Menu for 03/07/11 - Bacon Wrapped Tenderloin & Garlic Carrot Potatoes (Dude1)

Apparently, I was making this meal for my dogs.  What you are looking at is a delicious bacon wrapped tenderloin moments before my dogs swiped if off of the dining table.  I served the meat with garlic carrot mashed potatoes.  This is actually a super quick and easy meal to throw together.  I liked it because it didn't require me to have remembered to prepare a marinade hours before the meal. 


Tonight's meal was adapted from other bloggers I discovered this week.  Thanks to A Moderate Life for inspiring the pork recipe and to The Purposed Heart for inspiring the potatoes. 

Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin with a Sage Spice Rub

Serves 4 and 2 dogs

Ingredients:

• 4 small to medium pork tenderloins from pastured pigs
• 1 lbs bacon from pastured pigs
• 1 Tbl dried sage
• 1/2 Tbl thyme
• 1/2 Tbl sea salt
• 1/2 Tbl fresh ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Combine the spices and rub your tenderloins... uh the pork tenderloins that is... with a generous coating.  Now wrap the bacon around the tenderloins as shown in the picture. Throw these babies in the oven with a meat thermometer if you have one.  160 should be the target temp.  Again, I ignore the USDA 170 recommendation, because I'm using pork from properly treated pigs and like meat with flavorful juiciness.  These will cook for about 25 minutes.  During the last 5 minutes I turn the broiler on to high.  This will help crisp up the bacon.

Garlic Carrot Mashed Potatoes

Serves 8 (makes good leftovers in my case)

Ingredients:

• 6 organic russet potatoes (I could only find large ones so I think that is why this made so much)
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 3-4 organic carrots
• 1/2 stick pastured butter
• 1 C raw cream
• 1 Tbl dried parsley
• sea salt & fresh ground pepper to taste

Combine the potatoes, garlic, and carrots in a large pot and cover with filtered water.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Cook until you can stick a fork in the potatoes and the fork easily slides out; approximately 25 minutes.  The timing of the potatoes and the pork tenderloin is conveniently about the same so you can easily do these at the same time.  Once the potatoes are done, pour off the excess water.  Add the butter, cream, parsley, salt and pepper. Use a masher (or a hand blender if you like them extra smooth) to mix everything well. 

My family liked this meal a lot.  It's very rich in flavor so I could only eat half a tenderloin.  That's a reasonable amount anyhow and anything more would have been glutinous.  I was just too lazy to cut up the meat before serving.  Slicing the tenderloin into thin medallions before serving would make the bacon less intimidating and a better presentation, in my opinion.  Next time I would also start by adding an extra cup of raw milk to the potatoes.  I like them a bit creamier then these came out, but the garlic carrot flavor was excellent.

Enjoy!