Stuffed Pork Tenderloin over Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Once again, the nice folks at the Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission asked to sponsor a post here on Cookistry, and of course I said yes. I love berries, and I like to have frozen ones on hand for smoothies or for cooking.

In season, fresh berries are a wonderful thing. But they're also very perishable. Frozen berries are great year-round, and I can use a few or a lot and not worry about having the rest go bad before I get to them.

Raspberries are actually one of my favorite berries, but I'm sort of a weirdo since I like them better cooked, juiced, macerated or otherwise manipulated than I like them fresh and raw. Yep, I'm odd.


I decided to use the berries two ways - or three, if we want to count the garnish.

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin over Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

For the raspberry vinaigrette:
Frozen Oregon raspberries, to fill small jar
Cider vinegar, as needed
Olive oil
Salt, as needed

For the pork:
1 cup frozen Oregon raspberries
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and finely diced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
2 pork tenderloins

To make the raspberry vinaigrette:
Fill a small jar with frozen raspberries and add cider vinegar to fill. You can leave this at room temperature for a few hours, if you need it quickly. If you're planning ahead, refrigerate until needed - you'll have more raspberry flavor if you let it sit for a day or so.

When you're ready to make the salad dressing, combine 1 part vinegar with 2-3 parts olive oil, to taste. For example, 1 tablespoon of vinegar with 2 or three tablespoons olive oil. Add a pinch of salt, to taste, and whisk to emulsify. You can also combine the oil and vinegar in a small jar and shake it. Taste and add more salt, if needed. If you like a sweeter dressing, add sugar or honey to taste.

Serve this over fresh salad greens. Garnish with some thawed frozen berries, if desired.

To make the pork:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and have a baking sheet standing by.

Put the berries, along with about 1/4 cup of water, in a small saucepan. Heat on medium-low heat, stirring as needed, until the berries have fallen apart. Pass the sauce through a fine-mesh strainer to remove the seeds. Set the sauce aside.

Put the butter in a saute pan and heat on medium until melted. Add the onion, apple, and salt. Cook, stirring as needed, until the onions are softened and translucent. Add the raspberry sauce, and stir to combine. Cook until the mixture is jammy rather than saucy. Add the thyme and give it one more stir.

If the tenderloins have any silverskin, remove it, then butterfly the meat and pound it flat. The thinner the meat is, the more of a spiral you'll have with the filling. You don't want to pound so thin that the meat will tear and shred, though.

Spread half of the filling on each tenderloin and roll each one up, jellyroll-style. You can fasten the seam with toothpicks, tie the rolls with kitchen twine at intervals, or just very carefully lift the rolls and place them on a baking sheet.

Roast the tenderloins at 375 degrees, until done to your likeness. I prefer tenderloins at 140 degrees, which takes about 30 minutes.

Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving with salad greens drizzled with the raspberry vinaigrette. Garnish with a few berries, if desired.

Thanks to the Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission for sponsoring this post! Oregon brands of frozen berries include Stahlbush Island Farms, Scenic Fruit, Columbia Fruit, and Willamette Valley Fruit Company.

Raspberry Vinaigrette

A while back, the Oregon Raspberry Blackberry Commission contacted me about writing a post about their berries. Specifically frozen berries.

I made a few recipes and they were good, but for one reason or another, I didn't want to post them. Sometimes the photos didn't work out, and other times I wanted to tweak the recipes further.

I set the berry cooking aside for a while, even though I had more berries in the freezer. I knew I'd get back to them eventually, because frozen berries are so versatile. They're great when berry season is over, but they're handy to have, even during berry season.

See, when you buy fresh berries, you really need to use them pretty quickly. If you shop on the weekend, but you're planning on using the berries on Wednesday or Thursday, you're probably going to need to sort through the berries to pick out the bad ones. It's best to buy them and use them in a day or two.

But that's not always practical. I don't live horribly far from a grocery store, but I still don't want to drive there more often than I have to.

Unlike fresh berries, frozen berries are just as good a week or a month later, as long as you keep them safely frozen. And they're always there when you decide to make something on a whim. No need to run to the store and hope that the berries are looking good.

So anyway, I finally grabbed some frozen raspberries (Stalbush Island Farms is an Oregon brand, by the way) and made a very tasty vinaigrette.

Since this vinaigrette includes both the juice and pulp of the berries, it's pretty thick. Which means you don't need a lot of oil - which is what makes the emulsion with the acidic component in a normal vinaigrette. A little oil is used to add the richness and savory flavor, though.

This is amazing on salads, and wonderful drizzled on vegetables. It would also be a lovely glaze on chicken or pork. You could use it as a marinade.

I'm pretty sure you will think of plenty of other uses after you make it. It's really versatile.

The easiest way to get separate juice and pulp from berry seeds is to let the berries thaw and then let a juicer do the work for you. If you don't have a juicer, you can use a blender to break them down a bit, then pass them through a fine-mesh strainer to get rid of the seeds.

You could also use a food mill to mash the berries and get rid of the seeds.

Some folks don't mind the seeds, but I don't care for them. If you like seeds, leave them in.

I used red raspberries, because I wanted the bright color. You could certainly use black raspberries, or a berry mix.

Raspberry Vinaigrette

4 ounces red raspberry juice and pulp (extracted from 8 ounces frozen Oregon berries)
2 ounces red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon prepared brown mustard
2 ounces olive oil

Combine all the ingredients in a jar (I used a dressing shaker with a handy pouring spout, but you can use a jar with a lid) and shake to combine.

Taste for seasoning, and add more salt, sugar, or red wine vinegar to adjust it to your taste.

If it's too thick to pour, you can add a little water to thin it out.

Serve immediately, or refrigerate until needed.

This was particularly good on asparagus along with a basil mayo drizzle. it sounds like an unlikely combination, but it was really really (really) good.

Thanks to the Oregon Raspberry Blackberry Commission for sponsoring this post!

Fresh Strawberry Filling for a Strawberry Rose Cake

Isn't it pretty?

And it tasted pretty amazing, too.

This is a great special-occasion cake, but it's not that hard to make. I sliced the layers into halves, horizontally, to make four layers, but you could leave it as a two-layer cake.

I used the Classic Yellow Cake recipe from The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook by King Arthur Flour, and the pastry cream recipe from that book as well.

I ended up with a lot more pastry cream than I needed, but I found other uses for it, so that was fine.

And for the frosting, I used a basic recipe (below), and used gel colors to tint the buttercream with pink and yellow.

For the strawberry filling, I wanted something thick enough so it would hold up well inside the cake without getting smashed under the weight of the layers and the frosting.

So something cooked and jammy seemed appropriate.

But ... I also wanted fresh strawberry flavor.

I added sliced fresh strawberries to the cooked, chilled jam, so it had the thickness and cooked jamminess I was looking for, AND the bright flavor of fresh strawberries.

I thought it was pretty darned good.

Strawberry Cake Filling

1 pound strawberries, divided, cleaned cored, and sliced
Small splash of water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons instant pectin

To make the strawberry filling:
Place half of the strawberries into a heavy saucepan along with the water and salt. Cook, stirring as needed until the strawberries soften.

Mash them well, then add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar, if needed.

Pass the strawberries through a fine mesh strainer and discard the seeds that you've strained out.

Add the instant pectin to the strawberry sauce and stir well to combine. Add the remaining sliced strawberries and stir to coat them with the sauce.

Refrigerate until chilled. You can make this a day or two in advance, if you like.

This is enough to make one filling layer - if you need more, the recipe can be doubled.

If you don't need more, you might want to make extra, anyway. This is good on ice cream, for strawberry shortcake, or on pancakes or waffles.

Totally worth making extra, even if you aren't making any cake.

Cream Cheese Buttercream

1 cup butter (or you can use part or all shortening)
4 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 pounds powdered sugar
Milk, as needed

Combine the butter and cream cheese and beat until smooth and light. You can use your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or use a hand beater in a large bowl. Add the salt and vanilla and beat in.

Add the powdered sugar, a cup at a time, and beat well after each addition. Continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy, adding a few tablespoons of milk, if needed, to reach the consistency you're looking for.

Note: You can cut back on the sugar a bit, if you like.

Strawberry Shortcake: The pound cake version

Ah, strawberry shortcake...

I was an adult before I knew there was a specific thing called strawberry shortcake. When I was a kid, it was cake - usually pound cake, because those were easy for mom to buy, topped with some cut berries and whipped topping.

On occasion, there might have been pudding involved. With or without cake. Maybe with graham cracker crumbs.

Imagine my confusion when I found out that some versions of strawberry shortcake were made with sweet biscuits instead of with cake.

But, since I didn't have any set-in-stone notions of what strawberry shortcake was supposed to be, I embraced all the versions. It didn't matter if they should have been called a trifle or a parfait. If the berries were there, I was on board.

But still, if I want that childhood nostalgia, pound cake needs to come to the party. So, this time I invited it.

Pound cake is notoriously finicky up here at high altitude. Much of the time, it turns out more like sponge cake. Or it rises up and out of the pan. Or it rises then falls. Or ... just ugh.

So, I messed around with the original pound cake ratio of 1 pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. And I changed the technique completely. While the final shape of this cake wasn't perfect (did I mention that pound cake behaves oddly at high altitude?), the texture had the denseness I was looking for.

If you try the cake at sea level, let me know how it works.

The cake and glaze can be made a day (or more) ahead of time, but I suggest making the whipped cream right before serving. You can make it earlier in the day, and give it a little whisk before serving, if that works better for you. It will last a day or two, refrigerated, but it's simple enough to make that there's no need to make a lot more than you actually need.

Speaking of whipped cream, the addition of the sour cream gives it a little hint of cheesecake like flavor. Give it a try!

Besides using the berry glaze on this shortcake, try it drizzled on waffles, pancakes, or ice cream. Or swirl it into yogurt ... or make a yogurt parfait with Greek-style yogurt, fresh strawberries, and the glaze.

Strawberry Shortcake: The Pound Cake version
Makes 1 9x5 poundcake, about 1 1/4 cups glaze, about 1 cup whipped cream

For the cake:
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla
6 large eggs
2 cups (9 ounces) all purpose flour

For the berry glaze:
1 cup strawberries
1 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch

For the whipped cream:
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sour cream

To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and spray a loaf pan with baking spray. I used a metal loaf pan, but I think my ceramic one might have worked a little better. Your choice, though.

Cream the butter, sugar, salt, and baking powder until light. (I used a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; you can use an electric hand mixer.) Add the vanilla and beat until incorporated.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition. You might need to pause and scrape down the bowl to make sure the butter/sugar mixture isn't clinging to the sides of the bowl.

Add the flour and beat well. This isn't the time to be all gently and foldy. Beat it for a minute or two, until the batter is smooth.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake at 325 degrees until a toothpick poked into the center of the cake comes out clean - about 70 minutes.

Remove the cake from the pan and let it cool completely on a rack.

To make the berry glaze:
Wash, core, and halve the berries and put them in a saucepan with the water and salt. Heat on medium (or med/high, depending on your stove) to boiling and let them cook for a few minutes until the berries look pale and are soft, but they haven't complete disintegrated.

Strain through a fine-mesh strainer. Press out as much liquid as possible from the berries - but if you want a mostly-clear glaze, avoid getting pulp into the liquid. Discard the berries.

Put the liquid back into the saucepan.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cornstarch (this will keep the cornstarch from clumping) then add the sugar/cornstarch mixture to the berry juice in the pan. Heat to boiling, stirring as needed. At first, the mixture will be cloudy, but it will become clear as it boils.

Turn the heat off and taste for sweetness. Add more sugar, if desired, and stir until dissolved. The glaze will be fairly thick, depending on how much liquid evaporated during boiling. Add more water if you prefer it thinner. And keep in mind that it will thicken even more as it cools.

Let cool to room temperature. Check the thickness, and add more water, if needed. The goal for this is to be pourable. Refrigerate until needed.

To make the whipped cream:
Pour the cream into a medium bowl. Whisk until it begins to thicken - you'll feel it.

Add the salt and powdered sugar. Stir them in with the whisk, then continue beating until the mixture is the consistency of sour cream or thick yogurt. Add the vanilla and sour cream, and continue whisking until the cream reaches the soft peak stage.

To assemble the shortcake:
Cut a slice of cake and lay it on a plate. If you want a layered look, you can cut the slice in half or quarters. Or, for big appetites, use two slices of cake, and make two layers.

Top the cake with sliced strawberries, then drizzle the glaze on top. Finish with a dollop of whipped cream and serve.

If you like, pass the extra glaze and the whipped cream at the table for those who want to indulge.

Strawberry Marshmallow Ice Cream for Ice Cream Tuesday: Marshmallow Madness #mallowmadness

I love it when bloggers pull together group posts, just for the fun of it. So when Jenni from Pastry Chef Online mentioned marshmallow ice cream as a theme, I was interested. But perplexed.

I make a lot of ice cream. I've made marshmallows. But for some reason I couldn't think of a killer idea that was worth posting. So I procrastinated until time was almost up. Then I looked in the refrigerator, saw the leftover strawberries, and got to work.

Marshmallows have gelatin in them, so the resulting ice cream base is thick without the need for eggs. And the finished ice cream has an almost fluffy texture. Normally, this quantity of ingredients would fit easily in my ice cream maker. This time, I had to divide it into two batches. So keep that in mind.

I weighed the marshmallows, but you can probably eyeball it. I started with a 10-ounce bag of mini marshmallows and I had a slightly-rounded cup of marshmallows left over.

Strawberry Marshmallow Ice Cream

8 ounces (by weight) marshmallows
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons appropriately-flavored* vodka
1 1/2 cups strawberries

Combine the marshmallows, sugar, heavy cream, salt, and about 1 cup of the milk in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook on medium, stirring as needed, until all of the marshmallows are melted. The mixture will be pretty thick.

Turn off the heat and add the milk. Stir to combine. Add the vodka

Meanwhile, blitz the strawberries in a blender. Strain the berries through a fine-mesh strainer into the waiting ice cream base. In theory, you could toss it in as-is, but I like to remove the seeds.

Let the mixture cool to room temperature. If you have an ice cream maker with its own compressor unit, you can start churning when the mixture is room temperature, if you're really anxious. Otherwise, chill the mixture in the refrigerator until it's cold, then churn according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Transfer the mixture to a storage container and freeze until firm.

Remember those left over marshmallows? They'd make a fine garnish, wouldn't they? If you're being particularly cheffy, use a torch to toast them.

*I didn't want to use vanilla extract for this, but I did want another flavor in the background, so I went to vodka to add some subtle flavor. I used a whipped-cream flavored vodka, but berry or citrus or cake-flavored would also be lovely. Use what you like, it's your ice cream. If you want to use vanilla (which would be fine), I suggest about a tablespoon.

Check the rest of the amazing participating blogs for more recipes and look for us using the hashtags #icecreamtuesday a #marshmallowicecream and #mallowmadness.

• Traverse City Cherry Cordial Frozen Yogurt from Kirsten of Comfortably Domestic
• Strawberry Marshmallow Ice Cream from Donna of Cookistry
• Horchata Ice Cream with Mocha Mallow Swirl from Allison of Decadent Philistines Save the World
• Kahlua Marshmallows and Marshmallow Sauce from Betsy of Desserts Required
• No-Churn Coffee Amaretto Ice Cream with Almond Marshmallows from Stacy of Food Lust People Love
• Blackberry Cheesecake Swirl Ice Cream from Jeanne of Inside Nana Bread’s Head
• Princess Badass Ice Cream from Sophia of NY Foodgasm
• Strawberry Cheesecake Key Lime Marshmallow Ice Cream from Jenni of Pastry Chef Online
• Frozen Coconut S’mores Bars from Karyn of Pint Sized Baker
• Fudge-Topped Marshmallow Ice Cream from Liz of That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Strawberry Ice Cream with Marshmallow Swirl and Toasted Walnuts from Dionne of Try Anything Once

An InLinkz Link-up

Blueberry Cake-Pie-Cheesecake Bars

I love a challenge, so when I found out that Lucky Leaf was holding a contest for recipes using their products, I jumped right in.

And promptly fell off.

If you're not familiar with the company, Lucky Leaf makes all kinds of canned fruit products, including pie fillings and some unusual canned fruits that you don't normally see - like canned tart cherries, apricot pie filling, and pineapple pie filling.

My first cake was a disaster. I think I know where it went wrong, and it had nothing to do with the lovely tart cherries I bought. The cake part of the recipe was out of whack.

So ... I moved on to blueberry pie filling. And I completely re-did the cake part of the recipe. And then I decided I needed something more than blueberries sitting on top of a cake. That would be just weird, right, just a layer of berries?

So I cobbled together a cheesecake-like topping and put a thin layer of that on top. It's really thin. I've seen frosting slathered on thicker. But that's what I was after. Thin layer of cake, layer of blueberry pie filling, and then a cheesecake-like topping.

I considered dolloping on the cheesecake stuff and the blueberry pie filling randomly, then doing swirls, but I decided to go with layers. Maybe next time it will be dollops and swirls. We'll see.

So, back to the contest. I was going to enter it, but with the first cake disaster and the need to buy more stuff, and the late-night baking, and the need to cool this completely before I cut it ... well, I missed the contest deadline completely.

But so what? It's good cake.

Sometimes my best recipes happen when other people ask me to make things. Or when I enter a contest. That's when I pull out all the creativity stops and I make things that I probably wouldn't make if it was just dinner.

Not only do I get more creative when I'm working on a contest entry, some of my most popular posts here weren't things I would have written about if someone else hadn't nudged me write them. We'll see how this one fares.

Blueberry Cake-Pie-Cheesecake Bars

For the cake:
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups (9 ounces) all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the pie filling:
1 21-ounce can blueberry pie filling

For the cheese topping:
8 ounces cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9x13 pan with baking spray.

To make the cake:
Combine all the cake ingredients in a large bowl. Yes, all at once. Beat until well combined. You don't need to beat the heck out of it, but just until it's combined and not lumpy-bumpy.

Pour the cake mixture into the pan and bake at 350 degrees until the cake bounces back when lightly pressed on top - about 25 minutes. It doesn't need to be browned on top, but it should be cooked through. A toothpick inserted in the center might be a little moist, but it shouldn't be batter-wet.

To make the cheese topping:
While the cake is baking, make the cheese topping. Beat the cream cheese until it is smooth, then add the sugar and beat well. Add the egg, creme fraiche (or sour cream) and lemon juice and beat until well combined and smooth. Set aside until the cake is ready.

When the cake is ready, remove it from the oven. Add the blueberry pie filling and even it out as much as possible. Dollop on the cheese topping and smooth the top.

Return the cake to the oven and bake at 350 degrees until the cheese mixture is just set. It can be a little jiggly, but it shouldn't be loose and sloshy.

Let the cake, in its pan, cool on a rack until room temperature, then refrigerate.

Serve cool, or at room temperature.

Cranberry Yogurt Biscuits

Cranberry sauce is great on the Thanksgiving table, but what can you do with the leftovers?

Like jelly or jam, it can last a while in the refrigerator, but eventually there's no more turkey left to pair it with, and you've got to find another use for it or get rid of it.

These biscuits are so good, you might want to make more cranberry sauce, just to make more biscuits. I used my own homemade cranberry sauce, but any chunky cranberry sauce will do.

The pan you choose for baking your biscuits will determine the type of crust they will have. If you bake on a cookie sheet, leaving room between them, they will have a crisp exterior. If you bake them in a cake pan, close together, they will have a soft, tender exterior. A dark pan, like a cast iron skilled will produce a darker top and bottom.

Cranberry Yogurt Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup Greek-style yogurt
1/2 cup cranberry sauce
1/2 cup milk, divided.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl and whisk to combine.

In another bowl, combine the yogurt, cranberry sauce, and 1/4 cup milk.

Make a well in the center of the flour and pour the wet mixture into the well. Stir, starting at the center and pulling flour into the wet mixture, just until all the flour is moistened and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If there is still unmixed flour, add milk, as needed, so that it all is incorporated. If it seems too wet, you can add more flour during shaping.

Flour your work surface and turn the dough out, and sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough. Fold the dough in half and shape it into a circle, then pat it down until it's about 3/4 inches high. Brush excess flour from the top.

Dip your biscuit cutter (or cookie cutter, or a thin-edged glass) in flour and cut circles from the dough and place them on your chosen pan. When you have cut all the biscuit, gently re-form the scraps and cut more biscuits. These will be a little tougher than the first batch, but still good.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of your biscuits, until lightly browned. When they're done, you can brush the tops with melted butter, if desired. These are best served freshly baked and warm, but are fine at room temperature or reheated.