Marinated Pork Loin and Hamburgers a la Diana

What a wonderful weekend! Some of my closest friend were in town for different reasons, but we were all able to get together this past weekend for a fabulous beach day and a couple of late night talks. Kita and her three girls were here from Colorado, Joey and her daughter for Portland, Maine and Karima from my old stomping ground, Brooklyn. There is nothing like being with your dearest friends in the world and even though we haven't seen each other in a while it felt like just yesterday we were drinking at Lucky Johnny's or covering up holes in our dorm room walls with posters left over from our butt rocker party. (Maybe I can find a picture of that to post!)

It was a great way to let off some steam too before I had to start digging into my work week this week. It went too quickly. But I did make dinner on Friday and Saturday nights and Kita was requesting I post the recipes so here we go:

On Friday, I grilled pork loin on the grill that I had marinated for several hours in a soy, dry sherry mixture that I found on the Food Network site. I think it turned out really well, but some of our younger guests thought it smelled like alcohol so maybe it would have been best to make something a little simpler for the under 21 in the group. They did eat it though so I am not sure if it tasted better than it smelled or if they were just being polite.

Here is the recipe I used:

2 pound pork loin
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup dry sherry
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil (the original calls for vegetable oil, but I liked the way the olive oil worked out)
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh thyme (the original calls for rosemary, but they didn't have any at the supermarket so I used thyme)
1 tablespoon minced onion (I thought I had the shallot the original recipe called for but it was bad, so I substituted onion and it was fine, but shallot probably would have been better.)1
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger

I patted the pork loin dry and placed it in a gallon zip lock bag. In a medium bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, sherry, honey, vinegar, oil, and juice. Add the thyme, onion, and ginger and mix well. Pour the mixture into the zip lock, covering the pork loin. Marinate for as long as possible but at least two hours.

Preheat the grill. Remove the pork loin from the bag leaving the marinade in the bag. Place them on the grill and cook for about 18 minutes (depending on the size, it could be a little more or a little less. I use a thermometer to make sure it is done properly.) When it is finished, remove from the grill and let stand for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, pour the marinade into a skillet and heat it up to a slow simmer for about 10 minutes.

Slice the pork loin, arrange on a plate and pour the heated marinade over the slices. Yum!

The following night I made hamburgers. Damien is really the best one at making them, but this is how I do it:

Hamburgers a la Diana
3 pounds organic ground beef (after the whole NY Times e. coli article, I'm all about organic ground beef)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons steak sauce (I used Smith and Wollensky's)
1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs

Put the ground beef in a large bowl. Add the salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, steak sauce and bread crumbs to the beef. Use your hands to mix as well as you can. I don't really measure the ingredients when I do it so these are all approximate. You can use as much or as little of them depending on your taste. The goal is a moist and tasty burger.

Once it is well mixed, make about 10-12 hamburger patties. Preheat the grill to about 450 - 500 degrees. Place the patties straight on the grill and cook for 3 minutes per side for medium (but this of course depends on the thickness of the patties so you can check one to make sure it's cooked properly.)

You can add some cheese to the burgers when they are close to finished and I like to toast french style hamburger rolls from the bakery section that are much better than the usual hamburger buns you get in the bread section.

I also use ground turkey sometimes and they are just as good.