Roast Pork Tenderloin with Plum Barbecue Sauce

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Jenny

Last year my CSA box was brimming with plums, more than Gavin and I could eat in a given week.  When I came across this Cooking Light recipe in the magazine, I knew I had to try it.  We loved it!  I look forward to making it again this summer!

Roast Pork Tenderloin with Plum Barbecue Sauce

Total Time: 1 hour, 5 minutes

Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 1 TBSP Canola oil
  • 1/2 cup Chopped onion
  • 1 Garlic clove, finely chopped
  • 1/8 cup Packed brown sugar
  • 1/8 cup Rice wine vinegar
  • 1/8 cup Ketchup
  • 1 TBSP Soy sauce
  • 1 tsp Dry mustard
  • 1/2 tsp Ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp Black pepper
  • 1/8 tsp Crushed red pepper
  • 1 whole Cloves
  • 3/4 lb. Black plums, quartered & pitted
  • 1 Star anise
  • 1 TBSP Canola Oil
  • 1 Pork tenderloin (1 lb.)
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 1/4 tsp Black pepper

Cooking Directions

  1. Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon canola oil to pan and swirl to coat. Add onion and garlic, saute 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add sugar and the next 10 ingredients (through star anise); bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes or until plums break down and sauce thickens, stirring occasionally. Discard cloves and anise.
  2. Preheat oven to 450.
  3. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil to pan; swirl to coat. Sprinkle pork evenly with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Add pork to pan; saute 7 minutes, turning to brown on all sides.
  4. Transfer pork to a cookie sheet; coat with 1/4 cup plum sauce. Roast pork at 450 for 15 minutes. Remove pork from oven. Turn pork over; coat with an additional 1/4 cup plum sauce. Roast 10 minutes or until a thermometer inserted into a thickest portion of pork registers 155. Remove from pan; let stand 10 minutes. Slice crosswise. Serve with remaining plum sauce.

Posted in bbq sauce, brown sugar, cooking light, dinner, dry mustard, ketchup, oil, onion, pepper, plum, pork, recipe, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, vinegar | Leave a comment

Griffith Observatory Watercolor Painting

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Jenny

Of all of my plein air paintings with my Saturday morning group, I am most proud of this one.  We set out to go to the Griffith Observatory one beautiful January morning and I chose this spot for all of us.  We sat down, started drawing, and then a half hour in I exclaimed, “Why didn’t anyone warn me how difficult this angle would be?!”  I initially started out in pen and ink and then abandoned ship…it just wasn’t coming out.

Thankfully, I had a pencil and eraser on hand, so I gave it another shot and a drawing eventually came together.  Getting through the drawing is difficult for me — I would much rather be putting paint on the paper.  So, I was excited to move on to the paint stage and am SO pleased with how this came together.  I especially love the patina on the dome!

Posted in art, beautiful, blue, colorful, en plein air, griffith observatory, painting, saturday morning painting group, travel watercolor kit, watercolor, yellow | 1 Comment

Descanso Gardens Japanese Tea House Watercolor Painting

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Jenny

This painting came about, again, from my Saturday Morning Painting Group.  Last December we went to Descanso Gardens to paint together, thinking perhaps we would paint the Christmas decor that they tend to put up around the gardens at that time of year.  We didn’t realize that a week or two before the great windstorm had happened and Descanso had been closed because there was so much damage.

Consequently, there was not much in the way of Christmas decor to paint, but we did all settle in to paint the Japanese Tea House in their small Japanese garden.  I found this scene to be challenging because of the multiple colors of green, to represent all of the different trees, bamboo, etc. that surrounds the teahouse.  In my opinion, realistic greens are the hardest to capture in watercolor painting.  Much more so when you are using a rinky dinky travel watercolor kit with very limited color options.  But — on the whole — not too bad.  This en plein air painting is tough, but I think that I get a little bit better every time I do it.

Posted in art, colorful, descanso gardens, drawing, en plein air, green, japanese, painting, pen and ink, saturday morning painting group, teahouse, travel watercolor kit, tree, watercolor | Leave a comment

Mary Magdalene at the Tomb

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Jenny

This year’s Glenmary Easter appeal was very difficult.  When they called to commission me for the painting, they said they were thinking of an image of the risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene at the tomb.  I responded with, “Um, you do know that I don’t do people well.”  Not only was I anxious about doing people, I was also anxious about painting Jesus because everyone has their own conception of what he looked like.  Glenmary (very kindly) replied that they had liked the people I had painted for them in paintings past, and wanted me to give it a shot…oh, and also include an olive tree and other foliage with the tomb.

Amazingly enough, they were really happy with the first draft I sent them and only had a few refinements.  This painting, what I feel is the most complicated piece I’ve done for them, had fewer revisions than any other painting that I had done.  The Wisemen painting alone went through something like six revisions!

Happy Easter!

Posted in art, beautiful, colorful, easter, glenmary, painting, religious, watercolor | 3 Comments

iPad App

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Jenny

Last summer my friend Alla gave me the great opportunity to work with her on creating a  visual design for a Chicago HVAC company that wanted to make their own iPad App for their servicemen to do scheduling and create invoices.  It was a very cool project, and a new avenue for design for me, so it was really neat to be included.

I believe the app is still in development, but here are a few screenshots of the many screens that I did!

Posted in client, design, ipad app, screenshots | Leave a comment

Apricots in a Blue Bowl Watercolor Painting

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Jenny

December was a bit of a slow month for me, so I was able to be fairly prolific when it came to painting.  Because I don’t have a dedicated space and have to lug everything out, the setting up process of painting often prevents me from putting paint to paper.  So, as long as I was painting the Easter scene for the Glenmary Easter Appeal, I had time to do other paintings as well!

Again, I painted these apricots based on a photo I found on Flickr.  I am drawn to painting fruit, and I liked the composition and the reflectiveness of the bowl.  In the painting, I really like my thumbnail sketch that I did to determine the values of the painting.

Posted in apricots, art, blue, bowls, flickr, glenmary, painting, thumbnail sketch, watercolor, workspace | 2 Comments

Soft pretzels

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Jenny

The other day Gavin requested that I make soft pretzels.  I was a little nervous about this because I’m not great with dough (and it’s such a commitment to make bread/dough, especially if it doesn’t turn out…what a disappointment), but I stepped up to the challenge.  The result was that Alton Brown’s recipe is pretty easy and doesn’t take forever to do!  Gavin ate these so quickly, that I had to make the recipe again later on that week.

Soft Pretzels

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Yield: 8 pretzels

Ingredients

  • 1-1/2 cups Warm water (between 100-110 F)
  • 1 TBSP Sugar
  • 2 tsp Kosher Salt
  • 1 package Active Dry Yeast
  • 4-1/2 cups Flour
  • 2 oz Butter, melted
  • Vegetable Oil
  • 10 cups Water
  • 2/3 cup Baking Soda
  • 1 Egg Yolk
  • Salt

Cooking Directions

  1. Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam.
  2. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4-5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50-55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
  3. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.
  4. Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.
  5. In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.
  6. Place the pretzels into the boiling water, one at a time, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan.
  7. Beat egg yolk with 1 TBSP water in a small bowl. Brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with salt.
  8. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Posted in alton brown, butter, egg, flour, oil, recipe, salt, soft pretzels, yeast | 4 Comments

Empty Bowl Sponsor Placemat

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Jenny

Last year, Family Promise put on an Empty Bowl event, where potters in the community create (and donate) handmade bowls and people can come and purchase a bowl and get a soup lunch (donated by area restaurants.  All proceeds went toward the operating budget for Family Promise, which helps situationally-homeless families get back into jobs and housing.

The event was a huge success, and we are throwing a 2nd annual Empty Bowl event, happening this weekend!  (Tickets still available if you’re interested — email tickets@familypromiseesfv.org or call 717-333-6081)  Like last year, I created the promotional materials — poster, tickets, flyers, website, etc.  Since I created them last year, I was able to just update the dates and send them to the printer, easy enough!

But one thing I didn’t post on the blog about last year’s event was the sponsor/donor recognition placemat that I designed both for last year’s event and this year’s.  Instead of creating a program or something similar, I thought it was a clever idea to create placemats for the event to recognize all of the people and businesses who contributed to make the event a success.

Here is a picture of the placemat for this year’s event (a sneak preview!):

Posted in design, empty bowl, family promise, fundraiser, marketing materials, nonprofit, placemat | 3 Comments

Downtown LA Skyline Watercolor Painting

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Jenny

Here is another watercolor painting I did around the close of last year of the view of Los Angeles skyline at sunset.  I saw a really beautiful picture on Flickr and thought it would be fun to experiment with trying to paint the scene into a panorama on a scrap piece of watercolor paper I had lying around.

I think the colors are fun, but I really like the detail on the cluster of buildings on the right!

Posted in art, beautiful, blue, colorful, downtown, flickr, los angeles, painting, skyline, watercolor | Leave a comment

Delicious, Easy Not-From-A-Box Brownies

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Jenny

I used to always make brownies from a box.  Why not?  Easy, cheap, fast.  So I don’t entirely remember why one day I made brownies from scratch, using the recipe from Marc Bittman’s (excellent) cookbook How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food.  However, make them I did and discovered that not only was the recipe delicious, but it’s not actually that hard and it doesn’t take that much more time.  And, although it’s hard to beat the cost of a $5 box of brownies, if you’re anything like me, you already have these ingredients lying around the house.  Give it a try and see if you can go back to boxed brownies!

Delicious, Easy Not-From-A-Box Brownies

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Yield: 1 Dozen

Ingredients

  • 2 oz Unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
  • 1 stick Unsalted butter (I go ahead and use salted), softened, plus a little for the greasing pan
  • 1 cup Sugar
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1/2 cup All-purpose flour
  • Pinch Salt
  • 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

Cooking Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan, or line it with aluminum foil and grease the foil. (I grease the pan and do not bother with foil.)
  2. Combine the chocolate and butter in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring occasionally. When the chocolate is just about melted, remove from the heat and continue to stir until the mixture is smooth.
  3. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir in the sugar. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Gently stir in the flour, salt, and vanilla. Pour and scrape into the prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes, or until just barely set in the middle. It\'s better to underbake brownies than to overbake them. Cool on a rack before cutting. Store, covered and at room temperature, for no more than a day.
  4. ***In the book, there\'s an excursus on ways to alter the recipe, which I haven\'t used, but think that they could be great additions. I\'m more of a plain brownie kind of girl and this recipe is fantastic on its own, but the alterations I am sure are great, too!***

Posted in brownies, butter, dessert, egg, flour, recipe, salt, sugar, unsweetened chocolate, vanilla | Leave a comment