Smoky Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Mango Salsa

Smoky Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Mango Salsa

Everyone else in my city seemed to be at our local Hot dog Festival today. I was not. I have been twice, but since I can't eat gluten the thought of throwing away a ton of hot dog buns isn't appealing. In addition the last time we went I was pregnant with my youngest and they wanted to charge me 10 dollars for a lemonade. We live in one of the poorest areas of the US, 10 dollars seems like a lot of money given that minimum wage is under 8 dollars an hour. Instead I took my boys to the library to enter their raffle tickets for the summer reading program and then when second hand store shopping. I love going thrifting. I grew up with a super frugal mother that made everything from scratch and stretched money better than anyone that I know. I try to be the same way. Right now we need a new desk for our dining room/home office area. I refuse to buy a desk that comes in a box, that I will have to put together and then will commence to fall apart in two years. Instead I am going to look for a desk that needs a little TLC and then redo it. I love redoing old furniture. I stained our dining room table this summer and it looks so much better. Today was a bust, but I might try the flea market tomorrow. Last week was a laid back food week. I haven't been motivated to be in the kitchen for a long amount of time so I have been trying recipes that takes less than an hour start to finish. I tried a new recipe for Smoky Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Mango Salsa from Family Circle magazine.

Heirloom Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 45 minutes of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I made a number of changes to the original recipe. First I made two tenderloins since with three males in my house one just wouldn't be enough. I tried cooking the two tenderloins in the oven and they just didn't want to completely temp in the oven, so I pulled them out and finished in a pan on the stove. Honestly for tenderloin I prefer grilling or pan cooking. Over cooked pork can be tough and the oven method is hard to get to temp evenly. The recipes states to let the pork cook until 145 degrees. With a 10 minute rest this is over done. Meat does not stop cooking once it's pulled out of the oven. It will continue to cook when it is resting, normally 5-10 degrees. I pull my pork out at 135 and it always hits temp after the rest period. Obviously it is up to you with what you feel comfortable feeding your family, but I prefer my pork to still be tender.

Garden Strawberries

The pork in this recipe was delicious. The salsa was great also, but I was unimpressed with the mashed sweet potatoes suggested for a side. It was just too sweet and I didn't like the orange flavor. A regular baked potato would be a better side dish or a baked sweet potato if you prefer. As a side note I have decided to start including more photos in my post so there isn't 3 paragraphs with no visual break. I know that I can get bored with too many words, so I am going to make an attempt to show a little bit of my life outside of the kitchen. Today it's photos of my garden, but in the future it will be a variety of scenes from my city and life. Hopefully that will be a little easier to read and give my readers a glimpse into West Virginia life.

For the recipe go to Smoky Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple Mango Salsa. (registration required)