Orange Juice and Soy Sauce Marinated Pork Tenderloin

I already told my story in the previous post. So, save the words and skip to the pictures and the recipe.

Straight from the oven

Pork tenderloin with some broccoli cole slaw on the side to make the picture look good.

Orange Juice and Soy Sauce Marinated Pork Tenderloin
Ingredients

• 2 lb pork tenderloin with fat trimmed off
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup water

Procedure

1. Combine orange, juice, nutmeg, ground ginger, grated ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce, and water into an appropriately sized bowl. Mix well until sugar is dissolved.
2. Place pork tenderloin in a ziploc bag and pour in the sauce mixture. Marinate pork tenderloin overnight.
3. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 
4. Place pork tenderloin and sauce mixture into a large baking dish. Cover baking dish with foil.
5. Bake for about 1 hour or until pork tenderloin is no longer pink in the middle. 
6. Do not throw out the juices/sauce. Slice the pork tenderloin and serve with the sauce. 

Savory Pork Tenderloin with Mushrooms and Carrots

I haven't posted in a while since I felt overworked and blogging didn't feel fun anymore. During my blogging hiatus I have been reading, working, and cooking (of course). However, my cooking was less structured and more off-the-cuff, which felt a lot freer than me trying to write down every ingredient as I was cooking. I also didn't feel the pressure of trying to cook something new every week. This was good for my creative side and just less time consuming. After some reflection, I decided that the funnest part of this blog was taking pictures of the various stages of food prep and the end product, which is one of the reasons why I started Instagramming.

The reason for my return today is that I bought a 4 pound pork tenderloin when it was on sale at the store for $1.99/lb. This was a great deal, but then I realized that I had never cooked a pork tenderloin before. Since I didn't want to screw up and waste 4 pounds of meat, I decided to plan out something. My oven is my best friend. I ended up cutting the pork tenderloin in half so I could do one savory and one sweet pork tenderloin recipe.

As with all my experiments, I do research on what has been done and then decide to give my own twist on it. for the savory pork tenderloin, a lot of recipes called for a mayo dipping sauce or some sort of heavy cream, but I wanted to stay away from that. Results were pretty good but I think I needed some more salt in it.

Before

After. Note: I cut the pork after I took it out of the oven.

Savory Pork tenderloin with Mushrooms and Carrots
Ingredients

• 2 lb pork tenderloin with fat trimmed
• 8 oz sliced baby bella mushrooms
• 1 red onion thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried herbs de provence
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium carrots cut into thick slices
• salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. Combine dried herbs, garlic, salt and pepper, and olive oil in a small bowl until well mixed.
3. Place pork tenderloin in a large baking dish and rub olive oil and herb mixture all over the pork loin.
4. Place mushrooms and carrots around the tenderloin. Sprinkle sliced onions over the tenderloin.
5. Bake uncovered for about 40 minutes.
6. Take out baking dish and cover with foil and bake for another 20 minutes or until pork is just cooked through and there's no blood oozing out.

Spring/Summer Rolls

So I'm not sure what the proper name for these things are. They're just the rolls that are made from rice paper and aren't fried. Some people call them summer rolls, but the package of rice paper wrappers call them spring roll wrappers. Whatever the case, it's delicious and a great way to experiment with different ingredients.

The stuff that goes inside the rolls

Rice paper can can really sticky while rolling

Tempeh Spaghetti

I'm getting better at plating. Let's just leave it at that. Hope you all enjoy this vegetarian friendly dish.

Tempeh Spaghetti

• 8oz tempeh, diced into 1 inch cubes
• 1 clove garlic minced
• Several leaves of basil coarsely chopped
• 1/8 onion sliced
• 4 oz mushroom sliced
• 1 tsp Garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• Pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 8 oz spaghetti
• your favor spaghetti sauce

Procedure

1. In a large pot, cook the spaghetti according to the package instructions. When the spaghetti is done cooking. Use a colander to drain the water from the spaghetti pot and then rinse the hot spaghetti with some cold water to keep the spaghetti from sticking to itself.
2. While the spaghetti is cooking, measure out the olive oil into a large pan 
3. Cook the minced garlic clove and onion in the pan with the olive oil on medium heat until the garlic becomes slightly golden and the onion begins to look translucent. Stir frequently.
4. Add the tempeh to the pan. Flip the tempeh every so often so that each side gets a nice golden brown color. Cook the tempeh until all sides are golden brown.
5. Add the basil, mushrooms, garlic powder, salt and pepper to the pan. Cook until mushrooms have let out most of it's water.
6. In the pot used for cooking the spaghetti, combine the tempeh mixture and the spaghetti with spaghetti sauce on medium-low heat. Mix well.
7. Top with parmesean cheese if desired.

Chicken Miso Noodle Soup

This is one of the best things I've made yet! I finally know the secret to making good egg drop soup: beat the eggs and then swirl them in the soup when the soup is boiling. Previously, I was impatient and just but the eggs in when the soup was just warm. I had always wondered why the soup didn't turn out quite right. Now I know. Hope you enjoy this one. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

One of the most delicious noodle discoveries of my life.

Need to soak up the excess liquid from the tofu

Mmmmm, shitake mushrooms

I feel pretty bad ass for making this.

Chicken Miso Noodle Soup
Ingredients

• 5.8 oz/164g soft tofu cut into cubes
• 8.2 g white meat chicken, cubed
• 4 oz green tea noodles
• 3 rehydrated shitake mushrooms, diced
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• 1 tbsp Miso paste
• 2 eggs
• wakame, as desired

Procedure

1. Cook noodles according to package instructions, then rinse cooked noodles with cold water and set aside.
2. Bring water and chicken broth to boil in a large pot.
3. Add the cubed chicken, miso paste, and shitake mushroom.
4. Cook covered for 5-8 minute or until chicken is no longer pink.
5. Swirl in two beaten eggs while the soup is boiling.
6. Add tofu and wakame. Cook until wakame is fully hydrated.
7. Serve the soup over the noodles.

1 recipe makes about 4-6 servings

Turkey Sausage and Vegetable Soup

I love hearty vegetable soups. As the weather gets colder, my craving for soup increases. Usually I cook soups in the crockpot so that the flavors can mix for hours, but my crockpot was in need of a good scrubbing and I didn't feel like cleaning it at the moment so I decided to cook this soup on the stove. Hope you all enjoy it.

Turkey Sausage and Vegetable Soup
Ingredients

• 2.4 oz onion, diced
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 potatoes, diced
• 6.5 oz celery, sliced
• 8.4 oz butternut squash, cubed
• 6 cups kale, coarsely chopped
• 4 cups chicken broth
•  1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Italian sausage links with the meat removed from the packaging or bulk sausage meat equaling that amount
• 6 leaves of fresh basil, finely chopped

Procedure

1. In a large pot, pour in the extra virgin olive oil and cook the onion and garlic in it on medium to low heat.
2. Add the carrots, potatoes, squash and celery to the pot when the onions begin to look translucent. Stir frequently to prevent burning.
3. Add the sausage to the pot and cook until the sausage is no longer pink.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pot, turn the heat to high. Let the pot reach a boil and then turn the heat down to low heat and let the pot simmer for 30 minutes to an hour.

Baked Butternut Squash, Lentils, and Potatoes

It's autumn and you know what that means. Squash. Gourds. Pumpkins. Apples. Cinnamon. I love the seasonal vegetables of fall, especially butternut squash. This next dish was just something that I put together on a whim. It turned out all right but a bit bland and needed a little more seasoning.

I love the bright orange color of butternut squash

Mix it all up and put it in the oven

I need to work on my plating

Baked Butternut Squash, Lentils, and Potatoes
Ingredients

• 1 lb 1.1 oz  butternut squash, cubed
• 6.6 oz dried and uncooked lentils, rinsed
• 13.6 oz red potato, cubed
• 1.9 oz diced onion
• 1 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 tsp onion salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger

Procedure

1. Place all ingredients in an appropriately sized baking dish. Mix well, making sure the lentils are mostly submerged in the liquid.
2. Cover baking dish with foil and bake at 424 degrees Fahrenheit for about 1 hour.
3. Serve as is or over rice with a little bit of Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.