Today, Mike planned a surprise for me. Normally I hate surprises...but he finally found one that didn't make me mad. He worked breakfast! One of the more "interesting" aspects of Q's job is that we work pretty much opposite schedules. Normally he has Tuesday and Wednesday as his weekend, while I work 7-4 Monday through Friday....and he doesn't go in to work until 3ish. All of that means that we have only had dinner like a normal working couple a handful of times in the 6 1/2 years we've been married (wow I'm old).
Then comes today. As I mentioned earlier, Q worked breakfast which meant that, since I left work late, we got home within 15 minutes of each other! Since we had one of my favorite wines,
Stag's Leap Petite Syrah, sitting on the counter and a pork tenderloin hanging out in the fridge, I decided to make dinner.
This dinner was fairly quick and super easy....hmmm....I just realized that those are in "Trisha's World" so maybe they're not in reality? Someone else will have to try this and let me know. But this is all made from ingredients I typically have in the house (other than the green onions...which are optional) and I was able to throw it all together in about 40-45 minutes. It would have been a bit faster but my tenderloin was about double the size the recipe called for.
Epicurious will be your best friend soon, if it isn't already, I promise. Here are the recipes for everything but the green beans. You'll see a note on those later.
Pork Tenderloin with Balsamic Cranberry Sauce - If you make sure to brown the pork on all sides it forms a wonderful crispy crust on the outside and stays super tender and juicy on the inside. I used a copper/stainless pan so I added a few tablespoons of Olive Oil to the butter since it wasn't non-stick. It was super crispy and tender all at once. YUM!
If you want to make green beans too, just add the fresh green beans to the leftover pan drippings and oil after removing the pork, add some chicken stock and a bit of garlic and stick a lid on the pan over medium heat for 6 minutes or so. Then, take the lid off, crank up the heat and brown the veggies. They were FABULOUS.
I'm realizing, after typing all of this and reviewing the recipes, that I probably have a crazy pantry and stock of random ingredients. Anyway....this is a meal that will impress without too much time spent in the kitchen so it's worth a trip to the store if you want to make a special meal.
