The wonderful Katie, owner of Thyme for Cooking, arranged a unique secret santa event for food bloggers. We e-mailed her our name and address. She paired people up and sent us an e-mail indicating to where and to whom we should mail our treat. We were encouraged to send some local delicacy or ingredient as well as a recipe that would assist the happy recipient in using it.
There you have it, secret santas for the digital age. It was such a blast last year that I decided to participate again.
Katie sent me the name of the person I was to send my local treat too - Linda, author of the blog Iced tea for Me, and I dutifully packed up a box of local treats and sent them off.
It wasn't long before I received a package of my own from Toni who lives in the San Diego area. Her blog is Daily Bread Journal.
Toni had sent off some rosemary and lavender from her garden. She included a lovely note about a wonderful day of hiking she had had back in November and then an amazing pork roast that she made upon returning home from the hike. Of course, the roast used plenty of rosemary and mixed in some fruit to balance out the flavours. This sounded wonderful so I decided to give the recipe a try.
This was an amazing dish - the rosemary paired so well with the fruit to take the flavour to a new level. Thanks so much for sending the herbs AND the recipe Toni!
Dry Brined Pork Tenderloin with Apples and Cranberries
2 pork tenderloins
3 tablespoons coarse kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 large clove of garlic, peeled and minced
1 medium onion, diced
3 cooking apples (I used empires) peeled, cored, and cut into wedges
1/2 cup whole fresh cranberries
1 tsp fresh thyme
4 large sprigs of rosemary
1 small red cabbage, cored and cut into wedges
1 lb small potatoes
3/4 cup apple ciderCombine the salt and sugar to make the dry brine. Rub it all over the pork. Let it sit for about an hour and a half.
Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Melt the butter in the pan. Saute the garlic and onion until translucent. Add the apples, cranberries, and thyme. Cook until the apples are tender.
Arrange the sprigs of rosemary in the bottom of a large roasting pan.
Wash the dry brine off of the pork. Place it over top of the rosemary in the roasting pan. Spoon the fruit mixture over top of the pork. Pour the apple cider over top.
Arrange the potatoes and cabbage around the pork.
Cover and cook at 350 for about 1 hour, or until the pork is done.
Pork with cranberries and red cabbagbe.... with lots of rosemary.... I believe that will be dinner this weekend. Well done! (I found cranberries this year!!!)
Posted by: katie | December 29, 2009 at 01:12 PM