cranberry pork tenderloin - Stuff Parents Need

This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and Smithfield®, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #PutPorkontheMenu http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV.

This is the time of year when my Pinterest sessions get out of control. I can spend hours drooling over showpiece dish ideas for Thanksgiving, Christmas and holiday parties. Many of the recipe authors will state that these delectible dishes are even great for a weeknight meal for the family.

But who honestly has time like that to spend creating a really beautiful dish on a week night? Not this lady!

Still, I really liked the idea of finding a way to make something festive and appetizing to all the senses without having to move into my kitchen for several hours. My family really enjoys pork tenderloin (who doesn’t? That cut of meat is SO good!), so I thought I’d try my hand at a pork tenderloin recipe, made much easier thanks to using Smithfield Marinated Pork, which can be found at select Walmart stores.

I’ve purchased Smithfield Marinated Pork several times in the past, and love it because it is such a time-saver. The pork is already deliciously marinaded, which means you just need to take it out of the package, and follow the instructions on the back to get it perfectly cooked. I love that I don’t even have to stop and look up how to cook a pork tenderloin; Smithfield tells me how to get it right!

Ok, let’s get started!

Ingredients:

1 Smithfield Marinated Pork Tenderloin in your choice of flavor (I chose garlic & herb)
1 (12 oz) bag of fresh cranberries (substitute with frozen if fresh isn’t in season)
1 cup sugar
fresh, minced ginger (scant 1/4 cup)
3/4 cup orange juice
3/4 cup water

The fact that the Smithfield Marinated Pork is already seasoned so beautifully makes this recipe light on ingredients. The chef can focus her energies on making a yummy glaze for the pork and not even worry about how the tenderloin is going to turn out; it’s going to be great!

Directions

Preheat your oven according to your package directions. Prepare a baking dish for your pork with aluminum foil (this will reduce clean up time immensely, I promise).

While waiting for the oven to preheat, peel and mince the ginger. I’m usually the type of gal to skip over the fresh stuff and head for my powdered ginger, but don’t do it here, friends! Take the time to use the fresh stuff because the flavor is really worth it! I can even show you how to peel your ginger rather quickly: use the back of a spoon!

Pretty cool, huh? Once the ginger is peeled you’ll just want to chop it up into bite-size pieces. If you are new to using fresh ginger, like I am, you might be surprised to see that the ginger is rather fibrous. Don’t worry…it will taste great! 🙂

By this point, your oven should be preheated so put the pork in for the amount of time designated on the package (for me it was an hour). Now it’s time to get your cranberry sauce going!

Heat a medium-sized pot over medium-high heat on the stove and add fresh cranberries, sugar, water, orange juice and ginger.

Give it all a good stir, and let it do it’s thing! You’ll want to swing by and stir it every few minutes, but there’s no need to hover over the pot. You’ll know that your sauce is almost ready when the cranberries start to burst. They make cute little popping sounds, sort of like a muted and much slower version of popcorn popping. I found that my sauce was finished in about 10 minutes.

All you need to do now is remove your sauce from the heat and go do anything else you’d like while you wait for the Smithfield Marinated Pork to come out of the oven.

One important note about this cut of meat: resting is VERY important. Please allow 10 minutes or so for your pork tenderloin to rest after coming out of the oven. The juices in the cut of meat will redistribute throughout during this time, and that means that every slice of meat will be moist and delicious.

Now it’s time to plate the pork on a serving tray and dress it up with that gorgeous cranberry glaze!

I really enjoyed getting to make something that is beautiful enough for a holiday meal, and delicious enough for one, too, but that was also remarkably easy to put together. The folks at Smithfield did all the hard work for making the meat taste perfect…I just popped it in the oven, and was able to devote about 15 minutes to making a delicious sauce for it. SO easy, friends! 🙂

Coupon!

If you’d like to try out a Smithfield Marinated Pork product, why not try it at a discount? Here’s a coupon for 75 cents off your purchase (while supplies last)! You can try the Garlic & Herb flavor like I did, or you can find these other awesome flavors: