Roast Pork Tenderloin with Caramelized Onions and Salad, originally uploaded by hannahcooks.

The Way We Cook is a cookbook that I bought years ago, tried a recipe or two from, and then never cracked open again.

This was not the fault of the cookbook, or the recipe I tried (it was oven-baked fish and chips, and it was hands down the best homemade fish and chips I've ever had). Newer and shinier things just attracted me.

However, now I usually very rarely feel like cooking, and soon I will be trying to cook while even more tired, and somehow I remembered I had this cookbook, which is tailored for busy people.

And so I made the pork tenderloin (brined this time, and I do not care what Judy Rodgers has to say- brining trumps an overnight salting any day*), which is rubbed with a simple prepared mustard-salt-pepper-olive oil combo before being pan-seared and then oven roasted. Served over a bed of caramelized onions and with a green salad, it was pork heaven. Juicy and tender with a crisp just-mustardy outside. And apart from the brining, took next to no active kitchen time. (The salad dressing, even, was just orange juice and balsamic vinegar with some olive oil, and it was easy to whip together while the pork rested.)

The Way We Cook is, I suspect, about to get a whole new life in our kitchen.


*Sign I am maybe too pregnant to think straight: In the store, I was thinking about how I never bother brining chicken any more because it is easier to just buy a kosher bird, and I actually thought, "Why does Trader Joe's never carry any kosher pork tenderloin?" I figured it out before asking a salesclerk, thank god.