Rosemary Tenderloin With Warm Asparagus Salad

Haven't made tenderloin in a while so trying it again. It's actually pretty easy to cook. Yes it would be better if I cooked part of it in the oven, but who has time to remember it's in there when I've got things on the stove top and a baby to watch. Right? 

Pork Tenderloin
Cornstarch - seals in the juices
Soy sauce
Rosemary
Cumin
Garlic

Warm salad:
Asparagus
Butter
Salt
Costco kale salad (minus fixings)

Marinate the tenderloin and then pan sear...I think 5 min per side? You want it to be medium in the middle. Yes, contrary to what I've been taught all my life, good quality pork can be eaten medium! So much juicier and softer!

The salad is prepared by sauteing the asparagus in butter. As it's getting soft I add the Costco kale salad. And when everything is warmed, but not wilted, it goes onto the plate. The seasoning is kept simple because of time...but let me know what seasoning you find works!

Enjoy!

My Go-To Trout

Trout has become a bit of a regular in our kitchen. My husband tells me it's not "fishy" like salmon can be. It's also super easy to cook. I just wash, scale (because I like eating the skin) and then put these ingredients on top:

Garlic
Rosemary
S&p
Olive Oil

Pop in the oven for 17-20 min (until the meat can be sliced easily with a blunt object)...or pan fry until the same consistency is reached (that'll take less than 10 min). Serve with a squeeze of lemon...or not. Because it's not fishy. Enjoy!

Apple Rosemary Pork Tenderloin

I do still cook meat! =) A while back I had bought some pork tenderloin on sale. I've never cooked pork tenderloin so I thought it would be good to give it a try. Growing up my family always cooked the pork completely well done. It was dry and tasteless. I didn't know why people liked eating pork so much. After this...I found it was easier and tastier than I thought it would be.

Pork tenderloin
Apple sauce (with chunky apple pieces)
Rosemary
(The apple sauce and rosemary went in between the two pork tenderloin that I then tied together before cooking.)

Rub:
Corn Starch
Salt
Pepper
Cumin

I pan seared all sides then baked at 300 F until the internal temperature was 135 F. Take it out, cover and rest for 10 min.....and it's a perfect medium.

(I didn't even know you could eat pork medium because my family was always afraid of getting worms or food poisoning or something. That's why it was always super well donw for us. But now I know! yum!)

Lamb shoulder steak

I didn't know there was such things as shoulder steaks...but then I saw some in the lamb section of the local Asian grocery...and it was cheaper than normal steaks so I gave them a try. A lot of recipes I looked at called for braising shoulder cuts, but since this steak was pretty thing, I just put a rub/marinade on and pan seared it.

Lamb shoulder steak
Balsamic vinegar
Garlic
Rosemary

And this was the side dish:
Spaghetti squash
Spinach
Shallots
Cumin
Garlic salt

The steak was quite tasty and not as chew as I feared it might be. The spaghetti squash was also quite nice. It'll make it onto the repeat roster. =)

Leftover Makeover: Beef Stew

Remember the sirloin tip with very little meat fat, and wasn't slow cooked/braised so it came out rather chewy? Well it wasn't a big sell unfortunately. This meant I had a fair bit of leftovers and I needed to turn it into something yummy.

What better to hide it in than a stew! Stews hide everything. And because you're slow cooking it for a while, everything also gets quite tender. So that's where the roast went.

Sirloin tip roast leftovers
Carrots
King oyster mushrooms
Tomatoes
Onion
Garlic
Lentil stew leftovers
Paprika
Cumin
Rosemary
Red Wine

And it was good! Over rice and over pasta.

Pot roast

I've never made pot roast....so thought I'd give it a try. Bought a sirloin tip roast, put a delicious smelling rub on it. Seared all sides (and set off the smoke detector multiple times). Then into the oven it went. The color looked perfect when it came out...nice range of medium to medium rare for the various preferences in my family. BUT, as a sirloin tip, there's very little marbling of fat in it, so you guessed it, the poor roast was SUPER chewy. Tasted great, but hard to chew. It was a fail.

My uncle suggested next time I bake it at 250F for six to eight hours. I could try that. Or I could just buy prime rib roast next time. Maybe sirloin tip roasts are meant for braising only....anyone know?? Ah well.

My tasty rub:
Chili flakes
Paprika
Cumin
Rosemary
Garlic
Lime juice
Olive Oil


Sorry about the picture....I loaded it vertical from my phone onto the blogpost app, but then it comes out like this when I use my desktop.

Rosemary Lime Squash Bake

This is one of those easy sides that I knew how to make growing up because I had gotten tired of eating mashed potatoes. I know...how can one get tired of mash potatoes? Well I did. (Though now because I eat it super infrequently, it's become a bit of a treat.)

Butternut squash
Rosemary
Lime juice
Olive Oil

Just salt and pepper to taste. But you don't need very much as the fragrance of rosemary and the little zing of lime makes the squash tasty enough. Enjoy!

Lamb Shank

I've always wanted to try cooking lamb shank...so when I saw it go on sale at T&T I picked up a package of three shanks. When I opened the package, I found the shanks were covered in silverskin. From watching cooking shows, I remember chefs always had to cut this chewy stuff off before cooking it...so I proceeded to wrestle with cutting/shaving/ripping/tearing the skins off. I got the shanks about 85% clean before giving up....I needed to get these cooking else we wouldn't have dinner on time.

Lamb shanks
Onion, Shallots
Garlic
Carrots
Tomatoes
Potato
Cumin
Rosemary
Thyme
Basil
Chicken Stock
Rice Wine

I rubbed cornstarch on the shanks and then started to sear them in a big pot with onions. Once browned, I deglazed with rice wine, threw everything else in, added chicken stock and covered the pot for a good simmer. Once the carrots were soft, I moved the shanks to one side, stuck in my immersion blender and pureed some of the veggies to make a thicker sauce.

 

 

It was only cooking for about 50 min before we had to eat....so though it was cooked...and tasty...it was not fall-off-the-bone soft. Resimmering the leftover shank for an hour the next day did the trick however. Will definitely be making something like this again!

Rosemary Lamb Chops

I love lamb....rack of lamp, lamb shank, lamb chops. This is a super simple marinade I used for a pack of chops we had:

Rosemary
Balsamic vinegar
Garlic
Caraway seeds
Olive Oil



Crowding seven chops onto a pan isn't the greatest idea. It traps moisture and kind of prevents the meat from searing very well to keep the juices in. I probably should've also used the cast iron pan instead...but was too lazy to have to also work with an oven mitt since the handle would get too hot on a gas range stove. But you can see a nice char on the chops. Yums!