Balsamic Poached Fig Stuffed Pork

So what better place to talk about body hair than a food blog? I don’t like body hair. Let me rephrase that, I don’t like body hair on ME. I like hair on dudes. A hairy chest, love it. Hairy legs, gotta have ‘em. Naked legs freak me out. Hairy back, nah, I’m cool. But hair on me is a no go. Always has been. I started shaving my arms when I was in 7^th grade for gosh sakes. That’s a lot of hair down the drain. I’m even a natural blonde so my arm and leg hair is pretty well hidden except in the glimmer of the sunlight, but I just don’t like the look of it.

Anyways, my house is pretty damn cold right now. Multiple reasons.

1. It’s a damn old house. Old windows. Old doors. Etc.
2. We have wood floors. I need to buy slippers.
3. Laura and I refuse to turn the heat on. Even though she makes far more money than me, she’s just as cheap. I love her.
4. We still have our air conditioning units in our windows…..yeah, that’s probably the main reason why we can see our breath inside. Exaggeration, but you get the point.

Back to the point. This whole it’s-only-29 degrees-in-the-house-during-October thing is making it pretty hard to shave. Who knew you could be cold in a hot shower. Makes no sense right? Well, ya can. And our 2x2 bathroom surprisingly holds no heat, our drain decided to stop draining so we get to stand in our cold dirty water, and our water heater kinda blows so the shower stays luke warm...ALWAYS. So point of the story is goosebumps = difficult shaving. Difficult shaving = no shaving. No shaving = Juli being sexier than ever. That is if you're into girls with hairy armpits. And legs. And arms. And yes, I did just refer to myself in the third person. 

So dudes, stop shaving your legs. I don't care if you swim 46 miles a day and bike to the effin' Alps and back. Shaved legs on a dude are creepy. And it means you're high maintenance. Fact.

Do you think shaved legs on a dude is creepy?

What you need:

• 1.5-2lbs pork loin, cut open for stuffing
• 1/3 cup pecans, chopped
• 8-10 dried figs
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1.5 cups water
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/8 ground red pepper
• salt and pepper, to taste
• butchers twine for wrapping the pork

What you do:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. First you'll want to get your liquids very hot to poach your figs in. Add your water and balsamic vinegar together in a saucepan over medium heat. Once the liquids are pretty hot, add in your figs and cover. Let cook for about 15 minutes. 
3. While the figs cook, place your chopped pecans on a cookie sheet and toss with cinnamon, nutmeg, and smoked paprika.
4. Put pecans in the oven and cook for around 5 minutes or so, being careful to not let them burn. 
5. Once pecans are done cooking, increase the temperature on the oven to 425 degrees. 
6. This is a perfect time to cut open your pork for stuffing, placing the butchers twine underneath it, towards the ends of the loin and in the middle, to wrap with later.
7. Once the figs are done cooking and have puffed up a bit, pull them out of the liquid and place on a cutting board to cool.
8. When cooled, chop the figs then fill the inside of the pork loin with the pecans and chopped figs.
9. Use your butchers twine to tie around the pork and close up the loin completely, especially on the ends.
10. When the pork is tied off, salt and pepper it and add a bit of ground red pepper on top for a bit of a kick. 
11. Place pork loin in a baking dish and pork water/balsamic liquid over the pork and into the dish to surround it.
12. Baking for about 20-25 minutes of until internal temperature of pork reaches around 140-165 degrees.
13. After the pork is done cooking, let rest for about 10 minutes before you cut into that little sucker. 
14. Do not eat twine. You were warned.