With my parents owning a restaurant… I wasn’t planning on doing a lot of cooking while visiting them for Christmas! 🙂 On Christmas Eve, while the restaurant was closed… I decided to make my family a great meal. I even impressed myself with this recipe!

Kraft Canada sent me a nice package of goodies (couriered to my parents house in BC) to get me in the baking / cooking spirit during the holidays while I was visiting and to help promote their Recipe for Joy program (see the bottom of this post for details to help raise money for the Food Banks Canada) and so I put some of those ingredients to work. 

Our main course was: 

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Mushroom & Pecans

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Kraft Signature Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing, divided

1/2 lb mushrooms, coarsely chopped

2 pork tenderloins (1.5 lbs)

The recipe called for 2 pork tenderloins but I used 3… I have a big family!

14 Premium Plus Crackers, crushed (1/2 cup)

1/3 cup chopped Italian parsley

1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted

1/4 cup Kraft 100% Parmesan Grated Cheese

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

Make It:

HEAT oven to 350F

HEAT 2 Tbsp dressing in large skillet on medium-high heat. Add mushrooms; cook 5 min. or until liquid is evaporated, stirring frequently. Spoon into large bowl; cool slightly. 

Meanwhile, partially cut each tenderloin lengthwise in half, being careful to not cut through to opposite side of each. Cover with plastic wrap: pound to 1/2 inch thickness.

ADD all remaining ingredients to mushrooms; mix well. Spread half the mushroom mixture onto cut side of each tenderloin; press stuffing gently into meat.

ROLL up each tenderloin tightly; tie with kitchen string in 2 or 3 places to secure (I had to find cotton string of some sort… so I used the kid’s extra yo-yo string… sshh don’t tell them!) Those are my momma’s hands helping me tie it up. 🙂 Place tenderloins, side-by-side, in shallow pan; brush with remaining dressing.

BAKE 40 min. or until done (160F internal temp). Remove from oven.

Let stand 5 min. Remove string before slicing meat (or at least prior to eating!).