Good Eats: Cajun Roasted Pork Tenderloin & Veggies

Confession: I adore love pork.  I love pork BBQ, I love grilled pork, I love tenderloin seasoned with every last spice you can possibly imagine.  I don't like that pork can be rather fatty (and salty). 

but I love pork tenderloin- lower in fat, and I buy ours unseasoned so I can flavor it just how I want it (and cut out some of that salt that many pre-marinated pork tenderloins have in them).

Now this recipe takes around 30 minutes of prepping and 2-2.5 hours of cook time, so I definitely recommend this as a weekend treat rather than a quick & easy weeknight meal.  Nonetheless, it was sensational :).  Now I tweaked this recipe from this one.  I added a little more butter, used a smaller amount of pork, more seasoning, no celery (boo celery), and less potatoes. 

Ingredients

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter

1/2 tsp red pepper flake

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp mustard

2 cloves garlic, minced

Dash of creole seasoning

1.5-2 lbs pork tenderloin

2 large carrots, sliced

1 red bell pepper, sliced

1/2 cup white onion, chopped

4-6 red potatoes (depending on size), sliced

olive oil

salt & pepper, to taste

Preparation:

I prepped everything early in the day and let the dish sit in the fridge! This made for an easy dinner cooking when we got around to being ready for dinner!

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. 

2. In a large skillet, melt butter, red pepper flake, oregano, thyme, mustard, and garlic.  Stir and cook for 2 minutes to allow the flavors of the garlic to seep into the butter sauce.

3. In a foil-lined 9 x 13 baking dish, place pork tenderloin in center.  Cut slits in tenderloin, about 1.5- 2inches apart and a depth of 1 inch.

4. Drizzle the cajun butter sauce over the pork tenderloin.

5. Arrange carrots, red bell pepper, onion, and red potatoes around the pork.

6. Drizzle olive oil over entire dish.  Add salt & pepper

7. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 300 degrees for 2 hours.

Pre-baking.  I am slightly neurotic and like to have my veggies somewhat organized, but I'm sure you could just place all the veggies together around the pork and it would taste the same.

I'll confess... I started smelling this dish around 45 minutes after it started cooking and I was famished. Alas, I had to wait an additional hour and 15 minutes before I could dig in!

 Now, this dish definitely has a little kick to it- so if you do not like spicy things, I'd steer clear of this one.  The flavors combine together deliciously, and while I do not like orange foods carrots, I'll admit that I can tolerate these carrots due to all the seasonings included!

This served us both heaping mound-fuls for dinner, and gave us enough leftovers for another 2 dinners, or 4 lunch-sized portions.

Delicious!

Happy Nom-ing, Ya'll