Cleaning out the Fridge (again, with more success)

Sometimes in the middle of the week I just stare into the fridge and think "what am I going to eat out this hodgepodge?" It's like I'm on a one-man, unjudged version of Chopped on Food Network.

I had a pork tenderloin thawed in the fridge, so I knew that was going to be the centerpiece, but my creativity tank was a little low. I decided to brush it with olive oil to minimize the charring and infuse moisture when I put it in the oven. After thinking of some lame sauce ideas, I decided to just rub the whole 1 pound pork loin with one of my favorite seasonings, Luzianne's Cajun Seasoning. It's a nice blend of paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic, and salt.

I roasted this at 400 degrees for 1 hour. At the end of that hour, I took it out of the oven and let in rest covered in the baking dish for 20 minutes while I continued working on the side dishes.

I had a box of lentil rice pilaf, but it said it was going to take 40 minutes to cook and I didn't feel like waiting that long. So I got some plain white rice and started that going on the stove. I went back to the fridge and saw some pureed tomato sauce that I had left over and wanted to get rid of. It was just a little too harsh of a bite, though, to put into the rice by itself. Went with a nutty, robust theme by adding a few shakes of and crushing some pecans I wanted to get rid of into the boiling rice. The tomato sauce had an interesting reaction once added -- it turned the rice a burgundy-brown. The rice absorbed the water and tomato sauce nicely and this turned out well.

I cracked a can of green beans and heated them on the stove, but I wanted to augment them too. I thought some crumbled blue cheese (also something I wanted to move out of the fridge) melted on top would be tasty. That prognostication came true.

I bias-cut the pork tenderloin and plated it with the rice and green beans. The tenderloin was cooked perfectly and had plenty of spice and flavor. Not bad for having no idea what I was going to make at 5 pm when I walked in the door. The judges on Chopped would have been proud.

Emptying out the Fridge

I hate throwing food away so on Friday night we pretty much emptied out the fridge on to the countertop to see what we could make. DB~ had to do work on Friday night, so we were eating at home, but I didn't have anything specific in mind.

I knew I wanted to make a pork tenderloin, but wasn't sure what to do with. I had some risotto, but didn't have a good vegetable to toss into it for flavoring. But what I did have was some Kit Kat candy bars, some fresh-frozen blueberries from my neighbor's blueberry bush, and a hankering to incorporate some maple syrup somehow.

What I came up with was a blueberry maple syrup sauce to put over top of a roasted pork tenderloin. First I rolled the tenderloin around in a brown sugar-water mix and then quick seared it in a skillet. I placed it into a baking dish and baked it for 45 minutes.

While that was going, DB~ was in charge of the risotto. She pretty much stared a hole through the saucepan as she concentrated intently on the stirring and preparation of the risotto. We chopped a little red onion to put in it and some Italian seasoning like oregano and garlic salt. I then took the Kit Kat and grated them finely to get the chocolate, but stopped when I heard the wafers start to scrape. DB~ mixed that it right at the end and said, "This looks like Count Chocula cereal."

We started to look up California Pizza Kitchen's menu online. Just in case.

Right before the tenderloin was due to come out, I pureed the blueberries and mixed in some maple syrup. It ended up being a little too pancake-on-Sunday tasting for our liking, but it was still good over the tenderloin. The risotto was very good as well, even if it looked a little strange.

We didn't have to pull the ripcord and go to CPK and we (I) got to empty out the fridge ahead of a new trip to Giant Eagle. Good times all around.