The tenderloin came out too tough

Another week, another dish. I'm not sure what inspired this week's dishes, but I have to say I was a bit more ambitious than usual. My eyes seem to be always bigger than my mouth, and this week I aimed to try pork tenderloin, stuffed peppers, a squash dinner, and spinach artichoke dip for another work potluck (theme: food that is the color green). This week I invited my good friend Shari over. Here she is dicing the acorn squash for her chili powder/cinnamon squash side dish:

Pork tenderloin is a regular dish at my parent's house. Once again, I have discovered that a regular dish they cook is quite easy to prepare. The tenderloin rub was inspired by this recipe. We left the tenderloin in the oven a bit longer than necessary, but it still tasted great that night. The leftovers, however, are a bit too dry for my liking.

all rubbed up

Tenderloin, posing with Shari's side dish

Cooking stuffed peppers with Shari brought me back to my second Senior Day - I was one of the few seniors that didn't have parental representation in the audience for my last performance of the year, so Shari and Nicole acted as my surrogate mothers for the night. Instead of going out to eat, we cooked a fantastic dinner of stuffed peppers, which is quite decadent when you're in college, and cooking together in college is a rare occasion. I'm sure I'll remember that dinner far longer than when my parents came to my first Senior Day game.

Surrogate moms!

For this dinner, we filled the green peppers with quinoa, kale, and broccoli. I'm usually nervous to cook sans recipe, but the ingredients chosen to fill the peppers sounded too awesome.We cut the peppers lengthwise, doubling the amount of stuffed peppers. The peppers were cooked perfectly and have now been used as a healthy snack and fillings for some omelettes. 

pepper stuffing

all cooked up!

Am I ready for my close up?

For my personal records, here is the recipe I like to use when cooking spinach artichoke dip. And for funsies, here's some pics!

Shari has an annual membership to Disney World, and took a trip last weekend. I asked her to pick up a R2D2 popcorn bucket, which is sold at MGM studios (I think it's called something else, but I forget what). This matches the R2D2 mug I have, which seems to be a popular topic of conversation whenever lug it around the office. I was even discouraged from bringing it to an interview. I guess it's a weird-looking mug. Anyways, one of the IT girls is a HUGE Star Wars fan, with posters and action figures adorning her desk. I am constantly bugging her to fix my computer, so I felt it was a courteous measure to give this popcorn bucket to her. The look on her face when she saw the popcorn bucket was priceless. Do something nice for a friend today!