Pork Tenderloin with Apples

My dad, brother, and I cooked pork tenderloin with apples for Christmas Eve dinner last night. We marinated the tenderloins in salt, pepper, and olive oil. First, we browned and seared them in a wok. While that was going on, I made the glaze which consisted of dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and sugar. I honestly don't know what my measurements were. I just kept adding stuff until it tasted well balanced. After the tenderloins were finished being seared, we poured the glaze over them and stuck them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. While that was being done, we cooked chopped green apples in the oil left over from when the pork was being seared and half a stick of butter. While the apples softened up, we then added maybe about half a cup of apple cider, about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and about 2 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream.

After 20 minutes of the pork being in the oven, we weren't sure if it was really cooked through yet but didn't want to cut it open, so we just poured the apple sauce over the pork tenderloins and left them in the oven with it turned off. We figured that by leaving them in the turned off oven, it would still cook a little bit but not too much.

This was a really great Christmas dish. The pork was very lean, and the apples gave the right amount of sweetness and moistness to the dish. I think it turned out great, and it was a nice change from our usual steak dinner on Christmas Eve. When I make this again, I think the only thing I'll do differently is marinate the pork in the mustard/apple cider vinegar/brown sugar/olive oil glaze so that the flavors will come through more in the pork.

Mussels with Bacon and Apples

Bacon and apples together is something I've sort of had a fascination with lately even though I don't really recall eating that combination until, well...today. When I searched for bacon and apples on foodnetwork.com, I came across this recipe. I've never been a Bobby Flay fan, but the recipe sounded good, and I'm fairly confident in cooking mussels since I've done it a number of times before.

Instead of making 1 pound of mussels, I made 4.41lbs to be exact. Costco sells live mussels, and you have to cook all of them while they're live, so I didn't have much of a choice but to cook all 4.41lbs, but that was just enough for my family. I'm not really one for following recipes but rather just use them as a guide.

I ended up using about 12oz of bacon, 4 shallots (however in varying sizes), 2 Fuji apples, and whatever amount seemed appropriate of dry white wine, apple cider, and apple cider vinegar. I bought heavy cream and ended up forgetting to put it in, but that's ok because the mussels were perfectly fine without the cream.

I definitely want to make this again, possibly with the cream and maybe less bacon.