Ambitious Deliciousness - Dont Eat Lazy. » reinventions

Pork tenderloin with apples and cranberries

Esther — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:25:47 +0000

Happy first day of spring, everyone! But I say that very loosely as it snowed in NYC this morning!

I’ve been meaning to create a dish that consists of using apples as a part of the sauce, since that is not something that I naturally associate with pork. I also threw in a handful of dried cranberries, which added a lot to the dish.

After eating this dish, I wanted to try making a different meal for the next day with the leftover meat. I added grilled sweet bell peppers and a little bit of salsa to make carbless pork fajitas, which were super delicious!

Recipe: Roasted pork tenderloin with apples and cranberries
Inspired by Closet Cooking

Ingredients:

1.5 pound of pork tenderloin
1 Gala apple, diced into small pieces (Any kind other than granny smith will be ok)
1 cup of dry cranberries
1 cup of white wine
1/2 cup of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
Sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
A sprinkle of cinnamon

Procedure:

1. Heat the oven to 400 F.

2. Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the pork. Sear all sides on stove top until done.

3. Place pork in the oven using a cast iron skillet (if you have one). If not, just use a baking pan. Cover with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes, until done.

4. Meanwhile, dice apples into small pieces and add to frying pan over medium heat. Cook for about 5 minutes.

5. Add chicken stock and wine. Reduce to about half. Add soy sauce and cranberries. Add cinnamon.

6. Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Serve on a bed of greens.

Here’s a picture of the carbless fajita as well:

Reinventing bulgogi

Esther — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:07:31 +0000

I find myself making bulgogi -Korean marinated beef - a couple of times a month, mainly because it’s easy to make and is an acceptable item to take to the office for lunch. (Read – not as pungent as some other dishes.)

But every now and then, I get bored of eating the same thing… so I reinvent it a little bit. These are not really “recipes,” but a reinventions. That’s how the best things are created!

So here are a couple of new ways to enjoy bulgogi:

The bowl is messy around the edges but I wanted to show you that it’s perfectly acceptable to get messy as you mix the ingredients together! This is what you could call bulgogi bibimbap, except that it’s not really bibimbap since it’s missing a number of essential ingredients. All you do is mix bulgogi and rice with shredded lettuce, gochujang (red bean chili paste), with a hint of sesame oil. Extra points if you eat share it with someone from a huge bowl .

Bulgogi ddukbokki: a few days ago, I had a craving for my favorite dish ever – ddukbokki. I didn’t have any cylindrical rice cakes on hand so I improvised. I added the bulgogi at the very end, just to bring the temperature up to warm (it was refrigerated) and was careful to make sure the bulgogi wouldn’t alter the flavor of the sauce too much.I have vague memories of my aunt making this for us (am I right, J?) many years ago. The best part thing I did was adding half of a jalapeno I found in my fridge for a deep, spicy punch. It was delicious!

Do you have any suggestions on other ways to reinvent bulgogi?