Start of Advent

Tonight we began the first night of the advent calendar. I actually had to make one this year because my husband and I have never had one, but I wanted my son to be exposed this year. We realize he is quite young to fully understand advent, but my hope is that he glean at least a little bit of the meaning. 

For dinner I tried a new recipe I found on allrecipes and tweaked it a bit (of course!). I love their ingredient search function. I had some pork tenderloin that I wanted to use, so I entered it in as an ingredient and got all of these great recipes...funny though the one I chose is actually meant for pork shoulder, but I used the tenderloin anyway. I made Root Beer Pork Tenderloin (I also had left over bottles of root beer from a fellowship group function, bonus on the use of ingredients around the kitchen!):

Root Beer Pork Tenderloin

2 (1.5 lb) pork tenderloin pieces

2 12 oz. bottles of root beer, divided

2 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar

2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 1/2 tsp ground paprika

1/2 tsp dry mustard

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp garlic salt

1/4 tsp celery salt

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 oz bourbon

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil

Place the pork tenderloin into a large zip-top bag and pour 1 of the bottles of root beer over the meat. Squeeze out all the air from the bag, seal, and  refrigerate 5-6 hours.

Once the meat has finished marinating, mix together the light brown sugar, kosher salt, black pepper, paprika, dry mustard, onion powder, garlic salt, celery salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a bowl. Remove the meat from the marinade, shake off the excess and rub the meat all over with the spice mixture. Wrap each tenderloin in separate plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. 

Go ahead and turn your crock pot onto the 4 hour high setting. Mix together the balsamic vinegar, the second bottle of root beer, bourbon, and brown sugar in a bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat, and sear each tenderloin on all sides until the meat develops a brown crust, about 3 minutes per side (you may need to sear each piece separately). 

Place the seared meat into the preheated crock pot. Pour the balsamic vinegar-root beer mixture over the meat, and cook for 4 hours.

Remove the tenderloins from the crock pot, and shred with 2 forks. 

I served the shredded pork with sweet potato fries and kale chips. Yum!