Day 6 - January 6, 2014: Pork medallions with mushrooms, twice-baked potato, and swiss chard

Today was probably the coldest day I've ever experienced.  I was outside for a total of 20 seconds - once to throw the dismantled Christmas tree on the porch and once to bring the broom inside that was still sitting out from the day before.  Brrrrr!

So, we needed comfort food.

The other day, I baked 4 extra potatoes.  Those became twice-baked potatoes tonight.  Soooo good.  Here is everything I used to make dinner tonight:

4 once-baked potatoes: $0.28
1 pork tenderloin: $4.89
1 bag of swiss chard: $1.99
1/4 yellow onion: $0.20
1 container white mushrooms: $1.00
1 oz Vermont with cheddar: $0.65
1 oz butter: $0.20?
a splash of red wine: $0.30?
a splash of heavy cream: $0.25?
Total: ~$9.76

Here is what I did with everything:
While the oven was preheating to 400 degrees F, I scooped out the insides of the potatoes, microwaved them for 90 seconds and then mixed the warm insides with the butter and the cheese and a sprinkle of smoked paprika.  I filled the potatoes back up and put them into the oven for 30 minutes.  During that time, I cleaned and sliced the mushrooms and diced the onion.  I sautéed the onion in evoo for a couple of minutes, then added the chard and a splash of vegetable broth.  Put the cover on and waited 15 minutes - done, with the aid of s+p and some freshly ground nutmeg.  While the chard was cooking, I sliced the pork tenderloin into disks and sautéed those in some oil until cooked through, but slightly pink in the middle.  I took them out just before the chard was done, covered them in aluminum foil and let them rest while sautéeing the mushrooms in the pan.  When the mushrooms were starting to get soft, I added a splash of red wine; about a minute later, I added a splash of cream.  Now I just had to arrange everything on plates and call the troops to the table - that would prove to be the hard part of dinner ;o)

Verdict:
The twice-baked potatoes turned out phenomenally!  I had never made twice-baked potatoes before and I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the result ;o)  The meat and mushrooms were very yummy, too, but once I tasted the chard, I suddenly remembered why I'm not a fan.  Even though I have certainly had chard that was much more bitter in taste than this one, I could still detect a hint of bitterness in it.  It wasn't bad, but will probably not become a staple in our house.  The kids, of course, only tasted the bitterness.  So, I added honey to theirs and they both ate about half of their portions.  Now, that's how I could eat chard more often, too!