Experiment #12: Pork Tenderloin Sliders

All of the grocery store savings I found in the Experiment #11 should add up to account for a lot of money each year (we're on track to save hundreds of dollars if we keep this up), but when I shop from the weekly ad I am running into one problem. I don't always know how to cook with the foods that are on sale.

I try to get us one meat a week. I am, however, not very experienced with cooking meat other than chicken and ground beef. Pasta? I got it covered. Steak? Not so much. 

The first week of grocery ad shopping, I handed the steak over to Mike, and I made everything else. I am growing bolder, though, and I decided this week to tackle a new meat myself.

The Pork Tenderloin

They were on sale buy one get one free. (It turned out that this was by the pound, but I still got two and froze one because they are usually quite expensive). I now had two pork tenderloins, and no idea of how to cook them. I wanted to make something fun to celebrate the end of the week, so when the Internet led me to a recipe for Pork Tenderloin sliders on dinner rolls, I knew I had found my next experiment. 

Step One: Make Dinner Rolls

While this makes for an extra delicious treat, you can always just buy rolls if you don't want to make them. 

At this point, I am becoming pretty confident with my skills with basic homemade bread. I've made the sandwich bread twice now! 

Well, actually that's not that impressive, but it is enough for me to feel ready to move on to something new. I found a dinner roll recipe here: Soft Dinner Rolls.

I found that this was quite similar to making the sandwich bread, but required extra time to split the dough and roll into individual rolls. I've also gotten wiser: I folded out my table's folding side, cleaned it, covered it in flour and did my work right on the table top. That made kneading much easier except for the fact that I am too tall and the table too low.

Total time for dinner rolls: 

• About 3 hours including work and rising
• You'll be working for maybe 30 minutes of those 3 hours. 

Notes: 

• Mine did not get nice and brown the way the ones in the picture did. They got a little brown. I may need more butter? I don't know. 
• I am going to make them much smaller next time I do sliders. Instead of 12, I'll probably make 24 mini rolls.
• Price: I had all the ingredients already on hand for these, but I'd guess the whole pan was $1-2

Step Two: Pork Sliders

I finished the rolls earlier in the day, and once I started cooking the pork I turned the oven on low and put them in to heat up again. I'd do this with store bought rolls as well. Now I turned to the pork. Part of the reason I chose sliders specifically is because it requires the pork to be cut into slices and cooked in a skillet. It is easier to not mess up and under or overcook the meat when it's in small pieces (I think) and even if I did mess up, there would be bread and toppings to help cover any errors. 

I found the Pork Slider recipe here: Pork Tenderloin Sliders

This ended up being much, much easier than I thought. I sliced up the tenderloin, and then I had to figure out what to put on it. I did not have any of the seasonings listed on their recommended list. Also, all of the seasonings I did have contain salt. I don't know if the recipe specified salt free because they are being healthy, or if it will do something to the meat, so I erred on the side of caution and avoided salt.

I ended up pulling garlic and black pepper, and those became my only seasonings. It worked out fine! 

Next I dropped the pork in my big skillet. I had to do this twice because all of it wouldn't fit in the pan at once. Cooking all of the pork took about 15 minutes, but I did have to open the door and apply cooking spray frequently to keep the oil in the pan from burning and setting off the smoke detector. I have yet to find a solution to this problem. 

Meanwhile, my sister was over and she sliced up tomatoes and washed and shredded the romaine lettuce. 

Notes: 

• Because I am mildly paranoid about under cooking pork, and my pan was larger than the burner, I cooked it a while longer than the recipe said. It still tasted fine. If you try this, you will have to determine based on your preferences and cook top. 
• Price: I bought the pork on sale for half off, so I payed about $6.50 for two pounds 

Step Three: Sauces 

The final step, once the pork is finished, is to assemble the pork sliders. This recipe calls for a few sauces, which you can check out by following the links in the recipe. 

I decided to make the yogurt sauce with cilantro and lime, and the goat cheese spread with garlic. 

I actually made these earlier in the day, and each took less than five minutes to assemble. Both were delicious. The general consensus among those who ate the pork sliders with me was that the goat cheese was good, but the yogurt sauce best suited the meal. We are now eating the goat cheese spread on crackers.

I used all of the goat cheese I bought (on sale for $4.99) and only a small amount of all the other required ingredients, many of which I already had on hand. I'll estimate total cost of the sauces at $6.99, although I think that's overstating it.

So, was it worth it?

Yes. I successfully worked with a new meat, and we are still gladly eating the results as left overs several days later. It was pretty easy, used great ingredients, and didn't take long.

This was delicious. Photos won't do it justice, as I have no expert food photography skills, but here's a glimpse.

This ended up making 8 meals at a total cost of somewhere in the range of $2.00 a serving, about $16.00 dollars total. If you want to take out the goat cheese spread, and use only the yogurt sauce, this would drop even lower to $1.50 a serving.

I still have that second pork tenderloin in the freezer that I will be attempting to work with at a later date. 

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