Roasted Beef Tenderloin, Burgundy Mushrooms, and Creamy Rosemary Potatoes

Beef Tenderloin: I have to admit that I don't have a jar of bacon grease in my refrigerator (though I have been meaning to start one!), so I used butter instead of bacon grease in the rub. It still tasted great once the meat was cooked, so I guess it's an okay substitute (though bacon grease might taste even better!). My biggest problem with this recipe was the suggested cooking time - it wasn't nearly long enough for (a) my strange oven and (b) my taste for fairly well done meat. My meat thermometer doesn't actually go as low as 120 to 125 degrees, but we cooked the tenderloin until it was about 140 degrees - and, to be honest, it still wasn't cooked enough even for the medium-rare lovers in the group. So, we had to cook the meat for at least an extra 10-15 minutes to get it to the right amount of "done-ness" that we wanted. Other than that, though, it was a delicious main dish and I'd love to try the rub again the next time we're making a fancy dinner!

Burgundy Mushrooms: These were DELICIOUS and I didn't even get to cook them for the full amount of time. [Side note: I've been having a little trouble with the instructions in this cookbook - I tend to read them from right to left across the page instead of up and down in columns, and that led me to miss completely the extra 6 HOURS of cooking PW suggested for these mushrooms - oops!] In the end, I probably cooked them for about 4 hours total, and I thought they were delicious. They even re-heated nicely the next evening.

Creamy Rosemary Potatoes: I really loved the flavor of these, even though some of them were still undercooked by the time we got around to eating. Next time, I shall heed PW's advice about slicing the potatoes VERY THINLY much better - I thought I had done a good job on that, but they just didn't cook enough. I suppose another way around this would be to blanch the potatoes for a few minutes and then and then drizzle them with the half-and-half/cream mixture in Step 3.

All around, this was a very tasty meal - definitely a menu for special occasions. I'll have to do it again sometime to see if I can get everything perfect the second time around! :)