Yeah, I made that.
I thought it was about time to actually share a recipe on here. After picking up an absolute killer deal on pork tenderloins at Safeway the other day (seriously, I think it worked out to about $3 each in a pack of 5) we’ll be burning through some pig.
Tenderloin is of course a very tender (hence the name) and easy to cut to cook. It’s also very lean. Doesn’t have a ton of natural flavour, we’ll get to that. Having gone through my ‘usual’ pork tenderloin recipe a few days back, I decided to shake it up and try something different and this one I found on the Kraft site was a definite winner.
A few substitutions on my end. We used ‘regular’ parmesan cheese to finish before serving. Didn’t feel like buying a bottle of ‘shredded’ for one recipe.
I also substituted regular mustard for dijon (personal preference) and fusilli pasta instead of rotini (again, we had fusilli pasta on hand and curly pasta is curly pasta). I made more pasta then they recommended. I like pasta and it lets you stretch this a bit more.
This one worked out great. Thumbs up from all the family, even “the picky kid” who really only asked if I could make it without spinach next time. No. I can’t. Spinach totally finishes this. It feels like you’re putting a whole salad bar into the pot, but MAN that stuff will shrivel down when it finally catches the heat and starts to wilt.
This is a very soft taste on the palate and will definitely be going into our tenderloin rotation. If anything, as mentioned above, the tenderloin could stand a bit of seasoning prior to going into the pot to kick it up a bit. With the mustard/pepper/spinach already in the dish…hmm…I think I’d go for a bit of garlic and curry powder. I’ve got this recipe bookmarked so I’ll try that out in the future and document the results.
Budget:
Tenderloin (on-sale) ~ $3
Spinach (uses most of a bag) ~3
Chicken broth ~$1.50
Cream cheese ~$1
Breaking it all down, even if you don’t get a sweet deal on the protein, you’re looking at about $10. This fed our family of 5 and had a little bit left over for my Wife to take to work as leftovers. Again, add some more pasta if you want to stretch this a bit. It’s a very liquidy sauce and having some extra surface area to soak it up doesn’t hurt one bit either.
-g
Dad's Turn To Cook 