Back in the kitchen, woman

Oh my goodness I am feeling better! It is a fabulous feeling. To be able to breathe through both nostrils, and to be able to keep my eyes open for several hours. True test of how I'm feeling, I'm back in the kitchen. I made a fabulous dinner and a great lunch to take to work on Sunday.

There is a salad bar in my office building, and whenever I go there, I end up getting the same thing, so I decided to make my favorite salad - not at $5 a pound.

Marinated Broccoli Salad

6 cups broccoli florets

2 cups diced carrots

2 red peppers, diced

half a red onion, thinly sliced

10 ounces roast chicken breast

1/2 cup vinaigrette

Bring 2 qts water to a boil, add broccoli and cook for one minute. Remove from the water, and immediately place them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Add carrots, peppers, onions and chicken to broccoli, toss with vinaigrette. Yum! Warning, after a day, the broccoli will be discolored from the vinegar, but it is still good. Here's a poorly lit photo:

And for dinner we had a lovely roast pork tenderloin, roasted root vegetables and asparagus. Roasting vegetables at a high heat is my favorite way to eat them, I think. If I can't have them in cheese sauce, of course. The outside gets crispy and caramelized, while the inside gets soft. I use this recipe from allrecipes.com. I used butternut squash, garnet yams, new red potato, parsnips, and onions.

For the pork tenderloin, here we go.

2 1 pound pork tenderloins

6 slices bacon

2 TBS olive oil

1 TBS black pepper

2 tsp kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 375. Rub the tenderloin with the oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap 3 slices of bacon around the pork, barbershop pole style. Secure with toothpicks. Bake for 40 minutes, until pork is 155 degrees.

It looks like this!