Herb marinated pork tenderloin

*discloser*   I cooked this prior to my last post regarding the death of my oven. I still don't have an oven. I probably wont for at least a few weeks, but I will try to share recipes other than those that need my beloved oven...



Here is a great recipe for herb marinated pork tenderloin.

When buying the tenderloin from the grocery store, they often come shrink wrapped ... When I buy them, I try to stay away from the pre-marinated ones. They are injected with a preservative solution ( I don't really want any solution injected into my food, thank you very much).

This also takes the sodium levels out of control. The pork itself lends itself to be a wonderful blank palette to soak up whatever flavors that you choose, and making a marinade is so easy.... trust me :)

Sometimes I can get pork tenderloin from the butcher when it is on sale..I.. like getting it from the butcher because he trims it for me.  My butcher is very nice :) When it is on sale I always buy one for the freezer.

The ones that are shrink-wrapped at the grocery store (without being marinated, RIGHT?) no injectable solutions for us :) usually need to be trimmed a little. It's quite easy to do. Lay the tenderloin on a clean cutting board & slip a knife just under a piece of the fat or silverskin.  Gently guide the knife & pull at the fat, not the pork. The fat should easily pull away..

Ok.. now that we are done covering that, I'd like to mention that in those shrink wrapped un-marinated packages, there are usually 2 tenderloins. Which means for the average family ( not that we are average by any means) you can get 2 meals out of it.

ok.. onto the recipe

 Mix the lemon juice, zest, mustard, salt, pepper & olive oil together in a large zip lock baggie ( preferably freezer bag I'll tell you why in a minute.)

I used 1 lemon for the zest & 1 1/2 lemons for the juice. I must have had juicy lemons :)

Then I piled the herbs & garlic on the cutting board & chopped them all up together

and into the bag

add the tenderloins ( both of them, even if you are only going to cook one) into the bag & massage the marinade into the pork.

zip up the bag , pressing all of the air out & place in the refrigerator. Allow to marinate for at least 3 hours, but not more than 24.

When you are ready to cook the pork, if you are only cooking one, then pull that one from the bag onto a platter about 1/2 hour before you want to cook it. This is important because if you add cold meat to a grill or frying pan , the meat will seize up due to the temperature difference, allowing it to sit at room temperature insures that that won't happen.

 Re-seal the bag  again pressing all of the air out. Label & date it & pop it in your freezer! Presto, you now have a make-ahead easy dinner for another night.  Now you aren't supposed to re-use marinade, but technically you aren't. You will just need to remember on that night in the future that you do decide to cook it that it has already marinated, so just defrost, toss marinade & cook :)


if you are cooking it inside follow the directions on Ina's recipe.  I personally cook my pork to 145 degrees using a meat thermometer. If  you don't have one, you really need to get one, nothing fancy, just your basic meat thermometer.

pork a-restin'

when the pork is done resting, cut it on a diagonal & viola!

This was delicious. and simple. and for a large part, do-ahead. and the best part is? I have another one just waiting for me in my freezer..

But next time I will have to cook it on the grill :)


ciao!

homemade creamed corn with bacon

Look at the beautiful rainbow of goodies that we received this week!  I am having so much fun coming home with our treasures & deciding what to do with all of them!

I saw Rachael  Ray make a corn dish on Food Network last week & with our freshly picked corn on the cob,  I knew that I had to try it.  Summer Corn Fettucini.

I didn't actually make the fettucini part, just the creamed corn. It was OUT OF THIS WORLD!! not only did I make it once, I made it again the very next day. If you like sweet corn, this is a recipe to try...

it is so simple to make , yet the flavors are incredible together. Trust me, this one's a keeper!

I also made a pan- fried squash & tomato salad.

I sliced the squash into 1/4 inch circles, then used a standard breading procedure ( seasoned flour, egg wash. bread crumbs) I used panko because I like the texture, and I shredded some parmesan with the bread crumbs.

I sauteed each round in a little bit of olive oil, just to get a light crust, then transfered them to a foiled-lined cookie sheet with a baking rack on top, and baked at 375 for about 20 minutes.

I sliced up a ripe tomato & layered with the squash a squeeze of lemon juice & a drizzle of olive oil.  Finally, a shaving of parmesan cheese.
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I actually decided after  I took this picture to make 2 layers to this. So each serving had 2 squash & 2 tomatoes, but I forgot to take a picture ;(  But no worries.. I'll be making these again very soon, so I'll sneak a  complete picture.

This week we also picked beans at the farm. There were purple & green. I found  a recipe from Paula Deen Green bean bundles

I wrapped them into cute little packages & placed them along side of my charcoal (under the grate) for about 12 minutes. I can't begin to describe the flavor of these. They were light, slightly smokey, tangy form the lemon and sweet from the butter.  And overall, just plain fun!!!


Even Ryan who isn't overly crazy for green/ purple beans, ate every last one.

Now here is an interesting fact that we learned last night, the purple beans actually cook to green ! Go figure!

These were out side dish to go with our Ultimate Chicken Kebobs. I didn't make the salad part, and changed a few things. I used both sweet & spicy Italian sausage & I par-boiled them for a few minutes, and let them cool before threading. I also grilled some of the bread on it's own, which was good, because the bread on the skewers  was just a little bit too well done ( no worries, not so bad that we didn't eat it)

Even thought the bread on the skewers was a cooked a little much, I would still do it again because the flavor & juices form everything together made this just wonderful!

my ONLY complaint was that there weren't any leftovers ;(

I leave with with some flower pics from the farm this week.....

oxooxx~ michelle