Mexican Everyday Attempt #1

My friends at work got me hooked on the show Top Chef, which led to me seeing Rick Bayless on Top Chef Masters. Brad and I really enjoyed watching him cook and went to his restaurant up in Chicago this fall. A lot of nights we watch his show on PBS during dinner: Mexico One Plate at a Time. So for Christmas, Brad got me his "easier" cookbook...Mexican Everyday.
I thought New Year's Eve seemed like a fun time to try out some fun, new food. So I poured through the cookbook looking for things I thought I might be able to create (with ingredients I could find in Pekin in the winter). I settled on:
-Creamy Queso Anejo Dressing, with some nice green leaf lettuce
-Gulf Coast-Style White Rice Pilaf, and
-Pork Tenderloin a la Mexicana
Making the dressing led to me using my blender for the first time in almost five years of having it (it's very nice, I should be using it more often). It was a creamy oil and vinegar dressing that had a pretty intense tang. Pretty easy to make, and pretty tasty, though not amazing.
The rice was probably my favorite part. Apparently traditional mexican rice is white rice, not the red rice we american's always call spanish rice. This was white rice with garlic and onion and chicken broth, and then baked. Very flavorful, and pretty easy. I would definitely make this one again, though use some of my shortcuts like the frozen onion and garlic powder instead of mincing garlic and chopping onions.
And then the pork tenderloin. This was diced pork tenderloin with poblano chiles, onion, garlic, fire-roasted diced tomatoes, and cilantro. I was glad I had seen Rick roast poblanos on his tv show so I knew what to expect with those. You stick them under the broiler until they get all blistered and blackened, put in a bowl and cover until cooled, and then all that black skin just peels right off to leave this nice roasted chile. I was a little unsure about this one while I was cooking it, I think the smell of garlic in the kitchen was overpowering everything else for me. But it really turned out quite tasty. It had a lot of flavor, but was not really that spicy.
All in all, it seemed to be pretty tasty. Now that I've made one attempt at these things using all fresh ingredients, I feel I can play around with a few things to make them easier for "everyday". So I guess instead of "Julie & Julia", this is "Megan & Rick" :)