Drunken Pork Tenderloin

I was going through my pictures and realized I never posted this recipe.  

I made it months ago and completely forgot about it. 

This recipe isn't as easy as the recipes I usually make. 

Most of my pork recipes are thrown in the crock pot but I had a half of bottle of wine and decided to give this recipe a try.  

Results: Good.  Not fabulous like I say about a lot of my recent pork recipes, but good.  The meal was full of flavor and I love the added mushrooms and onions.  I wasn't crazy about the gravy/sauce.  Maybe it was the wine I used or the fact that I'm not a huge gravy fan. Hubs like it and ate it, which always makes for a successful dinner in my book.  With fall quickly approaching, this would be a good recipe to try on one of the first cool nights.  

Robyn's Drunken Pork Tenderloin 

Courtesy of Robyn's Online World 

Robyn’s Drunken Pork Tenderloin Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 lb (or so – I use one packaged pork tenderloin which has two pieces in it) pork tenderloin
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large white onion, thinly sliced
• 1 bottle red wine of choice (I’ve used merlot, burgundy, and zinfandel and like them all in this recipe. The zinfandel is my favorite though) **I used half a bottle**
• 1 package brown gravy mix

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Remove the pork tenderloin from the package and trim off any silver skin – this is a shiny fat type piece that may (or may not) be on part of the tenderloin. Honestly though if you don’t take it off now it is not a big deal, you can cut it off the cooked pork as you are eating it if you need to. Sprinkle the garlic powder, salt and pepper (to lightly cover) over all sides of each piece of pork. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the pork tenderloins. Let the pork sit without moving for about 3 minutes. Before that it will seem like they are “stuck” to the pan, but after 3 minutes or so the pork tenderloin pieces should release. Rotate the pork tenderloins so that you get each of the outside surfaces browned nicely. Remove the browned pork tenderloin from pan and place in a rectangular baking dish.

Now add the onions to the same pan you used to brown the pork tenderloin and saute them for about 5 minutes. Then carefully add about 1/4 bottle of the wine to deglaze the pan. It will steam up a lot and you need to take a wooden spoon and scrape the bottom of the pan right away to loosen up all of those nice browned bits – they are full of pork flavor! Once you have the bits scraped up, add the rest of the bottle of wine and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 3 minutes. Now pour the onion and wine mixture over the browned pork tenderloin in the baking dish. Now place in the oven and bake for approximately 35-40 minutes. Use your meat thermometer to make sure the pork is at 145° in the thickest part. Remove from the oven and place the pork tenderloins on cutting board to rest. Now pour the liquid from the baking dish into your skillet on high heat and whisk in one package of brown gravy mix. Cook on medium for about 3 minutes to thicken and reduce. Slice your roasted pork tenderloin, after it has rested for about 10 minutes, into about 1/4” thick slices and serve with the onions and top with the red wine gravy.