BURNED IT! Rachel Ray's Balsamic Pork Tenderloin.

WTF Rachel Ray. This doesn't work. Maybe if I had watched this episode of thirty minute meals rather than just finding the recipe in a google search, you know, so you could walk me through it. But yeah, no.

So I should mention that I have never cleaned a pork tenderloin. I've cooked them in a slow cooker, and by that I mean I opened the plastic package and scooted the meat in there without touching it. I'm not a meat person. I'm also too lazy to go vegan, so I eat meat anyway. But pull the fat off? With my fingers? What is silver skin? Preston, google silver skin for me, find some pictures.

And also, there's a smell that makes me turn my head to the side every once in a while and cringe, because I'm handling, you know, a dead body part.

Gross. I know it's not gross to most people, but I was thinking I probably wasn't going to eat the pork tenderloin anyway at this point. But I got this far, so I might as well try. Other people do this all the time without vomiting, so can I. But still gross.

I'm not even to the recipe yet and I've already done things that I'm not proud of.

I should mention here that pork and I have a history. Pork, through no fault of my own, burns in my kitchen. Its my slow cooker. Its my oven. Its the kitchen elves that live under my sink. But It's not Meeeee.

So this pork tenderloin is ready to go. Fresh thyme. Fresh rosemary. Fresh, like I had to get out the food processor and grind that junk. And in the oven it goes. The 500 degrees oven. I asked, "Are you SURE 500 degrees, Rachel?" And she was like, "Yes, this is so easy. Five stars, Katie. Five of them."

So I put the pork in the oven and step away because now I've got twenty minutes for baby bath time. Well, three minutes in, Pres says, "Katie, are you sure it's supposed to smoke like this?" And I'm all, "Leave it alone; you're gonna mess it up."

But then I start thinking about MY KITCHEN'S track record with pork. I ask Preston to take over bath time so I can check things out.

I saw a little smoke. I turned on the vent. I turned on the fan. I opened the window. All of these things should have helped, but by this point, the smoke monster from Lost has invaded our house. It's everywhere. In every room. How the alarms didn't go off is beyond me. Note to self: check fire alarms.

So, we take the pork tenderloin fire hazard smoke monster outside and let it do its thing on our grill. The pan is black. It's crusty. Balsamic vinegar is spitting everywhere like bacon grease on crack.

It's now been five minutes.

WTF, Rachel Ray? Where are you hiding your devil horns? Because this seems like a trick. So I check the reviews; they're all good reviews. How are they all good reviews? Smoke monster merits a bad review; you would think there would be one in there somewhere, but no. The closest thing to it is "maybe use a disposable pan" and "anything that burns at 500 degrees isn't coming off the pan." These reviewers must have had the same experience as I did, right? Right? No?

I still don't know what went wrong. All I can say is kitchen elves don't like pork and we definitely had take out that night. Cotton Patch potato cheese soup. Ironic because my kitchen can't make a good potato soup either.