Pork Tenderloin

We only started cooking pork tenderloin just a few years ago. The reason is at least in part due to the fact that I didn't eat meat for about 7 years. When I did start eating meat again, I was very picky and very limited in what meats I was willing to eat and especially picky about what meats I was willing to prepare. We started adding most cuts back into our diet, but it took a good long while for steaks or things like roasts to make it back onto our table.

Now, pork tenderloin is one of my favorite cuts of meat. It's tender, it's lean, it's flavorful and it's easy to bring to the table. Our preferred method of cooking tenderloin is to roast in the oven or better, yet, grill it. This recipe from Cooking Light, however, calls for slicing it, pounding it and then cooking it in a skillet. The rest of this dish is quite simple - it's basically a simple tapenade that is spooned over the cooked pork. Easy!

Pork Tenderloin with Olive-Mustard Tapenade

Overall, I give this recipe a so-so rating. The tapenade was good, but it didn't blow me away - I can't put my finger on it - there was certainly nothing bad about it, it just didn't wow me. We have so many other ways we love to prepare pork that I don't know if this would make it to our regular rotation. Still, if I were ever stuck for a way to prepare pork, this would be a good jumping off place - we usually have all of these ingredients on hand. I also wasn't thrilled with this method of cooking pork. I pounded the sliced tenderloin to about 1/2-inch thick, but as they cooked, the slices shrunk and actually fattened up a bit, making them not quite as tender in the end result. I think I would prefer roasting the tenderloin, then slicing, and then adding the tapenade.

Of course my perception of this dish might have had something to do with the fact that it was 9:00 at night - very, very late for us to be eating dinner. My oldest son had a Tae Kwon Do belt test that kept us out much later than anticipated. By the time dinner got to the table, I really wasn't all that hungry anymore! Which would also have something to do with the blurry photo............