Herb Grilled Pork Tenderloin

I had my Margarita Cake picture accepted by Tastespotting yesterday!  I feel like I won the lottery.  I can't even tell you how many more hits I got on my site because of that yesterday.  AMAZING!  I may have had 8 declined, but 1 got through!  Maybe they just felt sorry for me, who knows :)  I now have a book on photography, so hopefully that will help me learn more!  Stay tuned to see if you notice a difference.  It won't be for a few days though, I still have a few posts to write with not great pictures.  But the food is good, so hopefully you will over look it!

I got a couple of new cookbooks for Mother's Day, so I have been trying a few new recipes out of them this week.  This one was a winner!  It is a healthy, low calorie, pork tenderloin that is full of flavor.  I have never grilled a pork tenderloin before.  I think the trick is to make sure you don't have the grill on too high, because it does take awhile to cook, and you don't want to burn it.  It did give it a whole different flavor than baking it, like I normally do.  I am sure this would be just as good if you wanted bake it though. 


Herb Grilled Pork Tenderloin
Adapted from Taste of Home Heatlhy Cooking
Printable Recipe

1/2 cup chicken stock
3 Tbls Lemon juice
3 Tbls reduced-sodium soy sauce
3 Tbls honey
1 Tbls Canola Oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 1/2 tsp minced fresh sage (1 1/2 tsp dried sage)
1 Tbls minced fresh thyme (1 tsp dried thyme)
1 Bay leaf
1 Pork tenderloin (approx 1 pound)

Combine everything but the meat together.  Mix well.  Pour 3/4 cup of the marinade into a ziploc bag, add the pork.  Squish around so all the pork is covered.  Marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours.  Cover and save the remaining marinade to baste the meat while grilling.

Coat the grill rack with cooking spray.  Grill pork, covered, over a med-hot temperature for 25-40 minutes.  Baste the meat occasionally with the reserved marinade.  The pork is done when a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees.  Remove from grill, and let stand for a couple minutes before you slice.   Enjoy!

Char Siu Pork Roast

 I had printed this recipe from Cooking Light a LONG time ago, and really really wanted to try it.  I finally got around to it.  I hate it when your expectations are so high, and it just doesn't live up to it.  I love Asian flavors, and pork - so I thought this would be great.  And it kind of was.  The flavor on the pork was really good, but serving it the way they suggested just wasn't good.  Basically you marinate pork in a sauce, then use the slow cooker to cook the meat.  Then you shred the meat and serve over rice.  Sounded good in theory.  But just shredded pork over rice?  Not so much.  I think that marinating the meat is great.  Then I think instead of using the slow cooker, you could use it in a stir fry with veggies to serve over rice.  Or if you want to shred it, maybe on a bun as a different style pork sandwich?  The pork was really good, don't get me wrong.  But the dish needs help!  Maybe you can make this better, and share it with me :)  Sorry for the lack of pictures on this one, I was in a hurry when I was getting it ready.


Char Siu Pork Roast
From Cooking Light
Printable Recipe

1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce 
1/4 cup hoisin sauce 
3 tablespoons ketchup 
3 tablespoons honey 
2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic 
2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger 
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil 
1/2 teaspoon five-spice powder 
1 pounds Pork Tenderloin
1/2 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

Combine first 8 ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Place in a large zip-top plastic bag. Add pork to bag; seal. Marinate in refrigerator at least 2 hours, turning occasionally.

Place pork and marinade in an electric slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours.

 Remove pork from slow cooker using a slotted spoon; place on a cutting board or work surface. Cover with aluminum foil; keep warm.  Add broth to sauce in slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 30 minutes or until sauce thickens. Shred pork with 2 forks; serve with sauce.

Experimenting with Quinoa

I have wanted to try Quinoa for a long time now. It is on cooking shows and in magazines, and everyone raves about how good it is for you. The thing that has stopped me has been the price. A bag of it locally was almost $11. I finally mentioned it to my husband, and he used his deal seeking skills and scored me 4 bags of it for about $20 at Amazon. You can get White Quinoa for cheap at Amazon as well. It is Red Quinoa, I am not sure if there is much of a difference between the white and red. So last night was the night......

Let's start with, it wasn't what I hoped it would be. I am not giving up yet, I have 4 bags of it! I am not sure my recipe was a good one, and I may have made a mistake in cooking it. I followed my recipe for the water to Quinoa ratio, which may have been the problem. My husband came and looked in the pan when I had about 2 minutes left of cooking, and he said "apparently we aren't eating for a long time, huh?" There was still a ton of water in the pan! So we looked at the package, and the ratio was way different! So I cooked until the 15 minutes as stated on both the recipe and the package, and then just drained the extra water. Who knows if that was what I should have done? It wasn't bad, just not good. I will seek out a new recipe next time.

The pork chops I made with the quinoa turned out much better! Should have taken more pictures, so I could blog more about those!

Pork Chops
Pork Chops
Garlic Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat a little bit of oil in a pan over high heat. Sprinkle each side of the pork with garlic salt and pepper. Put pork in pan, and sear side 1 for about 3 minutes. Flip over, and put in the oven. Cook for about 15-20 minutes, depending on how thick your pork chops are.



Quinoa
1 Tbls butter
1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups chicken broth
2 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tsp thyme (1/2 Tbls fresh thyme)
1/4 salt
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 dash lemon juice


Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the quinoa, and toast until lightly browned - about 5 minutes. Stir in broth and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer, cover, and cook for 15 minutes.


While the quinoa is cooking, saute the onions and garlic until soft. Stir in the thyme and salt.






In a bowl, toss quinoa, onion and dash of lemon juice. Serve with delicious pork chops, and you have yourself a pretty quick and easy dinner.