The other white meat

I've been test-driving some recipes for the Recession Recipes party this week, and one I think I've settled on is Pork Medallions. However, the recipe I MEANT to make differed greatly from the end result, but in the most delicious way.

I found a promising-sounding recipe in Ellie Krieger's 'The Food you Crave' cookbook that called for balsamic vinegar, dried cherries, shallots, etc. I sliced some medallions off my roast from FreshDirect.com and started sautéing in a mere two TEASPOONS of olive oil (yes, teaspoons!), only to realize I was missing the chicken broth called for halfway through the recipe. That's the second time this has happened to me in a matter of months (and yes, I've learned my lesson--I stocked up on it as of today). The whole POINT of this recipe was to use a nonstick pan and then deglaze it with the broth, getting all those yummy bits of brown deliciousness off the bottom of the dish.

As I stirred around about twice the recommended amount of shallots for this dish, I decided to improvise a bit and reached for a can of beef broth (yeah, yeah, I know) and a cheap but tasty bottle of red I set aside for this week's party. I splashed about a half a cup of broth, and just over a quarter-cup of wine in there along with a little butter and a bunch of baby bella mushrooms. Since I was using red wine, I opted to skip the balsamic. I sautéed that mixture even longer, scraping up the brown bits on the pan's surface, turning the mushrooms a dark, glazed brown, reducing the sauce by about half. I returned the medallions to the pan for last-minute warming, then piled the whole thing on my plate. IT. WAS. DELICIOUS.

So delicious, in fact, that it wasn't until I was doing the dishes that I realized I'd completely forgotten the cherries! I also loved this variation so much I made it the next night for lunch! Total cost for 3 servings? Oh, about 6 bucks! Woo hoo!