Sweet N' Sour Pork

I love sweet n sour chicken....but i was out of chicken. I was out of beef, fish...matter of fact the only meat in the house was a lemon herb marinated pork tenderloin. I did not want that. I wanted sweet n sour chicken. So i figured pork, the other white meat. 

Sweet n Sour Pork

1.3 lbs of pork tenderloin
1 cup corn starch
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1 egg
1/3 cup canola oil

Sauce

1/2 cup ketchup
4 oz pineapple
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbs corn starch
3 tbs brown sugar
1/4 cup cider vinager

This is actually a pretty easy recipe. Heat the oil in a pan until it begins to smoke. While it is heating cube the meat into 1" pieces. Toss the meat in the one egg to coat.  In a separate bowl  mix corn starch, garlic powder, paprika. Toss the pork and coat it in this mixture. Place into heated oil and brown on all sides.

While browning your meat, put all of the sauce ingredients in a sauce pan and heat to a simmer. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Remove the meat from the oil and drain on a few pieces of paper towel.  Toss meat in the sauce to coat. and serve over rice.

Eggplant Ravioli Filling

Normally I would post a picture of what the filling looks like, but then my readers would run screaming...its not pretty. What it is though, is yummy. I normally like eggplant two ways. As a parmesan or as a roll up stuffed with ricotta. But I had a few left from a farm market excursion (ok so I had 3 of the white ones and one long skinny purplish one) so i decided to get creative.I figured they would make great raviolli, then I figured "why not can the filling for another day!" (actually at this point i was just to lazy to make the raviolli dough so i decided saving it was a better idea. Turns out I was right. It saves on half the work when you already have the filling made.

Eggplant Filling

3 medium white egg plants (ok so, any egg plant will do)
1 long skinny purple egg plant (i think they are Chinese eggplants)
Olive oil (about 1/4 cup)
salt
pepper
2 large purple onion
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 tbs chili flakes (optional)

Roughly cut up all of the vegetables and toss with oil and a touch of salt. Roast in the oven at 300 degrees for about 40-50 minutes.

Let cool and then pulse to mince all ingredients in the food processor.

Prepare your jars and pressure canner as usual. Fill the hot half pint jars and leave 1/2" head space. Place in the pressure canner and following the directions for your canner, can for 85 minutes. The finished product will settle a bit in the jars but thats to be expected.

Never by Hot sauce again.

I love hot sauce, I love peppers. Sriracha is my all time favorite, but in a pinch any hot sauce will work to spice up a meal. But like everything else you buy these days there are additives that do not agree with me...not to mention a bottle of this stuff is almost 5.00 (granted it lasts). So I decided to try to make my own. I found a recipe for my own chili sauce but, it wasn't as flavorful as it could be. I like flavor with my heat, hot for the sake of hot is not something I enjoy.  I found that this is versatile, the cost is roughly 1.20 per 1/2 pint and can easily be turned into a kick ass wing sauce with the addition of a bit more vinegar and brown sugar.

MY HOT SAUCE

3 lbs red hot banana peppers (seeded)
3 Thai Chili
1 handful red chili peppers (i forgot to measure)
2 Poblano chili peppers 
3 tbs Gochutgaru (Korean Chili powder) regular chili powder will work in a pinch though. 
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
3/4 cup water
1/8 cup shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tbs fresh ginger-grated
10 cloves fresh garlic
1/2 cup brown sugar (possibly more to taste)
1 tsp salt
3tbs fish sauce




Here is the easy part.

After chopping and de-seeding the peppers (you can leave some seeds in but the more you have the hotter it gets) put it all in a blender and puree.

Put it in a non aluminum pot over low heat and let it simmer for 30 minutes. Stir often. Place into canning jars leaving 1/4 inch head space, can in your pressure canner for 85 minutes.

Mix and Match Marinade

Some days my larder gets to the point where tumble weeds roll through it. It usually happens this time of year because of vacations. No point in shopping if I am not going to be here to eat it. So when I come back, there is always a day or two of scrounging to make a meal.  In my hunt for food I found some rice (always a staple), a jar of peach preserves that had grown dust. I am not a preserve/jelly/jam fan. I make two kinds for my own use Hot and Hotter. But the sweet stuff isn't really my thing. This jar my best friend gave to me. She makes the sweets. I found one 1/2 good onion (a bit of judicious pealing and there was roughly a 1/2 cup still edible), and yellow squash was found hiding in my garden (I am a plant and hope gardener so it is always a shock to me when something actually grows).  I also had one poor lonely block of tofu, all other protein sources were frozen solid. These are the things that were left to me.  So lets just say I was a bit skeptical on what I could do with this. But it turned out surprisingly yummy.


Normally I would insert a picture here but you will have to wait until I make this again....it didn't stick around long enough to get its picture taken.

One block extra firm tofu (pressed) and cubed
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup peach preserves

1 tbs minced garlic
1/2 tbs fresh ginger (minced)
1/2 cup red onion
1 tsp sriracha
3 tbs rice wine vinegar

Mix the ingredients and pour over the tofu and let marinade over night (I did intend to eat this the day I scrounged up everything but I got to this point and was invited out for sushi....sushi won). After marinading over night, pan fry and serve over white rice.