with your choice of sides (in my case, Potato Buds, Heinz Home Style pork gravy, Price Chopper canned corn and Dole pineapple chunks).

To my sheer delight, this roast was one of the best I’ve ever tasted, if I do say so myself. It had the characteristics I had hoped it would: sweetness with a smoky kick of salt and spice.

My finicky 11 year-old daughter ate her mandatory fork-full of a new food, and decided she could even bear a second fork-full before making me microwave a hot dog for her. My son loved it, though he thought the roasted apples were a turn-off in appearance only. Monica stumbled into the kitchen in a rare moment of relative lucidity to eat a small portion.

She said she loved it.

I’m not sure she knew what she was eating, whose dining room she was in or who the rest of us at the table were. But I’ll take it as a ringing endorsement nonetheless.

I might even submit it to the folks at the Waldorf.