Maple Dijon Chicken

This past week has not been a great one for food. Well, it's been great taste-wise, but health-wise it's been less than awesome. I have returned to work on a volunteer basis and that's been exhausting. I don't even have energy to do the groceries or cook. I need to get myself back on track. I've worked so hard to get to where I am and I still have a long, long way to go.

Tonight's dinner got me right back on track and was fresh and tasty.

Without further ado, Maple Dijon Chicken.

This recipe is based on dinner I had at a friend's house several years ago. She was using the last bits and pieces of what was left in her fridge and came up with this yummy combo. Over the years, I've made versions of this, and tonight I tried to go as low carb as possible (next time, I'd reduce the maple syrup, maybe use a little maple extract).

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts, sliced into little pieces with all the nastiness removed
1/2 c reduced sodium chicken broth
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp grainy Dijon mustard
3 tbsp Philadelphia Light Cream Cheese - Garden Vegetable flavour (this was the only flavour I had in the fridge, I would have preferred to have had plain cream cheese)

Process:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Cut chicken into itty bitty pieces and place in cooking dish
-Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle olive oil on top
-Cook chicken for 10 minutes
-In a bowl, combine mustard, syrup and chicken broth
-Flip chicken and cook for another 5 minutes
-Cover chicken with mustard, syrup and chicken broth mixture
-Cook for another five minutes in oven

I love how simple it is to whip up a sauce that complements a meal.

-Pour drippings from chicken into saucepan on stovetop, add cream cheese, heat and reduce (about 5 minutes) (this creates the sauce)

A few minutes of broiling does a lot for the chicken's texture and gets rid of any sliminess.

-Set oven to broil, cook chicken for 3-5 minutes to crisp up a little bit
-Serve chicken with a little bit of sauce

(creates 3 servings)

Nutritional Information:
(per serving, includes sauce)
Calories: 190
Fat: 8 g
Protein: 14 g
Carbs: 15 g
Fibre: 0 g
Sugar: 13 g
Net carbs: 15 g

Yum or Not:
I served this with a great big pile of brocolli. The Captain got butter on his, mine was plain. The chicken was flavourful and the sauce added a nice creaminess. This was extremely yum and very easy. We will definitely be having this meal again.

Like I wrote earlier, I could have cut the maple syrup in 1/3. If the taste wasn't maple-y enough, I would add some maple extract (yes, that's a thing. It's awesome with bacon). This dinner could retain the delicious taste without being so high in carbs (as I'm trying to stay under 20 net carbs a day, 15 in one meal is high!).

I'm such a fan of making sauces from the drippings. This cream sauce added a lot of texture and deliciousness for very few calories. I wish I'd had an open bottle of white wine, because a little splash of that would have been lovely.

(Everything But) The Kitchen Sink Pasta Sauce and Shiritaki Noodles

In my ongoing search for a low-carb pasta replacement, I've learned about shiritaki noodles, which sounded too good to be true. It turns out, they may be. The Yum or Not jury's still a little out here in Ottawa.

The Captain and I used to eat 2 meals on rotation: tacos and pasta with red sauce. I am really good at making those two things. I'm rarely missing carbs, but every now and then, I crave my old pasta-packed lifestyle.

On reddit, I read about shiritaki noodles, a Japanese noodle made from yams and/or tofu that can have 0 calories and 0 carbs. I have added them to my shopping list. In our last-minute emergency Easter brunch shop, I spotted packs of the yam/tofu ones with low calories/low carbs at Herb and Spice. They were only $1.99 for each 8 oz pack, so I picked up two to try.

Apparently, shiritaki noodles are sort of a miracle as they look and behave like pasta but without the high carb issues.

In reading about them, there were a few worries:
#1. A fishy smell.
#2. A slimy texture.

Those of you who know my food issues will understand why these are problems.
#1. I am not a fish/seafood fan. I also have the nose of a bloodhound and can sniff out any lingering unpleasantnesses.
#2. I am a textural eater. I love the taste of them, but cannot eat bananas because of the texture. I often cannot eat fruit because it has to be ripe to the day. One day too hard or one day too soft and I'm turned right off. I can't eat Jell-o. And, don't even get me started on yogurt. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who eat big spoonfuls of yogurt. Slimy things, oh dear.

Read on to see if I was able to overcome even more of my food issues. (In writing this blog, it seems like I have a lot of food hangups. The count is now at three: vegetarian hangover, seafoody smells, slimy texture issues)


(Everything But) The Kitchen Sink Pasta Sauce and Shiritaki Noodles
It's just about grocery time for the Captain and I, so we're down to very few fresh ingredients. I scraped up whatever I could find in the fridge and cupboards to whip this together (don't tell him, though - he's got ten times the food hangups I do!).

I should plan out these photos better. The fake Neo-Citran, cat food in Tupperware and lint rollers were NOT included in this recipe. Almost everything else in this photo was.

Ingredients:
1 jar of Classico Spicy Red Pepper Tomato Sauce
1 tbsp Classico Basil Pesto
4 tbsp grocery store bruschetta
1 tsp squeezable basil
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 tbsp garlic powder (not garlic salt)
2 tsp dried red pepper flakes (I didn't actually measure any of these dry spices, I just shook liberally until I liked the look!)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 cup light cream cheese (leftovers of three different kinds of light cream cheese - roasted garlic, plain and herb)
500 g extra lean ground turkey

Spice Storage Protip: We have a drawer underneath our countertop range. I have our bajillions of spices in that drawer, but they're all standing up and I used to have trouble finding which one was which. As you can see in the above pic, I label the spices with Sharpies (and sometimes even the help of duct tape. Spicy time saver.

Procedure:
Sauce:
-Brown turkey in saucepan on stove (if you usually use ground beef, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the comparatively small amount of fat that drains off).
-Spice up your meat.
-Add basil, bruschetta, Classico sauces, and cream cheese. Increase heat and stir rapidly. Don't let it all burn to the bottom of the pan, but get everything mixed in a lovely way.

Back left: shiritaki noodles trying to un-goo. Back right: Captain Handsome's penne. I now realize that, with just one pasta eater eating reasonable serving sizes, we don't need to boil a whole box of pasta. Whoops. Front: The sauce (pre-tomatoes).

-Strain diced tomatoes and add to sauce.
-I also added a little splash of some red wine we had leftover from a few nights ago.
-Serve over shiritaki noodles.
-Makes 8 servings

Crud. I should have rotated this for you. Sorry. This is the other package of shiritaki I have for later. I used the fettucine shaped ones tonight. This one is full of spaghetti shaped ones.

Shiritaki Noodles:
-Open plastic bag containing noodles and don't breathe in too deeply (it's not horrible, but you don't want to really savour the smell either).

-Pour noodles into collander in sink and run cold water over top for a good several minutes until no smell remains (this took me longer than I care to admit here in a public forum).
-Shake as much water as possible from noodles and place in dry pan on stovetop over heat. This is supposed to change their texture from gooey to more al dente. I did it for about 5 minutes, experimenting with heats and they stayed pretty stretchy with some crispy ends. Not perfect.
-Makes 2 servings


Nutritional Information:
(for one serving of sauce)
Calories: 183
Fat: 4 g
Protein: 20 g
Carbs: 9 g
Fibre: 2 g
Sugar: 6 g
Net carbs: 7 g


(for one serving of noodles)
Calories: 20
Fat: 1 g
Protein: 1 g
Carbs: 3 g
Fibre: 2 g
Sugar: 0 g
Net carbs: 1 g


Yum or Not:

The best part of this dinner, I'd say, was the chunkiness of the meat and tomatoes in the sauce.

For the amount of fresh ingredients, the sauce was yum. Overall, though, I'd say it was a medi-yum. The Captain kindly rated it an 8/10, but he only had one serving (he did have a big bowl of penne noodles with his, though). I missed my fresh tomatoes, garlic and onions. Also, I'd usually throw in some sundried tomatoes, but I skipped on those tonight.

In terms of how darn low they are in net carbs, the noodles are good. I see on the website that the manufacturer (House Foods) sells macaroni shiritaki, too. I'd like to try those. I tasted a few of the pan fried noodles and didn't love the texture, so I cut them into little pieces before pouring the sauce on. Meh. They were medi-yum. It was an OK base for pasta. A bit better than spaghetti squash, but really, I wasn't fooled. I knew I was not eating pasta.

We have a fair amount of leftovers, so I'll be eating this again tomorrow. I wonder how the shiritaki will keep with sauce on top.

Poached Eggs, Pre-Exam Protein Powerful Italian Chicken and a Beef Wellington Preview

Poached Eggs in Silicone Muffin Liners

Poached eggs make for a healthy breakfast served on whole grain toast or an English muffin.  Or if you're going low-carb work atop steamed asparagus and lox.

My mom gave me the handing little yellow egg poacher pictured below (FREE! with purchase of Helmann's mayonnaise).  But, making a single poached egg at a time would be painstakingly slow so I had to improvise.

A couple of years ago I was on a clean-eating morning muffin kick, and I bought these silicone muffin liners because I was sick of half of my muffin sticking to the paper liner.

I coated them with a little butter and they made picture-perfect poached eggs.

Poaching eggs is actually a bit of an art.  Here are few tips I've come across:

- Choose a shallow wide pan that's easy to slip the eggs in and out of.

- Be sure to only let the water get to a simmer (never a boil), otherwise you end up with chewy eggs.

- Eggs only take about 3-5 minutes to cook (be careful not to overdo it and end up with solid yolks).

 Pre-Exam Protein Powerful Italian Chicken

My sister-in-low and fellow blogger extraordinaire has been inspiring me to experiment with low-carb cookery.  It's agonizing for me to try to swear off scrumptious breads, pasta and cereals.  I needed a quick, healthy meal the night before one of my big exams so I invented this modified version of chicken parm.
Choose boneless, skinless chicken breasts that have been cut open to create thinner, flatter piece of chicken.
I dipped the chicken in egg whites and then in spelt flour (a gluten-free flour alternative).
Then I pan-fried the chicken in a few tablespoons of coconut oil, to make it brown and little crispy.
With the oven preheated to 375, I topped my pretty li'l breasts in thinly sliced roma tomatoes, chopped fresh basil and bocconcini mozzarella.
I baked them in the oven for about 20 minutes, until the cheese was sizzlin'.
Serves with mixed greens and balsamic vinaigrette.


Super YUM!

Easter Dinner

I will post details of the recipes in the Easter feast in the coming days, but wanted to post up a little tantalizer in the meantime.

On the menu last night:

Beef Wellington

Scalloped Potatoes with Leeks

Japanese-inspired Asparagus with Wasabi Mayo and Panko

Caesar Salad

Picture Perfect Portobellos!
Used to create a layer of duxelles deliciousness atop the beef ...

Sliced portobellos looked like moustaches!

3 lbs of potatoes on the nose!

Ta-da!

Spaghetti Squash Low-Carb(onara)

Tonight, I tried something completely new. I roasted a spaghetti squash and had it sitting in the fridge and wanted to have a decadent, pasta-type meal. I also had a few slices of the yummiest bacon left from my new favourite store, The Produce Depot, just hanging out in the fridge.

One of the message boards I lurk on Reddit is keto (people doing a ketogenic, low carb, high fat/protein diet) and someone posted a photo of their version of low-carb pasta carbonara. I didn't read or save the link or recipe, but I think I had the basic idea. I was inspired as I considered what I had in the kitchen.

I gave 'er a go.

Read on to see how it went.

Spaghetti Squash Low-Carb(onara)

Ingredients:
1 small spaghetti squash (nets about 2 cups of squash "noodles")
5 slices of smoked bacon
1/2 c frozen peas
Thin slice of red onion, diced
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp light plain cream cheese
2 tbsp 0% plain Greek yogurt
1/4 c part-skim Mozarella cheese
1/4 c Asiago cheese

Procedure:

-Pre-cook the spaghetti squash (slice in half, roast at 350 degrees for 45 min-1 hour, face down in a little bit of low-sodium chicken broth)
-Spoon out the seeds from the squash and use a fork to pull out the strands of deliciousness, put aside (this refrigerates and keeps nicely for a few days)

-Pre-heat oven to broil
-Cook the bacon on the stovetop

Gratuitous bacon shot.

-Remove the bacon and cut into small strips, return to pan
-Add garlic, butter, onions and peas and to pan with bacon, sautee for about 5 minutes (or until peas are thawed and warm)

-Add cream cheese and Greek yogurt and sautee for another few minutes

-Add spaghetti squash, stir

-Add mozzarella cheese, stir until cheese is melted

-Divide mixture into 3 oven-safe dishes (ramekins, if you have them), top with asiago cheese

Pre-cheese.

Cheesed-up.

-Broil in oven for a few minutes (keep an eye on your cheese and watch that it bubbles, but doesn't burn)

Three little soldiers, hard at work, getting yummed up.

I had to top two of the servings with mozzarella, as I only had enough asiago for one. The mozzarella browned/burned really quickly. Next time, I'd put asiago on top for all of them.

-Enjoy!

(makes 3 servings)

Nutritional Information:
(per serving)
Calories: 245
Carbs: 8 g
Fat: 17 g
Protein: 12 g
Fibre: 2 g
Sugar: 4 g

Yum or Not:
This was really, really delicious, and because Captain Handsome's wary of both peas and spaghetti squash, I have two leftover ramekins of Spaghetti Squash Low-Carb(onara) leftover for myself. The taste of spaghetti squash is nice. It's a little nutty and inoffensive, but the consistency isn't quite pasta-esque. The taste of this dish was terrific, but still doesn't replace a pasta craving entirely. I wonder how this recipe would be with a larger veggie base, something like roasted cauliflower.

Overall, the taste was super-yum and the consistency was good, but a little like baby food. I'm sure you can see that in the pictures. Don't let that turn you off the recipe, it was really great!

Basil Pesto, Roasted Tomatoes and Spinach Salad

My husband, Dr. Gold, just got home from a week away so we decided to stay in tonight. His only request was “something light and healthy”

I wasn’t in the mood for braving a grocery store, so I pieced together a dinner from what was left in the fridge.

I made a homemade basil pesto earlier this week (in my trusty Vita-Mix), and wanted to use it up.

Easy Homemade Basil Pesto

Ingredients:

Big ol’ pile of fresh basil (roughly 3 cups)
½ c pine nuts (toasted)
¼ c extra virgin olive oil
1/3 c. fresh grated parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic
salt & pepper to taste

Process:

I tossed 2 tbsp of this pesto with some fresh, flat noodle pasta I picked up at Granville Island Market last weekend (interestingly, I bought it while Dr. Gold was out of town, thinking it was a suitable portion for me. Turned out it created a hearty portion for the two of us. A lesson in portion size for me!).

I've also had a bag of tomatoes on the vine sitting in my fruit bowl all week. I had to use them today before they went bad.

Time for....

My Mama's Roasted Tomatoes


Ingredients:
4-6 large tomatoes (roughly chopped into eighths)
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
handful of finely chopped basil
1/4 c Parmesan cheese

Spinach Salad

Ingredients:
3 c. fresh spinach
2 T. crumbled goat cheese
¼ c. dried cranberries
¼ c. almonds
3 T. raspberry vinaigrette
(A post on salad dressing recipes to come ….)

Green Smoothie with Ataulfo Mango

I picked up these Ataulfo mangos at Whole Foods yesterday.  They are usually plentiful and inexpensive in the spring and summer months.  I like their flavor more than the standard green and red mangos that can sometimes have tough, sinewy texture.

I decided to experiment with a green smoothie using my Vita-Mix.  A post-work out snack after an exhausting spin class.

I promise, I receive no financial incentives from the Vita-Mix company, but I’m telling you this machine is LIFE-CHANGING.  It’s just a heavy duty blender (apparently has the same horsepower as a lawn-mower).  But I use it every day, for smoothies, sauces, dips, salad dressing, soup … it does EVERYTHING!!!  And for smoothies, it gives a rich, thick consistency without having to add milk or yogurt.

Ingredients (1 serving)

3 inch piece English cucumber

1 large celery stalk

2 cups fresh spinach

½ medium-sized banana

1 mango (peeled, pit removed)

1 cup water

½ cup ice

Blend well.

As far as a Green Smoothie goes, this specimen rates high on the YUM scale!!  Keep in mind with all the green vegetable content, it’s not especially sweet.  

Oven-Baked BBQ Chicken in Onion Nests

The weather has been unseasonably beautiful here in Ottawa. The last days of winter have actually felt like the middle of summer. On the first official day of spring, I wanted to make a BBQ meal. However, our back porch is dangerously rotten and Captain Handsome did not want to risk pulling out the BBQ. I had to be a little creative with the recipe, then.

Earlier in the day, I had tried a recipe from my new recipe book, The Sexy Forever Recipe Bible. Several weeks ago, I saw the book's author, Suzanne Somers, on some daytime talk show making an amazing dish (which is now one of our faves, I'll put the recipe up as soon as I make it again and snap a photo). I've been planning to pick up the book since then. She cooks with full fat, low carb, fresh ingredients and fits pretty perfectly with the diet I'm doing right now. Also, that one dish was so absolutlely out of this world, that I figured the book was worth a try. It's already heavily annotated and sticky noted by me. So, in the morning, I tried her partner, Alan's Fried Eggs in Onion Nests. Super yum! Captain Handsome watched me eat them, and although he has an aversion to eggs, I could see he was envious of my tasty onion nests. That got my creative juices percolating.

When we started getting close to dinner time, I decided on a springy dinner, BBQ sauce chicken in onion nests (it would look like little eggs in a nest!), served with fresh green beans (grass!). Captain Handsome didn't notice the beautiful springscape on his plate, but, as you'll see in the review below, the appearance of the meal didn't really matter!

Oven-Baked BBQ Chicken (a really-complicated Shauna original)
Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 c reduced sodium chicken broth
3 tbsp President's Choice Stampede BBQ sauce Beer and Chipotle flavour (or your favourite BBQ sauce)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


Process:
-preheat oven to 350 degrees
-trim fat and nasty bloody spots off of chicken, keeping a wide berth, because that's just gross
-discard icky bits of chicken
-slice chicken breasts into small strips of about 1/2 inch thick and 1-2 inches long
-put Worcestershire sauce and chicken broth in bottom of casserole dish large enough to hold all the chicken without overlapping
-grind fresh salt and pepper onto both sides of each piece of chicken and place into dish
-once oven is preheated, place chicken into oven
-cook for 10 minutes, flip chicken pieces, cook for another 10 minutes
-chicken should be fully cooked by now
-BBQ sauce time!
-remove dish from oven and use half the BBQ sauce on one side of the chicken, brush it on to all pieces evenly (I don't have a pastry brush or anything, I just used a fork)
-turn up the broiler (about 500 degrees), cook chicken for about 5 minutes, peeking in, you just want the BBQ sauce to get a little crispy at the edges
-repeat with other side
-remove from oven

-makes 4 servings

Nutritional Information:
(per serving)
Calories: 125
Carbs: 7
Fat: 2
Protein: 14
Fibre: 0
Sugar: 6

This dinner is slightly tricky, as you need to be keeping an eye on both the chicken AND the onions at the same time, perhaps in opposite ends of your kitchen. But, if I can do it, so can you!

Onion Nests (Alan's Onion Nests from Sexy Forever Recipe Bible)
Ingredients:
1 large Vidalia onion
1 tbsp evoo (extra virgin olive oil)
1/2 tbsp butter
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Process:
-peel the skin off the onion and slice as thin as possible with a very sharp knife (this is what I did, but tj and Suzanne Somers both recommend a mandolin, this would be much more time efficient)
-in a large skillet, heat the evoo and butter over med-high heat
-when the fats are hot, add the onion
-let them cook until they are crispy and almost burned (this took me about 13 minutes)
-scrape the onions up with a spatula and place one quarter of them in piles on each plate, create the nest shape by using a fork to push out the centre of each pile of onions and build up the sides

-makes 4 servings

Nutritional Information:
(per serving)
Calories: 58
Carbs: 4
Fat: 6
Protein: 1
Fibre: 1
Sugar: 2

Yum or Not:
As I said in the intro, I had fun plating this in a spring-time tableau. I even heated up the plates a little in the oven. This is the first time I ever did this. I felt pretty durn fancy. I only started caring about presentation at all when I started making my servings so much smaller and there was all kinds of empty space on the plate.

Dinner was the chicken, onion nests, green beans and a mixed green salad for me. Captain Handsome had a little kid salad of iceberg lettuce. I had an awesome vinaigrette I bought at a favourite restaurant in Chelesa, QC, Soupe d'Herbe and the Captain had Catalina. I told the Captain at this meal that once we have kids he's going to have to eat the grown up food with me and I won't make him a kiddie meal. He's going to have to lead by example that all foods are good. He said he won't. We had bought a bottle of Pinot Noir called The Hob Nob (if you read the Hunger Games, you'll know why I was happy with this bottle). It was only OK. The Captain had a couple of glasses. I only drank about half. I thought the BBQ sauce would pair nicely with a red. It might have, but this wine was far too vinegary for me. We saved about  a third of the bottle for cooking.

This meal was ultra-yum. The chicken tasted amazing, just a little crispy, the edges of the chicken tasted like they had been cooked on the BBQ. You may not have even noticed that it wasn't cooked on the Q. Everything was cooked perfectly and I couldn't believe that the tiniest bit of sauce did the trick. We didn't need to add even one spoonful of the extra sauce that I made. Before I started watching and counting what I ate, I would have just heaped on the sauce without thinking. I was surprised how little of this delicious sauce packed an amazing flavour punch.

The onion nests are absolutely to die for. I would eat them under anything. They tasted great with fried eggs earlier in the day and amazing with the chicken. They enhanced the taste of the chicken and beans. It was such a simple, but tasty spring-summer meal. It's always good to find something to fill the plate that is (relatively) low carb and lower in starches than say, a potato, rice or pasta side. Also, it's hard to get Captain Handsome to eat spinach, cabbage or spaghetti squash, but he's fully on board with onion nests. It occurred to me that I may be able to sneak in some cabbage next time without him even noticing!

After his third helping (they were small helpings), Captain Handsome declared that there wasn't even enough for him to take leftovers for lunch. I, however, had some the next day on top of grilled veggies I had whipped up and it was just as good one day later, it didn't dry out like I thought it might. (I said the recipe had four servings, and it did, I'd wager that the Captain had 2 1/2 at dinner, I had 1 and then I had another 1/2 the next day).

I whipped up a little sauce with the drippings from the meat. I used the drippings, added some red wine, a few tbsp of butter and heated it over med-high heat until it bubbled and reduced. It was tasty, but the chicken really didn't need it. Now I have a 1/2 c up sauce in the fridge to use for another quick meal later this week!

Without a doubt, this will become a regular in our weekly rotation!

Pork Tenderloin with Apples and White Wine

I wanted to create a fancy-pants version of pork chops and applesauce and had a pork tenderloin in the fridge. Parts of this worked really well, and I learned some lessons from this attempt.

I made this recipe up after googling how to cook a tenderloin and deciding to try searing for the first time!

Ingredients:
1 pork tenderloin - trimmed of that shiny grey fat that is on the outside
1 c reduced sodium chicken broth
1 c white wine
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp Hoisin sauce
1/2 coarsely chopped Vidalia onion
1 coarsely chopped apple

sauce:
drippings from roast
1 tbsp butter
1/2 c white wine
2 tbsp light cream cheese, plain

Process:
-preheat oven to 350 degrees
-salt and pepper, sear pork tenderloin on stove top
-combine all ingredients in casserole dish
-cook for 20 minutes at a time, checking temperature of tenderloin and covering mean in sauce periodically
-sauce: take 1/2 of drippings from casserole dish after pork is done cooking and place in saucepan on stovetop at med-high temperature with wine, butter and cream cheese, mix until bubbling
-slice pork, serve with sauce, onions and apples

-Makes four servings

Nutritional Information:
 (including sauce, per serving)
Calories: 290
Carbs: 10 g
Fat: 12 g
Protein: 25 g
Fibre: 2 g
Sugar: 8 g

Yum or Not?
 I served this with a big salad (including the delicious vine ripened tomatoes that I found at the fruit and veg store this week) and broccoli and green beans.

The pork was a little tough when we ate it. I used a meat thermometer and cooked the pork in 20 minute increments until it reached the recommended temperature next to the outline of the pig on the meat thermometer (170 degrees). This took nearly an hour at 350 degrees.

I did some more reading after dinner and I think this was at least double the amount of cooking time that I needed.

Next time, I will sear the pork for longer on the stove top. I let it get barely white on each side (about 1 1/2 minute per side), next time I'll let it actually brown before putting it in the oven. I may also turn the temp in the oven up to 375. Apparently, to kill any dangerous suckers in pork, you only have to get the internal temp up to 145 degrees. Also, I know that if I tent the meat for a good 10 minutes after it comes out of the oven, it will continue to cook and all the juices will soak in nicely. I didn't do that this time.

Overall, the food was super, duper tasty and even though the meat was a little tough, the tastes were fantastic and just sweet enough.

I will definitely replicate this recipe, it was totally yum. Captain Handsome liked this, but prefers red/brown sauces to fruity/white sauces, so he stuck with one serving.