Smoky Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Mango Salsa

Smoky Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Mango Salsa

Everyone else in my city seemed to be at our local Hot dog Festival today. I was not. I have been twice, but since I can't eat gluten the thought of throwing away a ton of hot dog buns isn't appealing. In addition the last time we went I was pregnant with my youngest and they wanted to charge me 10 dollars for a lemonade. We live in one of the poorest areas of the US, 10 dollars seems like a lot of money given that minimum wage is under 8 dollars an hour. Instead I took my boys to the library to enter their raffle tickets for the summer reading program and then when second hand store shopping. I love going thrifting. I grew up with a super frugal mother that made everything from scratch and stretched money better than anyone that I know. I try to be the same way. Right now we need a new desk for our dining room/home office area. I refuse to buy a desk that comes in a box, that I will have to put together and then will commence to fall apart in two years. Instead I am going to look for a desk that needs a little TLC and then redo it. I love redoing old furniture. I stained our dining room table this summer and it looks so much better. Today was a bust, but I might try the flea market tomorrow. Last week was a laid back food week. I haven't been motivated to be in the kitchen for a long amount of time so I have been trying recipes that takes less than an hour start to finish. I tried a new recipe for Smoky Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Mango Salsa from Family Circle magazine.

Heirloom Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 45 minutes of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I made a number of changes to the original recipe. First I made two tenderloins since with three males in my house one just wouldn't be enough. I tried cooking the two tenderloins in the oven and they just didn't want to completely temp in the oven, so I pulled them out and finished in a pan on the stove. Honestly for tenderloin I prefer grilling or pan cooking. Over cooked pork can be tough and the oven method is hard to get to temp evenly. The recipes states to let the pork cook until 145 degrees. With a 10 minute rest this is over done. Meat does not stop cooking once it's pulled out of the oven. It will continue to cook when it is resting, normally 5-10 degrees. I pull my pork out at 135 and it always hits temp after the rest period. Obviously it is up to you with what you feel comfortable feeding your family, but I prefer my pork to still be tender.

Garden Strawberries

The pork in this recipe was delicious. The salsa was great also, but I was unimpressed with the mashed sweet potatoes suggested for a side. It was just too sweet and I didn't like the orange flavor. A regular baked potato would be a better side dish or a baked sweet potato if you prefer. As a side note I have decided to start including more photos in my post so there isn't 3 paragraphs with no visual break. I know that I can get bored with too many words, so I am going to make an attempt to show a little bit of my life outside of the kitchen. Today it's photos of my garden, but in the future it will be a variety of scenes from my city and life. Hopefully that will be a little easier to read and give my readers a glimpse into West Virginia life.

For the recipe go to Smoky Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Mango Salsa. (registration required)

Easy Enchiladas Suizas with Ground Turkey and Zucchini Filing

Enchiladas Suizas with Ground Turkey and Zucchini Filling

Salt is always a battle in my household. My husband and two boys could literally eat it straight from the shaker while I would be fine never salting anything. I know your thinking how can a self proclaimed foodie and food blogger hate salt. I seem to be a little bit of the odd one out. Chefs and foodies love salt. It adds flavor and substance to dishes and many chefs claim that over salting if always better than under salting. I salt all my recipes. I just don't add more than is necessary. Salt is absolutely essential for dishes to taste correctly, but I also believe that most Americans overuse salt, sometimes to an extreme. There is a happy medium where the flavor of dishes come through while keeping my blood pressure nice and low. It's also all about moderation as it should be with all food. If I make a dish high in salt one day I try to compensate and make something low in sodium the next. That way everyone is happy and we will all still live until we're at least 90. This week I tried a new recipe for Enchiladas Suizas from the April 2013 issue of Family Circle magazine.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes 60 minutes of total time, 40 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I did make a few changes to the original recipe. First for the turkey I used 93 percent lean, I substituted non-fat half and half for regular and mild salsa instead of medium since my kids would be eating it. Instead of heating each tortilla individually on the stove, I heated them in two sets in the microwave in between a moist set of paper towels for 40 seconds. I also skipped the step of heating the salsa mixture before adding the cheese, I was in a rush and needed dinner of the table as quickly as possible. Finally make sure to squeeze out the water from the zucchini. The recipe doesn't state this step and it is essential. Place the grated zucchini between paper towels and squeeze. A large amount of water will come out. Without this step the turkey will never brown and your enchiladas will be soggy.

I really like how easy this recipe is to prepare. The spices used in the turkey mixture were delicious and my whole family really liked the filling. I do think that there wasn't enough sauce to fully coat all the enchiladas. I would recommend making a double batch of sauce (you won't need it all you can freeze the extra). If you are a big cheese lover I would also suggest adding slightly more cheese to the top. The magazine picture shows more cheese than would actually be there if you only used 3/4 of a cup like the recipe suggests.

For the recipe go to Enchiladas Suizas (registration required).

Slow-Cooker Tomatillo Pork Stew

Pork is very popular in my house. As I have talked about before my two boys and husband love bacon. If they could eat it everyday, three times a day they would. However, I am not going to let that happen. As a compromise I make pork frequently. One of my favorite cuts of pork is pork shoulder. It is tender and delicious and can be made a variety of different ways. The crock-pot is a great way to cook pork, it is simple and always turns out well. Yesterday I tried a new recipe for Slow-Cooker Tomatillo Pork Stew from the February issue of Family Circle magazine.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes 8 hours and 15 minutes of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store and made no ingredient modifications. Since all the pork shoulder at my store was 6 pounds or more I bought a larger shoulder and cut it down to size. I would recommend increasing the salt or adding additional at the end since it wasn't salty enough as written. I normally serve brown rice to my family, but for this recipe I used basmati and it worked very well. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I was really pleased with how tender this stew turned out. It was flavorful enough for my husband and I without being too spicy for my two boys. If you want the dish to be more spicy use a less mild salsa. I chose to use mild salsa since I was serving it to my two boys. For my serving I used just cilantro, for my kids I served the stew with sour cream and cilantro.

For the recipe go to Tomatillo Pork Stew. (registration required)

Saveur Salsa de Pina Picante (Spicy Fresh Pineapple Salsa)

One of my favorite things about summer is the abundance of inexpensive fruit. I love just about every type of fruit and have passed on these feelings to my two children. My two boys love going to the grocery store and picking out fruits and vegetables for the week and will even ask for things by name. Recently, my five-year-old has been obsessed with pineapples due to one of the movies that he owns. When I was looking through the August issue of Saveur magazine I was pleased to find a recipe for Salsa de Pina Picante (Spicy Fresh Pineapple Salsa), using one of my son's favorite new fruits.

This recipe has 8 ingredients and literally can be prepped in just minutes. All the ingredients were easily found at my local grocery store, and I was happy that the price of pineapples is currently low. I actually had to make this salsa twice, the first one succumbed to a kitchen accident and fell on the floor. I was lucky that I had extra ingredients and I made a second batch. I did make one modification. All the fresh oranges at my local grocery store looked less than stellar this week, so I substituted refrigerated pure orange juice instead. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

If you don't like spicy food, this salsa is not for you. I used relatively large jalapenos and my salsa was spicy to say the least. If your family is not a fan of spicy foods, I suggest seeding at least one of the jalapenos, which will significantly cut down on the heat. I served the salsa with homemade curry tortilla chips (recipe to be posted later in the week) and the combination of the two was delicious. My husband really loved this recipe, he thought the combination of sweet and spicy was great. I liked how easily the recipe was to put together, even if I had to make it twice. My two boys picked around the salsa eating the pineapples, but this was definitely a salsa more for adults. Overall a great spicy-sweet salsa that would go well with a variety of dishes including meats or plain with chips.

For the recipe go to Saveur Salsa de Pina Picante.

Everyday Food Classic Roasted Salsa

My two boys are huge tomato fans. They have been known to take tomatoes out of the fridge and eat them like apples. My husband and I love tomatoes as part of recipes, but aren't big fans of the fruit/vegetable raw. The compromise that I have been able to find that pleases everyone is salsa. I make salsa at least once every couple of weeks and it has become a stable in my household. A recent issue of Everyday Food magazine had a recipe for Classic Roasted Salsa, which looked simple and a perfect way to use tomatoes.

The majority of the work for this recipe is done in the broiler. My kitchen broiler is still broken, so I used my toaster oven. It took me 20 minutes to adequately blister the vegetables, instead of the 8 minutes suggested by the recipe. The remainder of the prep work is done in the food processor. My garlic cloves were on the large side, so my salsa had more garlic than if I had used smaller cloves. I made no other modificiations to the recipe.

This salsa has a nice clean taste. The recipe is on the spicy side, if you want to cut down on the heat the jalapenos could be seeded after roasting. My husband appreciated the spiciness and preferred that the jalapenos were unseeded. This is a great, simple salsa recipe that would be great for a party or a homemade snack.

For the recipe go to Everyday Food Classic Roasted Salsa.

Bon Appetit Tomatillo-Chipotle Salsa

 Between the two growing boys and the two adults in my house, we consume a large amounts of snacks each week. One snack that goes over well with my whole family is salsa and homemade tortilla chips. Instead of following the same recipe repeadidly, I try to look for new flavor combination and ingredients that I haven't  previously tried. The May issue of Bon Appetit magazine had a recipe for Tomatillo-Chipotle Salsa, which looked simple and full of flavor.

With only 5 ingredients (including salt) this recipes is beyond simple to prepare. Almost all of the prep is done in the broiler. Currently, my oven broiler is broken, so I used the broiler on my toaster oven. It took longer than the stated 10-15 minutes for my tomatillos to char, it was closer to 20-25 minutes total. The remainder of the prep work is done in the food processor with a total time of about 45 minutes including the cooling time for the tomatillos. Make sure to adequetely salt after the salsa is completed.

This salsa on the first day lacked salt and tasted a tad bit too much like cilantro. After the salsa had sat overnight it tasted delicious and not too salty and the cilantro was a nice undertone, instead of overpowering. I liked the smokiness provided by the chipotles and the charred tomatillos were delicious. This salsa is quick and easy and after sitting for a day would be great with tortilla chips or as a topping.

For the recipe go to Bon Appetit Tomatillo-Chipotle Salsa

All You Roasted Tomato Salsa

Snacks go quickly in our house, so I am always making more. Lately, my two sons have been obsessed with homemade tortilla chips and I have been looking for dips and salsas to accompany them. I have tried a number of guacamole and salsa recipes, but I am always looking for that can't miss recipe. The June issue of All You magazine had a recipe for roasted tomato salsa that looked different than previous recipes I have attempted and perfect for my snack-oriented family.

My ancient Caloric oven's broiler has been broken for about 4 years, so I roasted the tomatoes, pepper, and jalapenos in batches in my convection toaster oven. It worked great, so the results were the same. The roasting did take longer than the suggested 10 minutes to char the tomatoes, I would say close to 20 minutes, but that might be related to using the toaster oven instead of a standard oven. All the ingredients for this recipe are basic and the plum tomatoes at my local grocery store were cheaper than any other tomato variety available. This salsa recipe does take slightly longer than other salsas, but it makes a very large batch of eight servings and has lasted in our fridge for multiple days.

This recipe has been received well by every member of my house and my in-laws. I like that the flavor of the charred tomatoes make for a nice well rounded salsa. Even my father in-law who shies away from spicy foods enjoyed this salsa recipe. The only thing that received complaints was that my husband wasn't a fan of the cumin, next time I make this recipe I will probably leave this ingredient out.

For the recipe go to All You Roasted Tomato Salsa.

Martha Stewart Living Tomatillo and Chipotle Salsa

I have never been good about remembering to buy condiments and accompaniments for my dishes. Many times I will come home from the supermarket and get groans from my husband because I have forgotten the coleslaw for the hotdogs or the salsa for the tacos. Recently, I have been trying to make things from scratch, but haven't had much luck finding any good salsa recipes. When I received my May issue of Martha Stewart Living I was pleased to find a recipe for tomatillo and chipotle salsa.

If I had known how easy salsa was to make before this recipe, I would never have purchased store bought. With only 4 ingredients, the prep work is next-to-nothing and the total time is far less than the hour suggested. All the ingredients were easily found at my local supermarket, which, much to my delight, recently expanded their fresh produce section and now carries tomatillos. I used frozen chipotle chiles from my freezer leftover from previous recipes and used slightly more than the suggested 4. The resulting salsa was a bit on the spicy side, but made a great topping to the Spicy Shrimp Quesadillas from one of my earlier blog posts.

This recipe was very simple and quick to put together. My husband really enjoyed it, it was too spicy for my children. After following this recipe I will definitely make my own salsa in the future.

Martha Stewart Living does not currently have this recipe on its website, but it can be found in the May 2011 issue of the magazine.