Turkey Tenderloin, Red Skin Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Breadstick Wrapped Asparagus

I wasn't sure what we were going to do for dinner tonight so I stopped at the store to just grab a few things. I knew that I wanted to take the easy way out and just toss a pre-marinated turkey tenderloin in the oven, but I had no idea what to make with it. More specifically, I had no idea what type of vegetable I wanted to make with it. While I was standing in the produce section I noticed that the asparagus looked really nice! I remembered seeing a blog post on Big Girls, Small Kitchen where they catered an event and made puff pastry wrapped asparagus with a little dusting of parmesan. When I saw that post I thought it looked so cool! That was the inspiration for my breadstick wrapped asparagus.

We can start by talking about the turkey tenderloin.

This was foolproof and works well on nights when I don't have anything planned for dinner. I picked up an Italian herb marinated turkey tenderloin. Toss it on a baking sheet and bake @ 325 degrees for about 50 minutes. Nothing to it!

Once that was in the oven I could focus on the rest of the meal.

The potatoes were pretty basic as well. I actually boiled small red potatoes (maybe 2.5 pounds) with the skin right on them. Once the water comes to a rapid boil, add about 2 tablespoons of salt (yes that much) to the water and put the potatoes in the pot. Boil until the are fork tender (about 25-30 minutes).


Drain the potatoes and return them to the pot. In a small pan warm 3/4 cup milk, 3 tablespoons of butter and 3 cloves of garlic (or 2 teaspoons minced garlic from a jar). You only need to warm it, don't make it boil. Pour the milk over the potatoes and mash them with the potato masher. You can also add 1/4 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese (which is fantastic!). Taste them to see how your seasoning is. You may want to add a little salt & pepper. Sprinkle some fresh parsley on top.

The asparagus was my favorite part of this meal!

Trim the ends of the asparagus first.

Blanch them in salted boiling water for 3 minutes and then shock them in ice water to stop the cooking process.

You don't want them cooked all the way now, or they will be all soggy after they bake in the oven. You just want to take a little of the crunch off of them and set in their beautiful green color. Once they are nice and cool from their bath, dry them on a paper towel and set aside. Make sure they are pretty dry before your proceed because you don't want the bread stick dough to get soggy.

Take the refrigerated bread stick dough out of the can, it should look like this.

Most cans have 12 pre-cut bread sticks. You want to cut each of them in half to make a total of 24 strips. This worked out perfectly for the number of asparagus that came in the bunch at the store :)

(there are 12 more that aren't shown)

Starting at the base, wrap the bread stick dough up the asparagus and then place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Once they are all wrapped, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a small dish with 1 teaspoon of minced garlic.

Brush the melted garlic butter on the top of the wrapped asparagus and then sprinkle with a generous amount of kosher salt, pepper and little garlic powder.

Bake in the oven @ 375 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. I turned up the temp on the turkey tenderloin for the last 15 minutes when these cooked and everything turned out perfectly!

These were a-m-a-z-i-n-g! These could hold their own as an appetizer with a dipping sauce...

Enjoy!