Currently cooking out of Simple Weeknight Favorites from America’s Test Kitchen

Around our house, it’s all chicken, chicken, chicken until I make something like this dish, and I remember how much I like pork tenderloin. Just as easy to prepare as chicken, pork tenderloin is mild and tender and goes good with just about anything. And, most importantly, it makes great leftovers.

You start this dish off by combining freshly squeezed orange juice, orange marmalade and ginger in a small bowl. Part of this mixture is set aside for the pork. The rest of the liquid becomes the basis for the carrot salad. To make the salad you add grated carrots, cilantro, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper and olive oil to the bowl, toss everything together and set it aside so the flavors can meld.

To make the pork tenderloin, first you season two pork tenderloins with salt and pepper and then sear them on the stovetop until browned. Once you’ve got a nice crusty exterior on the meat, the remaining orange juice mixture is added to the skillet and the pork finishes cooking as the liquid reduces and creates a glaze for the meat. To help the meat stay juicy, the tenderloins rest for a few minutes before being sliced and served with the carrot salad.

I really liked the flavors of the orange juice with the pork. As is usual for us, I cut the amount of ginger by at least half (the recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of fresh, grated ginger; I used just over a teaspoon), and the ginger flavor was still pretty strong and a bit spicy. I’m on the fence with the carrot salad. It was a nice change of pace from simply steaming carrots, but it didn’t seem substantial enough next to the pork.

Overall, I really liked the meat (and the leftovers were fabulous). I had the meal on the table in under 45 minutes (peeling and grating the carrots took up a good chunk of time). Instead of using freshly squeezed orange juice, I think you could probably go with commercial juice (it does get cooked down), especially if you aren’t making the carrot salad. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Currently cooking out of Simple Weeknight Favorites from America’s Test Kitchen

As much as I liked these stuffed peppers, I’m not sure they fit in the “simple” category.

First you have to precook the peppers in the microwave until they are tender. While the peppers are cooking, you brown ground pork and sweet Italian sausage, along with onions and garlic. Once the meat is cooked, you combine it with precooked rice or ready rice and grated pepper jack cheese. Then you dry up the bell peppers, stuff them with the pork mixture, sprinkle some more cheese on top, and broil the peppers until the cheese is melted and bubbling. Only after all that do you get to eat.

Actually, it wasn’t that hard to put these peppers together; it just felt like a lot of steps. Fortunately the end result was worth the work. By precooking the peppers, you avoid having crunchy peppers, and you only need to boil them to melt the cheese. Even leftovers reheated well. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that these are not low calorie (I don’t know about you, but when I think of stuffed peppers, I think of dieting). With fatty ground pork, pork sausage and almost a pound of cheese, they are deceptively rich. I think you could use ground turkey here with less sausage and less cheese. But boy, does that pork go well with the peppers.

Currently cooking out of Simple Weeknight Favorites from America’s Test Kitchen

So far, this cookbook is giving it’s sister, The Best Simple Recipe, a run for its money. I haven’t come across a clunker yet, and this recipe was no exception.

The star of the dish is the roasted red pepper sauce, based on the classic Spanish sauce called romesco. You take roasted red peppers (from a jar), sliced almonds, a slice of white bread, water, garlic, olive oil and a bit of cayenne pepper and process them in a food processor until the sauce is smoothish and creamy. The sauce is served over pork chops that have been sauteed on the stovetop. Roasted cauliflower dusted in paprika rounds out the meal.

The red pepper sauce is tangy with just the barest hint of heat from the cayenne pepper. You can taste the almonds and the garlic, but neither flavor overwhelms. This recipe makes a lot of sauce, so I’ve been using it on grilled chicken and to add flavor to rice. This is an easy way to perk up just about anything, I think.

The only thing I didn’t like about the dish was the cauliflower. I didn’t like the paprika, and will continue to roast my cauliflower seasoned simply with salt and pepper.