A perfect present for our Iron (deficient) Lady

What birthday present do you get for a stressed out starving actress and her band of equally famished friends? Molly and I decided to give them a meal.

As it was a birthday meal, we went all out. Molly whipped up nine different kinds of filled cupcakes, and I stuffed a tenderloin with so much iron our little anemic actress could forego her Ferro-Sequel for the day. We added what has become our go-to side dish (twice baked potatoes) and a nice salad tossed with extra spinach.

We packed up the goodies and sent them up to our cabin in the woods where the little group relaxed, played guitar and sang around the fireplace, took a morning stroll through the woods and ate every single bite of the meal we prepared.

Meanwhile, back at the house, we ate pizza. Whatever. We’re not bitter.

Here is the tenderloin recipe I adapted from AllRecipes.com.

I’m calling it

Tenderlovincareloin

because I just thought of that and it made me smile.

Here’s the recipe (With many thanks to George R. of Chicago, Illinois):

1 3 lb beef tenderloin (Spring for a good one. There’s no point in going to all this trouble for a hunk of gristle.)

2 cloves garlic smashed

6 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup chopped shallots

1/2 cup pine nuts

2/3 cup oil packed sun-dried tomatoes

1 cup bread crumbs

1/2 cup fresh baby spinach

salt and pepper to taste.

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
  2. Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over a medium heat. Stir in pine nuts, and cook until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon, and drain on paper towels. Place shallots in the skillet. Cook and stir until tender, about 5 minutes. Mix in garlic and sun-dried tomatoes, and cook 2 minutes. Remove skillet from heat, mix in pine nuts, bread crumbs, and spinach. Season with salt and pepper, and set aside to cool.
  3. Slice the tenderloin lengthwise across the top about 2/3 of the way through the meat to create a pocket. Spread stuffing into the pocket. Wrap the tenderloin with kitchen twine to secure the stuffing, and transfer to a roasting pan. (I used a jelly roll pan). Rub the remaining olive oil over the surface of the meat. Season with salt and pepper.
  4. Roast in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue cooking tenderloin 20 minutes.
  5. Cover with tin foil and reluctantly hand over to your oldest daughter and her friends.
Had not planned to photograph this particular project until I got a good glimpse of this beauty.
My mouth waters when I see this picture. Here is the finished product, which we generously wrapped in tin foil and gave away.
This is how Molly organized her fillings. She made a basic vanilla cupcake batter and split it in two. She added cocoa to one half. Then she added applesauce to 1/4 of the vanilla batter, and mashed bananas to 1/4 of the vanilla and 1/4 of the chocolate batter. The filling/frostings were peanut butter, fudge, vanilla and cream cheese.
She cut out a carrot shaped hunk of cake to make room for the filling.
Piped in the filling.
Here they are with their caps on.
She piped on a variety of frostings.
While they waited for the rest of their friends to join them, Katherine and her boyfriend Santiago, also an actor, popped in to see our beloved neighbor Connie the Cookie Lady. Connie has promised to bake St. Patrick's Day cookies with Molly and Me next week so be sure to check back on Friday!

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