Two For One

I've already admitted that I buy food I think is pretty, even if I have no intention of eating it. Now I'm going to expose my husband's bad grocery shopping habit.

D. can't seem to resist buying 2 for 1 items. Even if we don't need it, even if it isn't something he likes, he'll bring it home because it was on sale, 2 for 1! (He also tends to buy things in very, very large sizes. Like, beyond econo-size, even. But I digress.) A month or so ago he brought home 2 for 1 pork tenderloins. Which wasn't actually a bad score, because you can do a lot with pork tenderloin and everyone in our house likes pork. But when I opened up the first of two pork tenderloin packages I found...two pork tenderloins. In his 2 for 1 haste D. had actually bought 4 pork tenderloins. The first package I used when we were still grilling but the second package has been lingering in our freezer. Sunday I decided it was go time. And since we'd already exhausted my typical pork tenderloin dishes with the first two loins, I could try something new.

My kids like food you can eat on a stick. I noticed this when I fed them fruit as toddlers. They ate fruit more readily and more abundantly if I gave them toothpicks to spear with. Sadly this phenomenon did not translate to vegetables...which are harder to sell, even on a stick. But I wondered if I could do something stick-tastic with meat. I found my answer thanks to MyRecipes.com, which aggregates recipes from a number of magazines including my favourite, Cooking Light.

Pork Satay with Peanut Dipping Sauce comes courtesy of Oxmoor House, who appear to be a publisher of cookbooks. Only problem with this recipe - I didn't have chicken broth, a necessary ingredient in their Peanut Dipping Sauce. So I decided to use their pork recipe but sub-in another peanut dipping sauce that I found in my Canadian Basics cookbook that didn't require the broth.

This proved to be a good recipe for a Sunday dinner for a couple of reasons. One, you have to pound the tenderloin to make it thin for threading on skewers, so you can work out a lot of 'darn the weekend is over already and it's back to work' aggression. Two, once you've pounded the pork and marinaded the pork and threaded the pork you only have to broil it for a few minutes each side to finish it off. So it's fast and doesn't take up a lot of oven time. Three, everyone ate it with no complaints because it tasted great. The marinade also has peanut butter, so you may find the dipping sauce is overkill but I liked it. I find there are two kinds of people in the world, those who dip and those who do not. I dip, D. does not. So there was lots of sauce left over. Here is how I made the sauce:

Peanut Dipping Sauce

1/3 cup smooth peanut butter
3 tbsp each: sugar, soy sauce, lime juice
1 tbsp each: minced garlic, minced fresh ginger, dark seasame oil
1/2 tsp (or to taste) chile paste or hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup warm water or coconut milk

Blend all ingredients in food processer until smooth.

Overall this was a great dinner, enjoyed as part of our triumphant 'holy cow I can't believe we ran 10K today' euphoria.