Teaspoon Tenderloin

Wednesdays and Thursdays are traditionally later work nights for me, so cooking dinner is not something I feel like doing after long days like those. Let’s be honest, I never FEEL like cooking. I see it more as a chore or necessity, so last night was no exception. I worked pretty late, traffic was extra terrible, and I was not in the mood. But I was hungry, and we’d spent money (an impressively small amount) on groceries, and pork tenderloin was on the Google doc. I quickly remembered how stinkin' easy it was to cook, and my frustrations turned into excitement.

We found this recipe sometime over the summer (pre-Pinterest days) on foodnetwork.com, sort of went into it blindly, and came out huge fans. We’ve made this for our friends, and they love it too. They don’t even notice that they’re eating a gluten-free meal. So whenever pork tenderloin is on sale, we pull out this recipe. It was perfect for last night because it’s another dump and go recipe that requires zero cutting, slicing, mixing, etc. So that means little to no thinking, which is great after a long day when your brain is mush. All we had to buy was the pork, because once you buy spices, you have them forever, which is great. And we decided to re-name it Teaspoon Tenderloin because all you need is a teaspoon of everything.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• Salt
• 1 1/4 pounds pork tenderloin
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp minced garlic

 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450°

In separate bowl, combine garlic powder, oregano, cumin, coriander, thyme and salt. 

Stacey gave me some fresh parsley, so I added some!

Stir mixture with a fork until all the ingredients are well combined. Add the pork to the bowl and rub the pork with the mixture over both sides, pressing gently so the seasoning coats the tenderloin. 

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the olive and the minced garlic and sauté, stirring, for 1 minute. Put tenderloin in the pan and cook for about 5 minutes on each side. The pork will have a nice crust. 

Transfer meat to a roasting pan and bake for 30 minutes. Slice and serve. 

We changed a few small details from the original recipe, but you get the idea.

We paired the pork with roasted asparagus (on sale), our favorite GF risotto (already had it), and glazed carrots (already had them). It was a delicious, balanced meal that was simple to throw together, especially with Chris (risotto-making Queen). Not to worry, we'll share our methods behind our side dish madness soon.

Needless to say, we ate off of the china and drank wine. We finished cooking just in time to enjoy “Modern Family” while we dined. The only negative about this meal was the seemingly daunting clean-up. Not to worry, Chris made a fabulous Grooveshark playlist, and we knocked it out no problem. I should mention that we’re both type A list makers who enjoy cleaning, so that helped too.

This Wednesday was a great one. I’m excited to make my co-workers jealous with these leftovers!