Showing posts with label healthy dinner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy dinner. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

All Natural Pork Tenderloin Roast

Pork tenderloin. My favorite type of cut. Lean. Tender. Juicy. Can I tell you that I have a long lasting love affair with it? It gives me all the juice I need. LOL! I serve it at least once a week and prepare it in different ways. But my most favorite way is roasting it. It saves me time in the kitchen to prepare other meals while it's roasting in the oven. And the secret to a juicy roast is to pan sear the outside first and let it roast in the oven until it reaches the desired internal temperature. Pink. Medium. Well Done. I love mine cooked Medium. IMG_8022

The roast above is about 2 and half pounds, which I rubbed with salt, pepper, garlic powder, herbes de provence, rosemary and dijon mustard (it makes a difference to the flavor!!!). I let it marinade for half an hour or overnight if you have time.

Preheat oven in 375 degrees. Heat olive oil in dutch oven and pan sear pork and let it brown on each side. Put the dutch oven with the tenderloin and let it roast for about half an hour. Usually they say that the time to roast the pork tenderloin depends on the weight. But I generally just stick my meat thermometer on the pork and take it out once it reaches  165 (this is cooked medium). 

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I had all kinds of vegetables in the fridge and pantry but all I kept thinking was to combine artichoke, garbanzo and string beans together. A combination one would think will not work. I was a bit surprise that the flavors just blended together. Suffice to say, it turned out to be delicious.  When my pork was done, I took it out and put on the cutting board and let it rest for ten minutes. I used the oil from the dutch oven to saute shallots and added the string beans, garbanzo, and chopped artichokes. I added a little bit of white wine vinegar and some dijon mustard. Seasoned a little bit with salt and pepper.

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This whole dinner took less than 40 minutes to cook. Healthy and delicious!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Not Your Ordinary Chicken Kabobs

It's not ordinary because it's home made. HAHA! We all know that in most kabobs recipe, yogurt is usually the number ingredient on the list.  What sets my kabob apart for your typical kabob recipe is that it doesn't use yogurt at all and it still came out great. My secret? Cottage and Feta Cheese!

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I use chopsticks as my bamboo skewers.

 Contessa's Chicken Kabobs
3 all natural chicken breast
one cup fat free cottage cheese
one half cup fat free feta cheese
salt
pepper
paprika
garlic powder
dried oregano
dried thyme
dried rosemary
turmeric
ground cumin
lemon juice

Soak your bamboo skewers in water for half an hour (I used chopsticks).  Cut chicken breast into cubes. Season with salt and pepper. In a big bowl, combine all ingredients together (just eyeball the herbs please). Mix in the chicken with your marinade and put in a ziploc and let it sit for a few hours or over night to get more flavor.  I used my panini grill as I don't have an outdoor grill and I didn't want to use my broiler. It came out perfect.

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Served on a bed of spinach and lettuce salad.
 



















I served mine with salad, while B had his with pita bread. I'm sure it's just as good with rice:-).  Tasty and healthy!

Have a great Wednesday.
Bisous, Contessa