Apricot-glazed Pork Loin

Last week I got a pork loin on sale at the grocery store, but had no idea how I was going to cook it. Since I hadn’t done any pre-planning, I really didn’t have time for marinating so I put out a desperate call to my Twitter followers: Do you have a good recipe for pork loin? I got an amazing number of responses, all of which looked delicious, and I ended up narrowing it down to a couple when one of my male Twitter followers emailed me a recipe for Apricot-glazed Pork Loin. Oddly enough, I had a jar of apricot preserves in my cupboard (I keep them for a ham appetizer I make that’s a big hit at parties) so I decided to go with that because it fit my requirements: it was easy and I had all of the ingredients. People, let me tell you, this pork loin was amazing and delicious and a hit with everyone in my family. Here’s the recipe, I adapted it just slightly by increasing the amount of crushed red pepper and cumin. You may wish to cut the crushed red pepper in half if you don’t want the warmth to have a bit of spice.

Apricot-Glazed Pork Loin

Ingredients

1 pork loin (the size depends on how many people you’re feeding. Mine was a 2 lb loin)

2-3 garlic cloves, sliced into thin pieces (original recipe called for one clove but I used more. I like garlic)

1/2 cup apricot preserves (with whole fruit is good, maybe even preferable)

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin (or 1/2 teaspoon curry)

juice of 1/2 medium lemon

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sea salt or Kosher salt

Ground pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat Oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Cut 6 (1-inch) slits evenly spaced across the top, insert the garlic pieces. Brush pork loin with EVOO and coat with salt and pepper. Let rest on top of oven for 20 minutes while oven is preheating.

2. In the meantime, in a small bowl combine apricot preserves, lemon juice, crushed red pepper, cumin with salt/pepper to taste. Set aside.

3. Bake pork loin in oven. Baking time depends on the size of your pork loin. Bake for 20 minutes then remove from oven and spread evenly with apricot mixture. Return the pork to the oven and roast for another 15 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees (with pork, temperature is more important than roasting time).

4. Remove from oven and let rest 5 to 10 minutes before slicing and serving.