Episode XII - Beef Tenderloin and a shocking rejection

Having eight people for dinner so it's time for another decent sized piece of meat, in this case a 6 pound beef tenderloin, and a few sides. We'll do the Mushroom Crusted Beef Tenderloin on page 100, the Stuffed Red Bell Peppers with Brown Sugar and Maple Baked Beans on 109, the Grilled Marinated Mushrooms on 110 and finally the Mustard Horseradish Sauce on 229.

Overall it was pretty simple and not a long cook time (a few hours all together) so that was cool. Plus Dave & Nic were just finishing Ramadan so I want to stuff my old buddy with some good American beef now that he was back from Japan. The couple formerly known as Mr & Mrs Riff Raff were over as were my kids.

Check out the beans. Very colorful! These things looked sharp on the plate too. I completely failed to take a picture of the mushrooms, but also really easy. Nice to have veggies that they kids will eat up and ask for more :-)

Here's the meat going on the Komodo. You really have to press the shrooms on it so they don't fall off, but once you do, it works pretty well.

It cooked up perfectly and check it out when I cut it. That was a perfect medium rare all the way through. Super nice. Extremely tender, though of course this is a good piece of meat to start with.

But.... hold on to your tighty whitey's for a moment, here's the shocker: One of my guests microwaved their meat! Argh! Double argh! Some issue with meat not being brown the whole way through. Sigh... from now on she'll be known as Vegan Egan because that wasn't real meat after being radiated like that. (still makes me shudder)

Anyway, here's my conclusions:

• The tenderloin is almost too tender to cook this way. I do like my meat with a little more texture. however, the flavor was wonderful and everyone ate it up


• As The Wife said on her first bite "Honey, these mushrooms ROCK". They were great


• I was originally a little disappointed with the horseradish thinking it wasn't quite spicy enough, but I was in the minority. Again, The Wife's comment was "Any stronger and it would've interfered with the meat". Probably true. Chris Lilly might be smarter than me


• Beans were first rate. One of the kids said I should've doubled the bacon (we all love bacon). Might try that next time

PS - The Wife continues to pair a new cocktail with each of my dishes. This time it was a Beer Margarita. Not sure how she did it. Looked and tasted like a very good 'Rita, but had a little carbonation to tickle the tongue. Very cool.