In the interest of saving some money, and because my husband is only slightly fonder of leaving the house than I am, we stayed in and cooked for our anniversary.

It was so delicious, I can’t wait for it to be dinnertime again so I can have leftovers.  I figured that meant I should probably share the recipes.

We had Burgundy Pork Tenderloin, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans with Bacon & Toasted Almonds, and for dessert I made Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Bread.

We adjusted the pork recipe a bit because we found a 3.5 pound tenderloin for only $11.  We’ll probably get 4 meals out of it.

Since I avoid dairy and wheat, I substituted oat flour for flour in the dessert recipe.  Instead of butter I usually use Smart Balance Light in recipes, and instead of milk I use soy milk.

We don’t really have a special recipe for the mashed potatoes.  I just sort of threw together the Green Beans – they’re easy and pretty fast, but I’ll try to write it up like a recipe.  Which I suck at.

Green Beans with Bacon and Toasted Almonds

• 3 cups cooked french style green beans
• 3-4 strips bacon
• about 3 tablespoons slivered almonds
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Fry the bacon in a large skillet; set aside bacon grease.

While the bacon is frying, toast the almonds in a hot, dry skillet.

At the same time, cook the green beans. I usually use frozen, but canned would work equally well.  Either way, make sure they are cooked/heated through.

Crumble the cooked bacon, and mix in a bowl with green beans, almonds, spices, and a tablespoon of the bacon grease.*

Serve immediately.

*Yes, I said mix in the bacon grease.  It’s delicious.  My philosophy is life is too short to not eat delicious things. And that’s what treadmills and elliptical machines are for.

Tags: burgundy pork tenderloin, chocolate chip banana nut bread, green beans with bacon and toasted almonds

This entry was posted by Cathy on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.