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.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
- 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.
- 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.
- Roast in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue cooking tenderloin 20 minutes.
- Cover with tin foil and reluctantly hand over to your oldest daughter and her friends.
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