Friday Mixtape #8 - Time of the Season

This week I'm doing double the dose of a Love Action Mixtape - in honor of the summer, it's time to head outside and have a BBQ, bust out the sunblock, the shades, the swimming gear, the lounge chair, and have fun. (Typically, though, now that it's Friday, the Dublin weather has completely cooled! Arrrgh)

Click below to listen to the mix straight away in the player yoke


Or download the lovely, visually Enhanced .m4a by clicking here.

Should you prefer .mp3s... get em here: loveactionmixtape.blogspot.com

This mix gives you almost an hour of the best summer daytime party tunes that I could find. Apologies to those expecting some electro this week, but if you enjoy good, sunny music for 'chillaxing' (As Peter Andre would say) you'll enjoy this wide mix of 60s classics, Northern Soul, a bit of 70s Reggae, some south-of-the-border lounge, and of course a lil dollop of funk on top. Strangely, this is all music I was hugely into at around age 18 and so get a bit wistful for now that I'm, ahem, a good bit older.

This week I'm also doing something a lil different, inspired by Aoife's "I Can Has Cook" blog, as well as amazing pork tenderloin I cooked the other day, I'm giving you a recipe that, to me, suits the music and the summer weather just perfectly. You will find it just below the track listing.

This week's tracks are:
1. Summer in the City - The Lovin' Spoonful
2. Tighten Up - Archie Bell & The Drells
3. Cross the Track - Maceo & The Macks
4. Fatty Fatty - Clancy Eccles
5. Picture on the Wall - Phyllis Dillon
6. Time of the Season - The Zombies
7. The Snake - Al Wilson
8. Right Back Where We Started From - Maxine Nightingale
9. Fire Corner - King Stitt
10. The Night - Frankie Valli
11. Needle in a Haystack - The Velvelettes
12. Cachita - Esquivel
13. Come On-A My House - Rosemary Clooney
14. So Nice Summer Samba - Astrud Gilberto
15. Whatever Lola Wants - Les Baxter
16. Rum and Coca-Cola - The Andrews Sisters
17. Perfidia - Perez Prado
18. Lover's Rock - Delroy Wilson
19. Move On Up - Curtis Mayfield
20. Friday Night, Saturday Morning - The Specials

As usual, I've got links for downloading all the tracks at the bottom of this post... but first... head into your kitchen!

Grilled Spicy Ginger Lime Pork Tenderloin
If you don't eat meat, this would still be an amazing recipe for grilling sauce for fish, shrimp or even veggies. It's pretty much all about the marinade. I'm not usually a pork fan, but I can make an exception with the tenderloin - literally a tender, non-fatty cut of meat that is shaped a bit like a tube (*update... just found out that they call em "pork steaks" here in Ireland - oopsies). When marinated and grilled, it's like a lovely melt in your mouth steak-like meat. I buy my tenderloin from Dublin's best butcher, Brady's, but I'm sure you can find em in any supermarket with a decent meat section. Also, as this is a marinade, you might get started the night before you plan on actually cooking this, for ultimate marinated perfection...

Marinade:
6 large cloves garlic -- chopped or pressed
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp fresh ginger -- grated
Juice of one lime
1/2 cup olive oil
cayenne pepper to taste (I like mine super spicy)
salt and pepper to taste

Stick the meat in the marinade, get it good and coated and pop in the fridge for a couple of hours, or even ideally overnight.

When you're ready to cook, wrap the tenderloin in tin foil and make sure to dribble some of the marinade on top. Grill/BBQ/Broil (whatever works for you) for about 10 mins, turning the meat every so often so that it cooks all over. If you're using a BBQ, take it out of the tin foil and place it directly on the grill, and cook for another 10 mins or so, basting with marinade and turning every so often so that it gets nice and brown. If you're using an oven grill/broiler, open the top of the tin foil and grill/broil for another 10 mins, still turning the meat and getting it nice and brown. With both cooking methods, feel free to cut into the thickest part of the meat to check that it's cooked through. It's normal (and lovely) for the tenderloin to be a bit pinker in the middle, but being Pork, does need to be thoroughly cooked.

Carve up into little medallions, drizzle a bit of the marinade on top & serve.

This would be really tasty served up with say, grilled Sweet Maui Onions/Zucchini (Courgettes to my Irish mates) or French Beans sauteed in ginger, onions & balsalmic. It was very Asian. So maybe even steamed bok choi or Asian purple broccoli.

YUM! BBQ TIME!

Here's the links to purchase all the above trax from this week's mix - missing from the iTunes store were Esquivel's Cachita and Delroy Wilson's Lover's Rock, which I can't seem to find anywhere, and am starting to doubt if that's even the name of the song ooh-err...