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.