A gourmet dinner for all to enjoy!

So I haven't made dinner lately. I haven't made anything for my family for dinner since Thursday. Today is Wednesday. Wow. But lest you think I have starved my children just know that we have either eaten out (at Wingers, yum) or been at a family BBQ, or Sunday Dinner or at my mom's house for Tacos, or at a Birthday party every night since then. It has been a nice break. And tonight my husband won't be home and I have to be to a youth activity where once again we are having a BBQ. So, here is what my kids get.

Lovely isn't it?

And guess what. No one will complain, everyone will eat without being bribed, yelled at or forced to sit in a chair for an unbelievably long time.

Yeah sometimes I wonder why I even go to the trouble to cook. When Ragu and Spaghetti from my food storage is what they really want. But then I remember that I really like to eat, like really like to eat. It is pretty much a hobby. So after tonight I am going to get back to my
"menu planning,cooking food no one wants to taste,dumping food down the disposal, all around family fun!" Woo hoo!

Until then, here is desert.

I really should get to the grocery store.

Cinnamon Apple, Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin (sorry, that is the best name I could come up with)

So I like watching The Next Food Network Star, because well, I am a nerd. And sadly, I am teaching my five-year-old to be a nerd too cause she likes to watch it with me. Anyway,I got this idea from an episode where one of the contestants wrapped pork tenderloin in prosciutto.

Mmmmm it looked very tasty. But, I have never seen prosciutto at my local grocery store and I probably couldn't’t afford it anyway. So, I just made my own little somewhat healthier version of wrapped pork tenderloin. I combined the recipe from the show that I watched with this recipe
And here is what I came up with….

Cinnamon Apple, Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin (I have no idea what to call it)


1 Pork Tenderloin (1lb.)
2 Apples, peeled, cored and sliced (I just used what I could find in the fridge)
¼ cup Craisins
1 tsp. Cinnamon
¼ Cup Brown Sugar (more if you like it sweeter)
½ Cup Water
Turkey Bacon (I used 8 slices from the package)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the brown sugar, craisins and cinnamon together. In a 13x9 baking dish lay pork tenderloin down and then wrap the bacon strips around it (you might need to use toothpicks to get it to stay or just tuck the ends underneath the pork loin). Next take your apple slices and lay them around the pork or on it or just put them in the pan however you want. Pour the water in and then sprinkle the Cinnamon, brown sugar, craisin mix over the pork. Cover the dish and bake for about 30 minutes (depending on how many pounds of pork you have) then uncover it and spoon some of the juices over the pork and then cook it another 10-15 minutes until it reaches 160 degrees. Let it rest for 15 minutes. Then just slice it up and serve.
It was sweet and tender and very yummy.

Family Review
Me: Mmmmm, and I loved the apples and craisins too.
Husband: The meat is good, the apples taste like cobbler. (He acted like that was a bad thing, me, I’ll eat anything that tastes like apple cobbler.)
Five-year-old: First of all when she was eating I said, “what should we call this recipe?” she said “not good pork”. So I asked "don’t you like it?" and she said “a little bit”. So apparently she should have called it “a little bit good pork”.
1-year-Old: Ate some threw some on the floor, ate some threw some on the floor. Then when she was done and I set her on the floor to crawl around she found the pieces she threw on the floor and you can guess what she did....yep she ate them.

Nutrition Info:
269 Calories
5.5 g Fat
2 g. Fiber
25 g. Protein

This is a picture of my husband's plate. Can you tell he is not a fan of side dishes (or cobbler for that matter.)

It's not just for food around here....

I recently bought a food scale . I had never used a food scale before but sometimes when I watch cooking shows and they have cool gadgets, I start to believe that if I had that cool gadget my food might start to taste like theirs. So I bought one, so far my food still tastes like I cooked it but I have hope.

But anyway, food scales can be fun. I like to measure my pasta because I always seem to cook way too much or not enough. Now I just look at the servings size on the pasta box and measure out the appropriate ounces for the number of servings I need. It is handy. When I buy ground beef in bulk I used it to divide the beef into 1 lb. portions so I can just freeze those for later recipes. My food scale has been one gadget that actually gets used a couple times a week. (Can't say the same for the Smoothie Maker that I thought was so cool.) I can even use it to weigh boxes or letters for postage.

I also randomly weigh things around my house just for fun because I am strange, I think. If you wanted to know, my diaper bag weighs 2 lbs. 10 oz. Also the pork chop I ate for dinner weighs 1.8 oz., my sunglasses weigh 1 oz exactly and my five-year old she weighs....just kidding I didn't weigh my five-year-old, that would be weird, besides she is too big. But my 1-year-old.....
Oops, guess she is too big too. Hope my food scale still works.