Last night for dinner I cooked pork. From a recipe! I know, right? Shannon, using a recipe? What's wrong? Well, you see, I don't often use recipes, and as a result, all of my food tastes the same. I use the same ingredients, same combinations of flavors, just change out the meat or color of wine...
So I made "Pan Seared Pork Medallions in Mustard Herb Sauce" from my The essential California Cookbook. The pork in the dish is actually a tenderloin roast. You know those long, thin log looking things? Yeah those. Only cut it into 2" slices and sear those. And let me tell you; it was so tender and delicious!
The recipe was basically a take on one of our family favorites Chicken Dijonaise, only substitute pork for chicken, leeks in place of onions, and whole grain mustard for the dijon. It was like a fancy-pants version of our chicken dish. For the pork recipe, the medallions were braised in butter with salt and white pepper, then set aside. Cook up leeks in the butter, add in chicken stock and white wine, creme fraiche, and mustard. Creme fraiche was $5.69 for an 8 oz. container, whereas 1/2 & 1/2 is, well, a lot less expensive. But the leeks were delicious and so much prettier in the pan than onions are. Leeks retain their green color, seared in hot butter with pork drippings. Beautiful.
So in the end, the dish was really tasty, but I would probably make it substituting 1/2 & 1/2 for the creme fraiche in the future. Just too fancy-pants for me.
I know exactly what you mean about all of your food tasting the same. I really am trying to get back in the habit of cooking from a recipe, too. At least until I have them down pat. Especially cooking meat for only one person, we make a lot of meals out of side dishes, otherwise it's just too much food! I'll have to steal this recipe, though. The leeks in the store here are looking really good and I've been wondering what I could make out of them. Now I know! Thanks for the tidbit!
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