How to be a rock star in your own kitchen: Part Two

 Welcome to day five of Food Week on Laughing Through the Chaos - click the links below to catch up if you need to!

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday

On making my first "gourmet" meal...

Glaze of Glory Pork Tenderloin

This is a recipe I adapted from Gourmet magazine. The original recipe is by Paul Grimes and it included a fancy shmancy salad and some salad dressing to serve along with the pork. I never cooked that, so I'm omitting it here. I also made a slight modification to the pork tenderloin based on our family's tastes.

The first time I had this was during a girl's night at a friend's house. I bit into this juicy pork and pretty much thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was that good. Seriously? One of THE best things I have ever tasted in my life, and it was SO easy to watch them make (I was in charge of potatoes and dessert).

I decided to brave it on my own when we had some family come and visit us in February from out of state. I don't think I've ever cooked for so many people, so I was a little nervous about it turning out right. They raved about it. They asked for the recipe, and they had seconds.

This seriously tastes like a gourmet meal you would get at a restaurant.

It goes great with the Oven-Crisp Potato Wedges and a side of steamed veggies (my personal favorites to go with this meal are asparagus and broccoli).

Dennis told me this was the best dinner I have ever made. That being said, you definitely need to try this, and I promise - it is SO easy!

Ingredients

For pork:

2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper (I prefer the course ground pepper)
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 pork tenderloins (2 1/4 to 2 1/2 lbs total - Costco has these for a GREAT price!)
2 Tbsp. olive oil

For glaze

1 c. packed dark brown sugar (all I had was light, and it worked just fine)
2 Tbsp. finely chopped garlic (I substituted the jarred, minced garlic)
*Original recipe also listed 1 Tbsp. of Tabasco, but we omitted this ingredient

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350.
-Sit together salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, and cinnamon, then coat pork with spice rub.
-Heat oil in an ovenproof 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until just beginning to smoke, then brown pork, turning, about 4 minutes total. Leave pork in skillet.
-Stir together brown sugar, garlic, and Tabasco (if you choose to add that ingredient) and pat onto top of each tenderloin. Roast in middle of oven until thermometer inserted diagonally in center of each tenderloin registers 140 degrees F, about 20 minutes. Let pork stand in skillet at room temperature 10 minutes (temperature will rise while standing).

NOTE: I did not put my skillet in the oven. I transferred the pork to one of my Pampered Chef stoneware casserole dishes. Also, at 140 degrees, the pork was still pink in the middle, so I went with the recommended internal pork temperature listed right on the meat thermometer, which - I do not presently have in front of me, so I'll just go ahead and let you refer to your own meat thermometer. Or Google. Whatever.