These are a Few of my Favorite Things

People have complained that I don’t post recipes any more. See what you think of this one. I just tried it. I thought it would just be tolerable, but it was excellent.

INGREDIENTS
1 pork tenderloin (3/4 pound)
3 thin slices bacon
1/2 cup (packed measure) dried Granny Smith or other tart apples
Korbel brandy
1 powdered chipotle pepper
sorghum syrup or molasses
4 cloves fresh garlic
salt
pepper
butter

Open the tenderloin up so you can stuff it. You can butterfly it or spiral-cut it into a flat sheet. Salt and pepper both sides. Drizzle about a tablespoon of sorghum on it. Scatter the chipotle on it.

Chop up the apples and soak them with brandy. Fry the bacon until browned but not crunchy. Remove the bacon and fry the apples in the grease, plus a couple of teaspoons of butter. When the apples start to get done, throw in the garlic (sliced). fry until it’s cooked but not very brown. Toss in the bacon (chopped) and fry to warm it up.

Pile the fried stuff on the pork and wrap it up with twine. Salt and pepper the outside. Dump it in a covered Pyrex dish. Bake at 300 for about one hour. Remove the lid, baste with the drippings, and drizzle a little sorghum on top. Remove most of the drippings. Bake until it browns. Make sure you got all the pan grease in there.

Reduce the drippings until you like the flavor. Remove the twine from the pork and slice it across the long axis.

Serve with the drippings.

This could be made way better, but I was only cooking what I had lying around the house.

I don’t really like tenderloin. Today’s pigs are skinny and dry, and tenderloin is dry to begin with, and it’s dark. You could make a much tastier version with a better cut, like a shoulder roast. You could also brine the tenderloin. Really, though, it’s crap. Pigs have a tenderloin, and then they have those big loin things center-cut chops come from. I don’t know the first thing about pig anatomy, but I know the big light-colored loins taste better.

You could also work stuffing into it, which would be insanely good. And it would be good to top it with some onions sauteed at the end of the baking cycle. I wonder what dried peaches would be like.

Brown raisins would have been good in there. Some extra acidity could be a plus. I considered adding a touch of lime juice. I think a little orange juice mixed with lime juice might work.

Maybe you could use a boned duck! Oh, man!

Here’s what I did for a side:

INGREDIENTS
6 ounces (best guess) red and yellow peppers
8 ounces broccoli florets
2 cloves fresh garlic
salt
pepper
cheap olive oil (“for sauteeing and grilling”)

Heat a cast iron skillet on medium-high and add 2 ounces oil. Salt and pepper the vegetables. Add the vegetables and fry for maybe 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want a little browning here and there. Toward the end, throw in the garlic and keep frying until it’s cooked but not brown and bitter.

This sounds pretty dull, but it was excellent. I wouldn’t add a thing to it. Well, I might conceivably sneak a tiny amount of butter into the finished product.

Never use extra-virgin olive oil, except in salad. It costs a lot, and it tends to smell and taste bad when it gets too hot. I do not understand these people who say “EVOO” all the time and talk about extra-virgin oil like it’s God’s gift to the culinary arts. I rarely use it for anything. I used to use it, and it ruined my food. It’s swell on salad, or in applications where it doesn’t get too hot, but that’s about it. You really want to keep it away from pizza. Trust me on this.

Cheap olive oil is a phenomenal tool. It lends a buttery taste to food. It has a high flash point. It doesn’t have the fish stink of canola. It has versatility because it has almost no flavor. You can get a gallon for something like ten bucks. I don’t know why no one talks about it.

Okay, I posted a recipe. I’m done.