Cheater Pants

The Cheater Pants page is dedicated to those meals where I deviate... veer from the crapshoot of random selection and... well, cheat.  

My big plans for spinning the roulette wheel for dinner were foiled last night because I realized I had to do my crapshoot before shopping, not after. And not at 4:45 with children asking me, "What's for dinner?"  So, it was kind-of-sort-of a crapshoot.  I knew I had pork tenderloin so I made the first recipe from the first cookbook I grabbed...  Robin was going to rescue my dinner, right?

Turn to Page 81...

Cajun Pork Tenderloin with Quick Side Dish: Creamed Spinach

Luckily, this is definitely a "pantry" recipe: just herbs and spices for a nice rub and a quick roast.  I actually even had the frozen spinach.  How fortuitous.  

The quick rub consists of sugar, thyme, cumin, paprika, onion and garlic powder, ginger, dry mustard, cayenne, salt & pepper.  One quantity of the rub was plenty for two tenderloins, though the recipe called for just one.  Here are my tenderloins in the pan.  

I just dumped it over, rubbed it in, and kind of mopped up the dregs in the pan with the meat.  Then I sprayed the pan underneath them.  I like the lack of clean-up here.  No need to dirty a cutting board with your rub.

All rubbed in and ready to go.  Then 25 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees.  

Here it is with the creamed spinach.  

I actually didn't even thaw the spinach as Robin suggests, so it was a little less creamy, but still tasty and great in a pinch.  I made peas and cheater pilaf, too, one of the few pre-boxed sides I ever make.  I often find myself making two veggies, because you never know what your kids are going to like, and I like to give them a choice.  

This was a perfect example of why the spin of the roulette wheel will give you a surprise now and then.  Who knew my 5-year-old would tell me he loves spinach? (One of his new favorite books is Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, an adorable book about a Little Pea whose favorite food is spinach, but hey, whatever works, right?)

The Ratings:

My kids also love to "judge" dinner.  We are big Top Chef fans and I encourage the feedback.  The 7-year-old said the meat was "well-seasoned".  The 5-year-old said he liked the spinach because "it was all cooked and soft".  And the 2-year-old said, "Very good, Mama!" after gobbling the meat (she is not afraid of spice). They are fans of numerical ratings as well, and this dish received a ten.  But they are very generous with their tens after all.  :)  A quick dish in a pinch and yes, Robin Miller rescued my dinner.