Sunday Dinner - 27 July 2008

I can't tell you how hard it's getting to be finding fresh ideas for my Sunday dinner series. It is getting real hard this summer because I have vowed not to repeat any meals on Sunday and all meals must be grilled. If anybody out there has any ideas I'm listening.

When I was home in early June someone asked me if I was (it was Mountain Man) grilling all these meals so I could put them on my blog. I can honestly say no I haven't been because I would have done most of them anyway even if nobody was paying attention. But with this weeks meal I will admit when I saw it my first reaction was "Boy that meal will look really good in pictures." So with that being said I will admit this is the first meal I cooked because of this blog and to also keep things fresh and looking good.

My goal is after people look at the pictures they are hungry enough to ask for the recipe. Another goal of mine is to get everybody using their grill more, their charcoal grill more. But I will settle for people using their gas grills too. Any meal I post on here is not difficult to do, believe me if I can do it everybody else out there can too. If you have a question about cooking one of these meals please ask. Don't do like I did and learn everything from trial and error and believe me I have had my share of errors. I will be the first to admit I don't know everything there is to know about grilling but I have come a long ways in the last 7 to 8 years since I started. I have learned a lot in the last year and my successes are starting to far outnumber the failures. If you have a question please ask and if you want a recipe please ask because I have no problem sharing with others. Ok I will share everything other than the bbq sauce recipe which I am still working on anyway.

Now that I got all that crap out of the way let's get busy. Here is this weeks Sunday dinner................


This is such an easy meal, Pork tenderloin wrapped in apple smoked bacon (not that silly soy stuff)with stewed white beans.

Let's start with the stewed white beans. Here is the cast of characters for this side dish................


Before we can get started you know what we must do first? If you said "FIRE UP THE GRILL" you would be right. Because this recipe calls for grilled tomatoes. Once the tomatoes are gilled everything goes into the pot on the stove and cooks for 15 to 20 minutes. Once cooked add fresh basil to it just before serving. If you like bean soup you will like this. It kind of reminds me of bean soup with the fresh basil taste.

Let's be serious we are not here today to talk about stewed white beans. Oh no, we are here to talk about grilled pork tenderloin. Let's get on with it.

The cast of characters with an academy award nomination to the main character the pork tenderloin.....


The first thing we need to do is toast the fennel seeds over low heat....


Once toasted the fennel seeds get crushed and combined with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.....


After this cut up the pork tenderloin and wrap with bacon, stick it with a tooth pick to keep it all together. Another idea would be to put the pork on skewers. Once I had them wrapped in bacon I dusted them with the spice mixture.....


Now it is time for the most important thing I have learned this summer when it comes to grilling, or even cooking indoors, meat let the meat sit out for 20 to 30 minutes before grilling and come up to room temperature. Why? Because by doing this the inside of the meat will get to the desired temperature of doneness without burning the outside.

Ok enough BS lets get these beauties on the gill...


I used a little apple wood this week, don't you just love to see the smoke coming out of the grill? Ahhhh, it smells so good....


Once these academy award nominated beauties are done, remember 147 degrees internal temperature, this is what they look like...........


And again here is what it looks like on the plate..........


Oh so good, let's give it a 4.75 forks out of 5. It will be 5 forks next time because I won't use near as much salt as the original recipe calls for. I can't begin to tell you how good these were. I urge you give this a try but please use real bacon and if you can find it use apple smoked bacon and then grill them with a little apple wood too.

And this is why the academy award winner for this years best character in a Sunday dinner episode is ....................Pork Tenderloin with apple smoked bacon........


Thank you, thank you all. I owe this to that pig in Iowa that gave his life so that I could be here tonight.............blah, blah, blah.......