Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Here, piggy piggy!

One convenience of our mountain life? All the meat in our freezer (minus chicken) came from the mountain! Venison, pork, bacon, hams, even some beef now... It's all-natural, no hormones, no nasty feed... It's definitely a plus. And last night, we took advantage of the pork and bacon!

Pork tenderloin, wrapped in bacon... I remember my mom making this a few years ago; it was plain (like most food at her house, because of my dad), but delicious! So I was excited to try it. Our one concern? We had fresh bacon, not smoked... Oh, and Nathan was also concerned that there was no barbecue sauce. 

Mom's directions? Preheat the oven to 400°, wrap the tenderloin in bacon, and stick it in a Pyrex. And then, just cook it for 20 minutes. 

Nathan said 20 minutes isn't long enough. Whenever Gran cooks a loin in the oven, it goes in for at least 40 minutes. I said let's just try it, we can put it back in if it's not done... Well, for future reference, it was 37 minutes in the oven. So, Nathan was right again. Womp, womp.

Here it is, in the oven... looks almost like a meatloaf!
(Photo courtesy of me)
Instead of leaving it plain, we spread a little Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue and honey on top of the wrapped tenderloin. I used the fancy little brush to spread it around, and it cooked into the bacon nicely in the oven.

Here it is, all cooked! With Nathan's salad and cheesy pasta on the side.
(Photo courtesy of me)

Since the loin took an extra 17 minutes, the salads, green beans and cheesy pasta were already done... It ended up being like a 3 course meal (that's my positive spin!). The salad was just a bag of 7 lettuces, sliced mushrooms, croutons, and cucumber (sliced using my fancy German slicer! Check it out in the pic below!). We wanted to finish the bag off, since they don't stay good long, so the salads were pretty filling.

Too many cucumbers? I got a little slice-happy...
(Photo courtesy of me)

THE GREEN BEANS WERE SO GOOD BECAUSE THEY WERE CANNED. I grew up on canned vegetables. I hate frozen vegetables. I know they're healthy, brightly colored, crunchy... but we haven't had canned French-cut green beans in so long, I was in heaven last night eating them.

Everything was tasty. The loin wasn't as fantastic as I remembered my mom's, but it was tasty. It was something new to through into the mix. I've realized, keeping the blog in mind when I plan meals, that we eat peanut pretzel chicken too much. And marinated venison backstraps. Now, I sit and think "I've already written about that... maybe I should try something else!"

So, what's for dinner at your house tonight? Tell me about it!

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