Pork with Tomatoes and Red Wine

This incredibly easy and tasty recipe came from an absolutely wonderful book - full of fantastic ideas.  It's the WeightWatchers Cook Smart Easy Everyday book, I have a few in this range now and it's great for healthier ideas even if you're not doing the WeightWatchers programme.

The book recommends serving this with boiled rice and fresh steamed vegetables but instead I served it with boiled baby new potatoes and it was nice like that too.  It does make a lot of sauce though so probably best served in a shallow bowl no matter what you choose to serve it with.

The recipe also suggests bulking it out with additional chopped vegetables such as carrots, celery and leeks for a more filling casserole style meal.

The only changes I made were small, other than the potatoes instead of rice, I used an extra 50g of the pork and 25g of mushrooms just because I didn't want to waste the little amount that would have been left over and used a tiny amount of olive oil when frying the pork and onion.  I found the amount of cornflour used wasn't enough to thicken the sauce so used extra, this is something you can adjust to your own preference.

Serves 4 (although we fed 3 from this with a lot for leftovers)

Ingredients

350g (12oz) pork tenderloin, cut into strips
1 large onion, chopped
400g can chopped tomatoes with herbs
150ml (5 fl oz) red wine
1 tablespoon tomato purée
150ml (5 fl oz) hot vegetable or chicken stock
1 teaspoon dried herbes de Provence or Italian mixed herbs
225g (8oz) chestnut or open cap mushrooms, halved
2 courgettes, sliced thickly
1 teaspoon dried sage
2 teaspoons cornflour
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Heat a large, lidded, non stick frying pan and dry fry the pork and onion for 5 minutes then stir in the tomatoes, red wine, tomato purée, stock, herbs, mushrooms, courgettes and sage.  Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

2. Blend the cornflour to a paste with 2 tablespoons of cold water and stir into the pork mixture.  Simmer, uncovered, for 1-2 minutes to thicken the sauce.  Season to taste.  Serve.

And that's it!  Told you it was easy!

WeightWatchers Cook Smart Easy Everyday (2011) is currently available from Amazon at the bargain price of £8.49.  RRP £14.99