I Just Want to Cook a Pork Tenderloin….Man.

Happy Fall and heavy cooking season! If you haven’t broken out your Dutch oven, roasting pan or heavy duty potato masher, get on it! Invite people to your table, get them eating and get on with living life and being thankful for the blessings we are getting laid at our feet. The simple things. The fancy things. All of it, fall abounds with things to be thankful for – cold, crispy days and meals like this.

Cake Stuffed Pork Loin

1 3-lb pork loin

For the stuffing

2 apples

1 onion

1 spice cake mix and accompanying items to bake it

1 tsp ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

2 T butter

¾ c molasses

Salt and pepper

2 tsp sage

For the sauce

8 T butter

8 T flour

10 fresh sage leaves, minced

1 pint of heavy cream

Salt and pepper

Lay the pork loin vertically in front of you. Laying your knife parallel to it, cut a slit 1/3 of the way through the thickness cutting almost through, about 1 cm short. Open the pork like a book. Then in the thicker side, repeat and open again.

To make the stuffing, make the cake according to package directions, adding ginger and nutmeg before baking. When cool, crumble ¾ of the cake up in a bowl. In a pan, sauté the chopped onion until translucent and soft. Cube the apple, cake and onion in a bowl, adding salt, pepper, sage and molasses and mix by hand. Place the stuffing into the “book” of pork loin. Roll it and secure with toothpicks or skewers.

Insert a thermometer in the rolled pork roulade and place in a roasting pan. Roast at 375 in the oven for 30-40 minutes or when the pork reaches 165 degrees.

Meanwhile, on the stove, make the sauce. Melt the butter, and stir the flour in to make a roux. Add in sage, salt and pepper and continue to stir. Turn down heat to medium low and add the heavy cream to finish this gravy. Serve hot over the baked pork tenderloins.

This makes an excellent meal for a simple dinner party. Place alongside mashed potatoes (with a little roasted garlic even?) and serve the gravy over them with steamed green beans. A simple green salad and a pretty, light red wine are stunning.