“What am I going to make for dinner tonight?” That’s a common question we tend to ask ourselves while pushing the cart through the aisles of the grocery store. While my friends T, Mike, and I were doing our last big grocery run before the end of the year, we debated a few things. As we walked by the meat section we came across these pre-marinaded pork tenderloins. Normally I would’ve liked to marinade it myself, but we were all drooling with hunger and decided to just “Sandra Lee” it and purchase the honey mustard marinaded pork tenderloin.
I added a couple more seasonings to it, such as salt, pepper, and garlic. Mike just happened to ask, “do you guys have bacon?” and almost instantly we both simultaneously got the same idea and said “oh my god yes”. Wrapping pig with more pig was genius!
We threw it into the 350 degree oven and got started on our potatoes. Mike recently purchased an unbelievable Shun knife and requested he slice the potatoes in thin, potato chip thicknesses. His cuts were incredible. Shun is my number one on my list of knives that I want to have for myself someday.
That should be enough for 3 of us, right?
We placed them on a sheet pan in layers along with some seasonings and a handful of shredded cheddar cheese. We referred to them as the “lazy mans au gratin” minus any of the heavy cream.
To give the potatoes a little bit of sweetness we decided to top them with some caramelized onions, so I got right onto that. I absolutely adore caramelized onions. It really aggravates me when certain restaurants’ idea of caramelized onions are pretty much just sauteed onions. The point of caramelizing onions is cooking them at a low heat for a long time. I always add some secret ingredients to mine such as honey, brown sugar, balsamic, a splash of white wine, or even a couple shakes of tabasco to give it that sweet&spicy combination 🙂 .
Come on. Who wouldn’t want a bite of that?
We only used the bacon for flavoring and moisture, so sadly we got rid of it. Overall, everything came out great. Please, do not judge us on the lack of vegetable. We were aware of it and I truly felt bad about it. I promise. I drank a V8.
CHANGES (for next time)
1. We would have seared it on a really high heat first so it had more of a crust to it.
2. We would have set the oven to 375 because 350 for 40 minutes was still not enough time!
That is what cooking is all about. Experimentation. You learn things, you fix things, and you make better things!
Samantha's Life in Food. 