Fritatta!

Before TOO much longer I hope to do a bunch of postings about my recent cooking spree - not desserty type stuff, but meals. I got a wild hair up my butt and was eager to try a ton of recipes, figuring I could try a new recipe pretty much every night for a week and a half, stock us up on leftovers (those could cycle through nicely for lunches), cook up some nice meals for the colder weather, etc... I had it all plotted out - the day of the week I'd fix each dish, the name of the recipe, the primary ingredients, and where I got the recipe (all recipes were from either Weight Watchers Make It in Minutes: Easy Recipes in 15, 20, and 30 Minutes or the latest Cook's Country magazine (I even jotted down the pages numbers for each recipe - needed to keep it fast and easy!).

Weeeell...most of it went well. Stuff got shuffled around in order, there were some minor tweakings, we got interrupted with dinner out with friends, etc... NOT a problem! It was still a great experiment, and I'll try it again sometime soon. Plus I LOVED the massive shopping trip to start it - stock piling fridge, pantry and freezer with what I didn't already have, planning when to use meats based on expiration, etc. But the last item, which was from Weight Watchers, was a pork tenderloin cordon bleu recipe. Sounded GREAT! Take a pork tenderloin (which is so amazingly versatile anyhow), slice 1/4 pieces on the diagonal, pound them flat, and cook up with swiss cheese, deli ham, sage and white wine. And we were going to have steamed brocolli on the side - healthy and tasty! Mmmm! Sure sounded good from my initial skim of the recipe.

And there's the problem: initial skim. I THOUGHT it was going to be the pork, sage, swiss and ham ROLLED UP, lightly breaded in a dusting of flour, and then fried. It was almost time to make dinner, I read the recipe more fully, and didn't like what I saw! You were to dust the tenderloin slices with flour, saute on one side, flip over, and then put the cheese and ham on top, then pour in wine and broth to finish cooking. There was no picture of the end result.

I dunno - to me this sounded gross. I could just envision the swiss melting in a puddle of wine and broth, the ham trying to float away, and the crispiness achieved on one side of the tenderloin getting mushy.

No way was I giving this recipe a fair chance! Sure, we've loved everything else from the cookbook, including their humorous portion sizes! (Yes. Right. I understand the concept of Weight Watchers. I also happen to like the results of these recipes. So I'll just make the healthier tasty food, and we'll each eat double servings! ;-)

Hmmm....time to morph that tenderloin, swiss, ham and brocolli I had into something else! The pack of two tenderloins got cut open, separated into separate freezer bags, dated, and tossed in the freezer! I flipped through the WW book and found a recipe for a fritatta - that sounded good! Four egg whites and three whole eggs - so "healthier". Peel and cube a potato (I did two, they were small) and boil for ten minutes. Meanwhile, saute onion (I had red onion from the garden). I cut the brocolli into smaller pieces than we'd usually eat, and steamed 'em in the microwave. In another pan I sauteed mushrooms from the crisper drawer. YUM! (Now I wanted a steak... Wasn't gonna happen, unfortunately) I drained and dumped in the potatoes; ditto the brocolli. I carefully made sure the mushrooms went only on my side...(Brett won't eat 'em) I snipped the ham from the other recipe with scissors and dumped it in with the veggies. Grabbed the swiss from the fridge, realized I didn't want to risk it's funk overwhelming everything else, put it back, and grabbed some extra sharp white New York cheddar we've been loving, and cut thin shavings, which I dumped on top of the ham. Dumped in the eggs I'd already prepared (including adding just a smidge of heavy cream. What!??), swirled, cooked on the stove top for a few min, and then put it under the broiler to finish.

YUM! So what do you think of my tweaked pork tenderloin cordon bleu:


GOOD STUFF, hunh? Brett ate half, and I think my second quarter (I ate something else bad for me instead of the full half I think) will be breakfast at work tomorrow!