Pork Tenderloin in a White Wine and Pear Reduction

Last week I told you about my friend Jennifer's bachelorette party in Plymouth, MA.  While we were at one of the wineries, they told us about a pear jam they make with one of their white wines, and I knew I needed to bring a bottle of it home to use in a marinade.

This works best when your wine has notes of pear, since you're making a white wine & pear reduction - add a dash of cinnamon and a little sugar and it's the perfect complement to the pork.

Unless you have endless amounts of time to make dinner, I'd recommend making this marinade while dinner cooks the night before.  Then you'll have plenty of time for the pork to marinate...and you can just preheat and cook the next evening!  Easy-peasy.


And...if you're interested, the wine I used was the Plymouth Bay Winery's Widow's Walk white wine.  You can buy some here.

Ingredients
4 Bartlet Pears
1.5-2 cups white wine (with pear notes)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 cup sugar
2 pork tenderloins
Salt

Directions
Wash, peel and chop pears.  Combine pears, 1 cup wine, cinnamon, and sugar in a medium pot and cook over low for 40-60 minutes, stirring every 5-10 minutes.  If wine cooks off, add another half cup to continue cooking.

Once pears are cooked through, use a handheld masher and mash pears in pot, so they're smashed, but not completely pureed (the little chunks are delicious).

Add another half cup of wine and simmer on low for another 15 - 20 minutes, stirring frequently.  Remove from heat and let cool.
Place 2 pork tenderloins in a galon sized Ziploc bag and pour in cool marinade mixture.  Seal and refrigerate for 4-24 hours.

Transfer pork and marinade into a large Pyrex dish and sprinkle with salt.  Bake at 350 degrees for 60-90 minutes (depending on tenderloin thickness), or until done.  Then slice and serve with a scoop of the pear/white wine reduction.

Want to try another yummy tenderloin recipe?  Check out my Honey Mustard and Apple Tenderloin.

Garlic Shrimp Kabobs

Last weekend we had our friends Emily and Jason over for dinner.  We hadn't grilled out this season yet (I know...so bad), so we were excited to fire up the grill and hang out outside for a while.  Toby also enjoyed the time outside with everyone.  He's such a good grillin' dog.  (Insert hotdog/grill joke here...I know you wanna...)

We decided to do the first grilled meal right, so we went for surf & turf.  I love the Honey Lime Shrimp I make, but didn't think that would pair well with steak and potatoes, so this time I decided to go garlic.  They were perfect - easy to make and are bursting with flavor.  Add some smokey flavor from the coals on a grill and they're out of this world.  Just look at these babies!

Ingredients
1 pound shrimp
1/2 cup olive oil
1 Tablespoon melted butter
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
4 large cloves garlic, minced
salt
pepper

Directions
Mix olive oil, butter, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl.  Peel and wash shrimp, then add them to the bowl and marinade.   Cover, and refrigerate for 2-5 hours.

At this point, you can either cook them in a frying pan, or do what we did and skewer them for kabobs.  If you're using wooden skewers, you'll need to soak them in water first so they don't catch on fire.  I filled a cookie sheet with water and submerged the sticks for 15 minutes.

Then skewer 5-6 shrimp per stick.

Lay the kabobs on the grill over simmering coals and cook a few minutes per side, until shrimp turn pink.  You can spoon some of the marinade on the shrimp while they're cooking, but be careful because it'll make the coals flame up!  Then carefully flip shrimp and finish cooking!

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These were the surf half of our surf & turf dinner...and really made the meal.  Give 'em a try next time you heat up the grill!

Honey Mustard and Apple Pork Tenderloin

One of my favorite things ever is a pork loin cooking away in the oven.  Last night, Travis and I got creative in the kitchen and put together a delicious Honey Mustard and Apple Marinade for a pork loin.  Oh. My. Gosh...it was good.  The best part is that it takes almost no time to put together - just mix and bake.  Check it out.

Ingredients

2 pork tenderloins

Honey Mustard & Apple Marinade (recipe below)

2-3 large apples

Honey Mustard & Apple Marinade

1 8oz jar Grey Poupon Country Dijon Mustard

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup applesauce

1/4 cup brown sugar

4 Tablespoons honey

1/2 teaspoon mustard powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

pepper

Directions

Mix Marinade ingredients in a medium bowl.

Pour marinade into a large gallon size Ziploc bag (no clean-up this way!) and marinate (in your refrigerator) 1-3 hours.

Once you're ready to cook, pour tenderloins and marinade into a large Pyrex dish.

Peel, core and slice apples and top tenderloin.

Bake at 350 for 60 to 75 minutes (or until done).

Slice tenderloin and serve.  Top with apples and marinade!  M-m-mmmm.

Our friend Jess came over for dinner so her pup Paris can get used to our apartment, since we'll be dog sitting for a week.  Paris is such a sweet girl - it's going to be a fun week!