Saturday, October 3, 2009

foil packets: a love story

The other night when I posted my apples-in-foil dessert, I got a lot of ooohs and aahs. I was flattered, but honestly?

Foil is the lazy cook’s best friend! You don’t need to get out any pots and pans, the oven does the work for you and it’s pretty error proof in terms of preventing things drying out. Best of all? NO CLEANUP!

Tonight’s dinner was all about the foil.

First in the oven went:

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Yukon golds, diced up, with salt and pepper, rosemary, and olive oil (should’ve added both more rosemary and oil!)

Into a 375 oven.

Also:

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Apple slices, honey-mustard pork tenderloin! I added the apple slices (1/2 a big apple) at the same time as the potato packet. Then I took them out after 20 minutes and topped them pork tenderloin medallions that I whacked down flat (put between Cling wrap, hit repeatedly with heavy pot- SO FUN!) and seasoned with salt and pepper, mustard, and honey (I also poured on top of the pork the juices that had already started to drip from the apples!)

Baked for another 20 minutes or so (I unwrapped the potatoes once I added the pork so they could get some color on them).

Then the potatoes still weren’t done to my liking, and I wanted the pork to brown up on top, so I turned on the broiler and finished everyone off for a few minutes (the taters got a few minutes in the micro to finish cooking in the center).

SO GOOD! SO EASY!

My annoyingly beige but quite delicious plate:

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Pork and apple closeups:

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Great loves of mine. Apples (this I’ve already discussed- they are their own food group, come autumn. Sweet apples, savory apples, crisp apples, soft apples, cold apples, hot apples). Also pork- it’s so lean! This tenderloin was 110 calories/4 ounces! That’s like chicken breast! And it has FLAAAAAAAAAVA!

The pork fat drips so nicely onto the apples :D

Taters:

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So yummy. So CHEAP! And potatoes are high in potassium and other nutrients, and are only unhealthy if you ABUSE them. These Yukon Golds in particular are so good you really barely have to do anything to them!

4 comments:

Lindsay said...

Yum! I love cooking in foil, it makes cleanup so much easier!

Julia said...

I really like cooking in foil too, it's so easy! You can also do it on the BBQ in the summer (have to wait till next year...).
My favourites are fish in foil and summer fruits in foil. Mmm...now I'm hungry;)

xxx Julia (Taste of Living)

Lynne said...

I've known about the concept of foil packet cooking, but have never actually done it. Maybe it's time to give it a try.

fittingbackin said...

hehe I had a "beige" plate last night, too! How long did you cook those potatoes?! Yummy!!