Welcome to Tarnation!

I hope that you enjoy getting Lost in Tarnation with me and joining me as I renovate, paint, parent, cook and more. I love to hear all of your comments. Don't forget to Follow me to keep up to date on all of the projects happening here in Tarnation.


Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Get Porked: Cranberry Pork

I fully intended on showing off the gorgeous crystal chandelier in my daughters bedroom tonight, but I got home late, and then I cooked dinner and then time just got away and I didn't get a chance to get a picture before she went to bed. I thought that I had some already, which I do, but after I looked at them I realized that they were obviously taken on a cell phone and wouldn't show off anything. So I promise to show you tomorrow what I did with the ugly brass chandelier from my formal dining room.

Tonight, I want to share one of my current favorite recipes.

This is one of those recipes where the first time that I was going to make it, I read the instructions from allrecipes and just couldn't believe that it was possible for this to taste good. Buuuut shoooo' 'nuff... it does.


Cranberry Pork

I make everyone I know cook this. From my co-workers to my sister, to the gal at the grocery store Starbucks (true story), everyone hears about this Cranberry Pork. The original recipe called for it to be made in the crock pot, but I rarely listen to directions and wasn't about to start with this pork. Well, to be honest, I just am lazy and didn't get it started in time. What's a slacker supposed to do when she doesn't remember to throw ingredients into the crockpot??

She throws them into the oven.

I have since made it in the crockpot and it was awful. My beloved sauce was so watered down and unrecognizable that I made more in the oven because it just wouldn't have been the same without it. I also have shredded up the pork for pulled pork  sandwiches with the leftovers and can't tell you how much I love it

Tonight, I had the largest pork loin in the world sitting in my kitchen because it was on sale, and I'm not the type of girl to walk away from a sale. I cut it in half and would have cooked it in a log if I hadn't of been a lazy procrastinator who didn't give it enough time to cook. So to try and speed things up, I cut it up into individual chops. Honestly, I'll stick with cooking it up in a log next time. I think that it makes the meat more tender. And it  ilets the sauce get thicker because it has more room in the dish. So I guess you could just get a bigger dish, that would work too :)
















Right before I dumped almost half of the French Dressing into a bowl, I remembered that I already had 1/2 of an open bottle in the fridge. So I used that. It was not Walmart brand.
























So dump about half of the French Salad Dressing and the Jellied Sauce into a bowl. Trust me. Shhhh... I know, I know. It doesn't sound good. Trust me. I like to use a potato masher to mix it all together and if I have red onions, I'll throw half of a small red onion into the mix.

 
Once you have your sauce all mixed up, it should look like this:
 
If you're keeping your pork loin in a log, just plop it into a cooking dish and put this sauce surrounding it. You don't want to put the sauce on top of the meat because that will take longer to cook. I had a harder time when I cut the meat up into smaller pieces because I just didn't have that much room. I cook it uncovered on 350 for an hour. After about 50 minutes, I'll pull it out and see how my meat is looking. If it's done, I'll grab some of the sauce from the sides and put it on top of the meat. This makes the most amazing BBQ sauce. It's just perfection. Seriously. After I've put the sauce on top, I'll let it cook for about another 10 minutes just to firm the sauce up a little bit. 

Tonight, I had hungry kids and couldn't do that so the sauce wasn't as thick as I like it. I could blame the wine, but I completey forgot to take a picture of the finished dish. Instead I can only show you the small piece of meat that was left over after my husband and kids got a hold of it. 















Cook this. The pork is so moist and just scrumptious. But the sauce. Ooooh the sauce. I always have too much and I can't ever bear to just toss it. It's just that good.

Cranberry Pork
  • Pork Loin
  • 1/2 red onion(diced)
  • 1 can jellied cranberry sauce
  • 1/2 container French Salad Dressing 
  1. Put Pork Loin in center of baking dish
  2. In side bowl, drop jellied log of cranberry, 1/2 French Salad Dressing and 1/2 red onion and mix up with a potato masher. Once all mixed together, place on either side of your meat in the baking dish. 
  3. Cook 50 minutes uncovered at 350. Check meat and if it looks like it's done, pull it out and put some of the sauce on top to further thicken the sauce. 
  4. Serve and enjoy!!!

 Sidenote: If you look at the picture showing the cranberry can and French Dressing bottle, you can see the new green granite tile counter-top that Kevan is in the process of installing. My beloved husband is so excited that I've asked him to learn how to install granite counter-tops. Because once he learned how to lay hardwood floors, seriously, what can't he tackle. Also, the back-splash showing in that picture is the old one. The new tumbled travertine is going up section by section and is just gorgeous. /sidenote

3 comments:

Erika Mills said...

I think I needed this 2 days ago - We made the worst pork loin - eva. I know, how do you mess up a pork loin? Oh my family is so gracious :)
Seriously, we all need real tested recipes! Keep 'em comin'!

Unknown said...

I made this Saturday for dinner, with mashed potatoes and apples dumplings. It was delicious!

Unknown said...

I made this Saturday for dinner, with mashed potatoes and apples dumplings. It was delicious!

Related Posts with Thumbnails