Apple-Bourbon Barbecue Pork Tenderloin

Drool with me now. Can you say, "Never going to buy store bought barbecue sauce again?" This sauce will blow your mind! (Okay, so I lie when I say I'll never buy the store stuff again -- the husband and 4ft eat a lot of barbecue sauce and I don't want to be chained to my stove making barbecue sauce 24/7) but if barbecue sauce is an ingredient for a dish, you can bet your butt, I will be using this instead of the store bought kind.

I invented this sauce for pork, because really what goes better with pork than apples? But after tasting the final product (it was one of those lets throw a bunch of stuff in a sauce pan and see what happens moments), I would use it on EVERYTHING. At this point the protein is an excuse to get the sauce to my mouth. Seriously, it's that good. 

Because the key ingredient is applesauce it has that consistency and is pretty thick, next time I might run it through a food processor or blender to see if I can break it down a little more -- cooking it down for 10 minutes didn't liquefy it very much. However the bonus of it being so thick, it really stuck to the meat and glazed to it instead of running off into the bottom of the casserole dish. I'd had plans to take the drippings from the meat and the sauce that went with it and reducing it to drizzle over the meat. There wasn't any to reduce. It all stayed on.

(edit: I made the sauce again to put on bacon wrapped stuffed chicken and ran it through a blender, it cut down on some of the consistency but still really thick and still really really delicious.)

Picky Eaters' Seal of Approval: No words, too busy gobbling it up, making piggy noises and getting seconds! I'll take that as one of the highest compliments ever! 

And these totally happened for dinner the next two nights because I ended up doing two tenderloins because that's how they came packaged and I didn't realize it:

Sliders and Quesadillas oh my....

Pork Gyro w/Tzatziki

So here's another installment of "I haven't traveled but I wanna and am doing so from home with food". Well sorta. I have to get creative because while I'm game to try anything, my family -- not so much. 

This week, we traveled to Greece, by way of gyros with tzatziki sauce. So, I know gyros are traditionally made with lamb. My family won't eat lamb. My husband swears he doesn't like it, but I'm not sure as if he has ever tried it, and 4ft would rather have one as a pet than *gasp* eat one so I knew that was a no go. From what I can tell it's the spices that make the gyro not the meat so much as they have them with ground beef and chicken too. Well I figured why the heck not and used pork. I had it in the freezer and it needed to get eaten before it died of freezer burn but these spices would work with any meat. I also cheated more, gyros are usually served on flat bread which has hurt my stomach in the past, so we used whole wheat, low carb, tortillas. Seriously yummy and 4ft said it was one of the best tacos he's ever had. Taco? I know, right? Sheesh. That would explain why he put ketchup on his. Where did I go wrong?

Tzatziki sauce is usually made with plain Greek yogurt of which I had none of (I thought I did but somehow I don't think key lime Greek yogurt would've been delicious) so I cheated and used light sour cream -- they're pretty close -- but it would've been nice to have the protein from the plain Greek yogurt. Next time. I also didn't use cucumbers because 1.) I didn't have any and 2.) my family loathes them. But the sauce turned out pretty delicious regardless of all my substitutions and complimented the meat really well. My family (except for the Littles who just had cheese quesadillas -- another reason 4ft thought they were tacos I'm sure) thought so as well if their cleaned plates, full bellies, and satisfied smiles that accompanied their belches were any indication.

Rosemary Pork Chops

My husband has been pretty easy going about me trying out all these new fangle healthy type recipes on him. So I promised him I'd make him a manly meal of fried pork chops. What I neglected to mention was that I healthied (is that a word? it is now.) it up some. He had no idea that I experimented on him yet again (insert evil scientist laugh here) and he loved these pork chops. They had a crunchy outside and juicy delicious meat on the inside. They didn't need gravy, or ketchup, or barbecue sauce. As a matter of fact, 4ft tried a bite with ketchup (my children put ketchup on EVERYTHING) and declared it better without it.

They were really that fantastic. Yeah they're fried, but really everyone needs a little fat in their life and if the oil is hot when you put the chops in the pan, and you drain them on paper towels after, you'd be amazed how much oil is left in the pan and on the towel and NOT pooled on your plate. I wouldn't eat fried food every night but healthy living is not about going without but instead having it in moderation.

Mongolian Pork

I desperately wanted Chinese food yesterday. I love the stuff soooo much but as many of my readers already know the rest of the family hates it. What really drives me crazy is that whenever I make Asian inspired dishes they inhale it and rave about how wonderful it is. How does that work? I mean, really? I try not to think about it too hard because I don't want my brain to explode. I'm pretty sure it will. 

So back to the food. I really wanted Chinese but I'd gotten a pork roast out for dinner. The closer it got to dinner the more I didn't want to eat a roast. Mongolian beef sounded soooo much better. However I didn't thaw out beef. You see the conundrum, right? If shrimp dishes can be made with chicken then why can't beef dishes be made with pork? Can I get an amen? Thus Mongolian pork was born.

The husband had no idea he was eating pork. He thought he was eating Mongolian beef. How awesome is that? 4ft devoured it and the rice, making snorting little piggy sounds and saying how delicious it was (I may or may not be making up the little piggy sounds). Bear tried a bite and didn't spit it out, so that's a win but Grumpers couldn't even bother to come to the table cuz I'd mistakenly given him a snack earlier and he was "too busy" to eat dinner. His loss. More for me. (and this is where we all laugh hysterically because I seriously can eat only about 2 oz of meat at any given time still.)

Pork Chops in Bourbon Mushroom Gravy

Today was a comfort food sorta day and one of my go to meals for comfort is pork chops and gravy. When I was a kid (one hundred years ago or more -- I'm like Methuselah old) it was said by those who say (whoever they are) that you had to cook the crap out of pork so you had to have the gravy (that came out of a can) to wash it down. Luckily for everyone pork doesn't have to be cooked to cardboard levels anymore and it's even better with a drizzle of Bourbon Mushroom Gravy. The gravy is a total bonus for someone with a bariatric procedure because we can't drink while we eat (tummies are too small -- no liquids for at least 10 minutes before a meal and none for at least 30 minutes after). A lot of my dishes now are saucy because of that reason alone. 

This recipe was a win: The whole family liked it (even Grumpers ate some -- and that's saying something).