I have a confession.
Pork loin scares me.
Yeah, I love to order and eat it but making it is a completely different ballgame and I’ve shyed away from it for years. I’ve seen so many recipes out there that not only sound and look amazing but give you enough to eat throughout the whole week. Since I’m a huge fan of cooking in bulk, I often have asked myself why haven’t I tried to cook a pork loin before? Basically you just have to marinade in a dry or wet sauce and can choose to stuff it with herbs, cheese and veggies if your heart desires. I saw pork loin was on sale this past week at the store and took that as a sign from the gods that it was finally time to face my fears. After all, I can’t let a food and the process of cooking it intimidate me and keep me from creating something great, right?
Frugality reasons aside, I choose to go with a smaller sized pork loin because what if it turned out horrible? I didn’t want $12 to go down the drain. I laid out the loin (if you haven’t noticed, I kinda dig saying typing “the loin” something about it sounds so wrong) and wrapped in plastic wrap then brought a mullet to the party.
When it was just thin enough, I laid out a cup of cooked mushrooms on the loin then rolled over.
I folded the loin over in half and tied with kitchen string. I honestly had no clue how to fold it and make it stay so after a long consultation with Google, string it was!
Then things started to get really dirty thanks to this Island Teriyaki. I didn’t have a set direction of the flavor that I wanted with it besides the mushrooms and garlic and felt like a wet marinade would be it’s best and make it even juicier. Want to feel dirty? Rub a pork loin for a good three minutes with said sauce and mission accomplished.
50 minutes later of cooking in the oven at 400 degrees, the loin was ready! I wasn’t sure how cooked it would be inside but did some research and 150 degrees seemed to be a safe bet. I got out the meat thermometer and it was 149 degrees which was good enough for me! It turned out beautifully and decided to keep the Hawaiian theme flowing with fresh pineapples thrown into the brown rice and green onions on top
The best part? Loin for the week!
When it comes to preparing food, are there any that intimidate you?
Keep your eyes peeled for when pork loin goes on sale. I usually get a 1lb pork loin for less then $6. and it will feed me for 4 days.
Plus, its so good when is perfectly cooked!
THE LOIN.
It doesn’t scare me- I just suck at cooking it. Mine always come out dry and flavor-less. The only sure-fire recipes I have are either just throwing it in a crock pot all day (and then adding bbq sauce later) or roasting it with cranberries, apples, salt and pepper (which is awesome). Greg and I both LOVE pork, but never cook it at home. I know that once we brined it and it was great. We actually had pork as the meat dish at our wedding- and it was AmAhhhhhZing.
Loin totally scared me until my friend walked me through a step by step. She made me feel like an idiot in the process, but I had some solid BBQ loin after it was all over…
I hope you get fun google search terms because of this. PS- I need to email you back again and will soooooonnnn I just haven’t been at my desk/laptop for more than a half hour at a time it seems! xoxo
That looks soooo yummy! Baking scares me. It’s too specific, and I’m the type who likes to throw things in as I go.
Also, that Rogue Maple Bacon beer. I saw it up at a liquor store in Thornton this weekend. That must mean someone else has to have it? It’s a bigggg pink bottle with a top hat wearing skeleton hahaha.
I used to be scared of pork loin til I made it! Not so bad. Whole fish scare me–I always have the bones removed at the fish market.
Oooh, summery loins! (kinda like that word too… loin… btw “loin” occured 12 times in that post! gotta love the loin)
Loin scares me. I’ve never made it. And meringues scare me too, although they shouldn’t maybe be classified as food.
Pork loin scares me too. Until I found out how easy it was to make a fancy meal in no time. I make a balsamic & olive oil roasted one with rosemary & it always looks impressive but takes almost no prep. Love that. Your dish looks great!! I’ll definitely be testing that puppy out. Thanks Tiff!
Anything that requires kitchen string or trussing or anything of that nature tends to make me nervous. This looks way easy though and delish!