Yesterday, after working in the yard, I really wanted something warm and hearty for dinner. I decided to let the ingredients be my guide (we watch Chef at Home on Discovery and can’t stop saying that we’ve let the ingredients be our guide).
We had a large pork loin in the refrigerator that we bought a few days ago and I wanted to cut it into smaller pieces and freeze for later use. Yesterday afternoon I sliced it into two 2lb pieces and then froze the other piece. I went on a pantry hunt to see what was available.
Here’s what I came up with. Sorry, didn’t measure a thing so this is all really a guess but the results were pretty darn amazing.
2lb pork loin, brown in 2 tbs of canola oil. Let it get nice and brown.
Remove pork to a plate and turn off heat because you haven’t cut up anything yet.
Chop a clove of garlic and throw it into the pan. Chop half of an onion and throw it into the pan.
Use up the dried red and green bell peppers from Penzey by reconstituting them in container filled with a mini bottle of white wine. The pan should be on by now at medium/medium high heat. After about 5 minutes throw the peppers into the pan. I would guess 1-2 small bell peppers finely chopped.
Remove the skin from a carrot and then slice and turn into matchsticks (thin matchsticks) throw them into the pot. Make sure the wine starts boiling off but not all the way–by about half. Add thickly sliced three medium to small yukon gold potatoes pretty close to the time the peppers go in. Add a cup of dried cherries and stir.
Add a healthy dose of chipotle powder. 1 tbs is a nice burn. Stir and then put the pork and its juices back into the pan. Add a cup of Southern Comfort into the mix and then a can of red enchilada sauce. Stir, flip pork and let it go into a good hot simmer for at least 30 minutes. Then let simmer on low for another hour or however long you can stand to wait.
The sauce got nice and thick and the interplay between sweet and spicy was pretty darn close to perfect. I served with a cauliflower recipe found here. I didn’t have exactly everything called for in the recipe but it turned out to be excellent and I’d make it again.