Cumin and Lime Roasted Pork Tenderloin

Rachel Ray makes putting dinner on your table in 30 minutes seem so achievable.  She is always so calm and in control during those thirty minutes too.  Every movement on her show seems to have purpose and she makes everything look so easy.  Whereas I always seem to be running around trying to find the right whisk or figure out where a spice is hiding in the cabinet.  Basically I am the complete opposite of Rachel Ray.

Her recipes have so many ingredients yet everything seems to magically come together in the allotted time frame for her show.  I really wish that I could make 30 minute meals within 30 minutes, that would be amazing.  Besides marinating the meat for two hours before putting it into the oven, this recipe really did come really close to the thirty minutes.  Plus it was amazing!

Cumin and Lime Roasted Pork Tenderloin

Adapted from Rachel Ray’s 365:No Repeats

Ingredients

2.25 lbs pork tenderloin

1 can of orange juice concentrate, made into juice

2 limes, juiced

3 tablespoons cumin, divided

2 tablespoon ground coriander, divided

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 jalapeno, chopped and seeded

6 garlic cloves

Directions

1)      I marinated the pork tenderloins in orange juice, the spices, and the jalapenos for two hours.  I put the pork in a gallon sized zip lock bag and put enough orange juice to cover the pork in the bag.  I used one lime, took a tablespoon of pepper, a tablespoon of the coriander, and one jalapeno and threw it in with the orange juice.

2)      Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

3)      Place the pork tenderloins on a baking sheet and drizzle a little of the marinade liquid onto them. Try to dig all the jalapeno pieces out of the liquid and put them on the pork as well.  Cut 3 or 4 slits in the pork (depending on the length) and stuff the slits with garlic.  Rub the remaining lime juice and spices on onto the tenderloin.

4)      Place into the oven for about 25 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees.  (I am finding that living at altitude is messing up my cooking times quite a bit).

5)      Take out and let rest for a few minutes before cutting.

The meat was so juicy from marinating it for 2 hours that the medallions could be cut with a fork.  When I first plated it, Jacob asked if there was a sauce, and I realized I hadn’t even thought of making a sauce.  I told him to try it first before worrying about it, and after his first bite he declared that it didn’t need a sauce.

I really thought the spices would be overwhelming.  The whole house smelled like cumin and coriander, and the tenderloin looked like it was coated in seasoning.  However, all the flavors worked and the pork didn’t taste over-seasoned at all.  I thought the seasoning was actually spot on.

This recipe made me start to flip through my 365: No Repeats cookbook some more and find some more recipes that I want to mark to make later.  The handy thing about this cookbook is that there are little checkboxes up at the top that say “Try this again” or “Put off til later”.    We checked the “Try this again.”  I definitely recommend this recipe.