May 9th - Avocado night

This is how it starts... I'm one day behind on blogging, then two... then this whole blogging facade is blown out of the water. I'm really trying to stay on top of things though. May 9th (two days ago, if you're counting) was avocado night. There were 9 diners, and 10 pounds of avocados used in the meal. Wowzers. At least we got our daily dose (or weekly, perhaps?) of mono-unsaturated fatty acid.

The menu tonight included avocado eggrolls with duck sauce; baby lettuce salad with carmelized avocados; roasted pork tenderloin with avocado and apricot sauce; and ginger garlic green beans. In addition to the obvious overload of avocados, there was also a ton of pork in this meal. The salad called for me to carmelize a slab of bacon and then to cut it into 1-4 inch lardons. Luckily, I had a huge slab of bacon/pork belly from a Polyface hog butchered a while back. Here's a picture of it:

The dimensions of that hunk of meat were probably about 12" by 14". I roasted it for two hours, and once it was all cut down to size I had maybe a cereal bowl worth of pork for the salad. The dogs enjoyed their bites of fat, and the pork was a tasty addition. I think learning more about cuts of meat and how to prepare them would be a worthy endeavor if I ever wanted to pretend to be a real foodie. In the meantime, though, I think I'm getting by alright.

Now for some more food pictures - first, this is the stuffing for the eggrolls:

The eggrolls were good, but I thought that the sundried tomatoes clashed somewhat with the apricot in the rest of the meal. I'd make the eggrolls again, but perhaps paired with something more savory. 

The pork loin turned out really well, and the odd combination of apricots and avocados was surprisingly good. Here's a picture of the pork coming out of the oven:

As you can see, I made a TON of meat for 9 people. Mike bought the tenderloin at Costco, but he didn't write down how much I needed. I asked for 3 pounds, he bought 8. Leftovers are one of the perks of Cafe Davis, though, so I'm not sad that I have two delicious pork loins in the freezer.

Here's the finished product, and the recipe is below:

Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Avocado and Apricot Sauce
(recipe from the California Avocado Commission)

Serves 4

Ingredients
1 (3/4 lb.) boneless pork tenderloin
Garlic powder
White pepper
2 Tbsp. apricot spreadable fruit or jam
2 Tbsp. apricot nectar
3 green onions, sliced diagonally
1/2 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup dry wine
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 ripe avocado, peeled, seeded, and thickly sliced
1 (8-ounce) can unpeeled apricot halves, drained (liquid reserved) and cut in half
1 cup cooked rice

Preparation
1. Lightly sprinkle pork with garlic powder and pepper.
2. Place pork on rack in aluminum foil-lined shallow baking pan. (** Before I did this, I seared the pork in an cast iron skillet with apricot nectar. I think searing tenderloin before roasting it helps make everything more moist, personally.)
3. To make glaze, combine apricot spread with first measure of apricot nectar.
4. Brush all sides of pork with some of the glaze.
5. Roast at 425 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees on meat thermometer.
6. Brush with remaining glaze several times during cooking. Let roast stand with preparing sauce.
7. In a non-stick skillet, saute green onions in butter for 1 minute. (**I forgot to buy green onions, so I used a yellow onion and about 1/4 cup of chives)
8. Add remaining apricot nectar, wine, paprika and ginger, heat.
9. Combine cornstarch with drained apricot liquid. Stir into skillet mixture.
10. Cook, stirring until sauce thickens.
11. Add avocado and apricot quarters; heat briefly.
12. To serve, thinly slice pork and arrange on rice. Serve sauce over pork and rice.

And finally, here's a picture of tonight's avocado-loving guests (from L to R: Dmitri, Matt H., Sohrab, Matt Y., Erin, Jake, and Amber):