Island Pork Tenderloin

My friend Penny gave me this recipe and told me it was her family's favorite, so of course I had to try it!! And boy was it tasty..I did change up the dressing a bit because it was a little too tart for me, after sweeting it up a bit I added some homemade ranch to it and it was creamy and so good. Also, make whatever kind of salad you want, I think I added broccoli and craisins to mine. I don't think you can screw it up, the meat alone is so good. And if you don't want to serve it over salad you don't have to, try rice or red mashed potatoes, I'm sure you won't be dissappointed! 




The Recipe

Island Pork Tenderloin

16 oz. pork tenderloin

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/2 tsp. chile pepper

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. olive oil

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/2 Tbs. fresh minced garlic

1/2 Tbs. tabasco sauce (optional)

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together, salt, pepper, cumin, chile powder, and cinnamon. Coat pork with spice rub. Heat 1 Tbs. oil in skillet over moderately high heat and brown pork turning about 4 mins. Stir together brown sugar, garlic, and tabasco and pat on top of pork. Place in roasting pan or 9x13 pan and cook for 20 mins.

 This can be made into a salad that is so yummy.

1 sm. can mandarin oranges drained

1 c. fresh spinach

1/2 red bell pepper sliced thin length wise

1 c. cabbage shredded

Dressing

2 Tbs. fresh lime juice

1/2 Tbs. orange juice

1/2 Tbs. dijon mustard

1/2 tsp. cumin powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. black pepper

1 Tbs. oilve oil

Brown sugar or honey to sweeten. I also added homemade ranch dressing to make it creamy and is was soooo good.

Slice your pork and serve over salad and top with dressing!

Berry Good Smoothie

Oh what a slacker I have been! I have so many pictures and recipes I've yet to post out of pure laziness!! And I admit, I haven't been cooking quite as often since being prego, nothing at home seems to sound very good at times. Or maybe it's just the preparing and cleaning that doesn't sound so good...Anyhow, I'm going to try to be better so here is one recipe I've been meaning to post. I have been craving smoothies. So we went to Costco and picked up some bags of frozen berries and strawberries, and I have only made one so far!! SO I need to get blending. The nice things about smoothies, are that you don;t have to follow a recipe, you can wing it and put in anything you want. I actually just got an e-mail from a friend chalk full of smoothie recipes some even made with oatmeal! I actually want to try that one, maybe I will today. I'll let you know how it goes. 

I love these little serving dishes. We usually reserve these for our tea parties, but they were the perfect size for my kids and their appetite!

Topping these with whipped cream made these extra yummy.

The Recipe

Very Berry Smoothies

1c. mixed frozen berries or fruit of your choice

1c. vanilla yogurt or another flavor

1c. crushed ice

orange juice or another juice added for desired consistency

Blend all ingredients and top with whipped cream and additional berries

Brandy enhanced Alfredo Sauce

So Bartel had been bugging me to make some Fettuccini Alfredo, well I didn't have all the ingrediants that I usually use, like shallots, white wine, and fettuccini noodles. So we improvised and came up with this yummy cream sauce that had the kids licking their plates... Careful not boil
Brandy..hiccup!
I should of filled the bowl with more pasta to make it prettier, but it was my bowl, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to finish it...or worse, I could finish it!!

The Recipe

Brandy Alfredo Sauce

2 Tbs. roasted red pepper oilve oil

2 lrg. cloves garlic minced

1/4 c. brandy

2 c. heavy cream

1/2 c. fresh parmesean cheese

salt/pepper to taste after adding the cheese which adds salt.

Heat oil on med low. Sate garlic until soft. Add Brandy cook until "Au Sec" (almost gone) add heavy cream stir. turn down heat add cheese. Taste, season. Will thicken upon cooking then, cooling. Toss with cooked noodles just barely coating them. Top with more fresh cheese.

Piggy Spaghetti

SO we love pasta around here. And today before we headed out the door to the water park, I remembered I had thawed some pork sausage and needed to cook it up tonight. So I pulled out my crockpot and started adding ingrediants to make a red bolognese sauce. Now, My Co-co loves red sauce, Bartel hates it!! So Co-co was excited for dinner and BArtel was happy with plain noodles with butter and parmesean cheese. Until I made him try the sauce.....He had two more bowls of pasta!! It's a perfect blend of savory, sweet, creamy, and spicy. My family loved it. I am sooo full. I hope you enjoy it too. And I hope I got the measurements right, I kinda added this and that, so make it to your taste, that's most important. Ciao' Yummy Ham, Sausage, and Bacon
I wish I had some fresh basil. Oh well, it was still tasty!

More ham (my son)....
Annie wanted a pic too..
And Co-co.....

The Recipe

Pasta Bolognese

28 oz. can diced tomatoes

15 oz. can tomato sauce

15 oz. can fire roasted tomatoes

1 Tbs. dried basil

1 tsp. dried rosemary

2 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. parsley

1/2 - 2/3 c. sugar

1 Tbs. salt

2-3 shakes red pepper flakes

1 bay leaf

chopped olives (1/2 small can)

2 carrots chopped

1/4 onion chopped

Combine all ingrediants in crock pot. Cook on low for 3 hrs. Remove Bay Leaf. Blend in blender till smooth.

In a deep pot fry 1 lbs. sausage until cooked. Add sauce. Add 1 c. chopped deli ham. Add 2 tbs. real bacon bits (soft kind). Add olives. Add 1 c. heavy cream. Taste. Season with salt or sugar as needed. Serve and top with fresh mozzarella and parmesean.

You can add the Mozzarella to the noodles when ready to serve, then top with sauce, my kids just don't like the fresh stuff so I keep it separate so they don't waste it.

French toast, Eggs And homemade Buttermilk Syrup, breakfast of the Champions!

I Love breakfast!! It's the reason I get up in the morning, it's the reason I have a hard time starting diets. It's just delightful to me. There's nothing like getting up after a long nights sleep (yeah right) and eating something yummy to start your day off. My kids love french toast, especially if it's covered in the "white syrup" aka: Buttermilk Syrup. My mother inlaw gave me this recipe and I love it, I also made a switch to almond extract, it just takes it to the next level, you can eat it by the spoonfuls... And it's it's great on everything, I should try it on veggies, maybe my kids would finally eat them! But really, oatmeal, icecream,pancakes, bread pudding, malt o meal, pretty much anything breakfast or dessert like. Now the eggs, Iam not really an egg girl but I saw a show of the "barefoot Contessa" and she did her's differently with baked eggs but using the same herbs and boy, what a difference it made. They tasted so fancy. My son has become a little egg coniseur telling me the last time I made them, "they were good but, there was just a little too much basil!" For heavens sakes, everyone's a critic. This french toast is really good with thick yummy texas toast or french bread too, cooking time will just be longer. I made up the whole bag, and saved leftovers in the fridge and toasted them up in the toaster oven for the kids the next day, and they were as good as new plus, the house smelled so good, like I was making them fresh from the griddle. I have pictured some coconut syrup that was brought back to us from Hawaii from a friend, sooo yummy. I'm working on my own version, because I know this bottle won't last here too much longer!
The Recipe

French Toast with Herbed Scrambled Eggs & Buttermilk Syrup

1 Loaf Favorite Bread ( I used grandma sycomores white)

6 eggs beaten

2 Tbs. Vanilla

1 c. heavy cream

1/4 c. orange juice

1/4 tsp. salt

2 Tbs. cinnamon and sugar mixture

Mix all ingrediants. Heat griddle to 350 cook until browned.

Herbed Eggs

6 eggs beatened

2 Tbs. milk

1/4 tsp. basil

1/4 tsp. thyme

1/4 tsp. rosemary

1/4 tsp. salt

Beat all together (for fluffier eggs, which I didn't do in pic, beat with electic beater until frothy.) Cook on med-low heat. The slower the better.

Buttermilk Syrup

1 cube Butter

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. buttermilk

2 tbs. karo syrup

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. Almond or vanilla extract ( I prefer Almond!)

Mix first 5 ingrediants in sauce pan. Cook 5 mins, remove from heat add extract. Enjoy!

Gooey Caramel Corn

Oh, ooey gooey caramel corn, how we love you!! This is one of my favorite desserts. But it has to be gooey, not crunchy, this is very impotant!!! And the great thing about this recipe, it tastes great even after it's been sitting out all night! A few things though, don't mistake evaporated milk for sweetened condensed milk!! Sometimes this is a common mistake, you want the gooey milk. Also, get buttery microwave popcorn, the butterier (is that a word?) the better in my opinion. And make sure most importantly, don't let in kernals sneak into the batch!! There is nothing worse then biting into caramel corn laden with kernals, it's annoying and you might break a tooth, if this happens, I do know a good dentist... I want to give credit where credit is due, I got this amazing recipe out of our UOP cookbook when we were in dental school. The wives put this together and I love it, I hope you do too!
The Recipe

Gooey Caramel Corn

Mix In pan over low heat:

1 lbs. brown sugar

1 c. light karo syrup

Add 1 cube butter and 1 can sweetened condensed milk, and bring to a boil. Turn down heat and slowly bring mixture to a softball stage with your candy thermometer. Pour over about 3 bags of microwave popcorn( or 2-3 gallons of popcorn) Stir and mix as you pour over corn. I do this one bag at a time, so my bowl doesn't overflow. If you must have a crunchy caramel corn you can add 1/2 bag of mini marshmallows to ingrediants.

More to come....

This week I have some great recipes for you.....
A request for gooey caramel corn...
Easy healthy Salmon dinner...
Yummy french toast with buttermilk syrup and herbed scrambled eggs
Fall off the bone BBQ pork spare ribs...

Keep you posted!!!