Stir-fry and good weather

Oh, how I LOVE stir-fry dinners! With a bit of substitution, this is what we had last night. It's called Pork with Fish Flavor, named thus because it is made with the same ingredients often used by Szechuan cooks to cook fish. Here goes:
1 lb pork, sliced as you like - strips, matchstick, etc
2 T rice wine vinegar or dry sherry
1 T soy sauce
6 wood ears and 5 green onions (didn't use these)
2 cloves garlic fresh gingerroot
1/4 c water
3 T soy sauce
2 t sugar
2 t cornstarch
1 t rice wine vinegar
1/4 t whole black peppers, crushed (didn't use this)
1 T oil
1 t Oriental chili paste - this stuff is hot - 1 t is the right amount - no more!
Cut up the pork as desired and marinate in 1 T of the rice wine or sherry and 1 T soy sauce at room temp for 30 min. Mince garlic and grate 2 tsp ginger, set aside. Whisk together remaining rice wine or sherry, water, 3 T soy, sugar, cornstarch, add'l rice wine, and pepper - set aside. In wok or large skillet, heat oil on high and stirfry garlic, ginger and chili paste for about 30 seconds. Add sliced green onions if using. Remove all from pan. Add half of the pork to the wok and stirfy till no pink shows. Remove from pan and stirfry remaining pork. Add other pork back in and push from the center of the pan. Stir sauce and add to center of pan. Put everything back in (including the matchstick carrots that you forgot like I did)...stir for a few seconds till all is coated with sauce. Serve over rice.

The proportions of the ingredients seemed just right to us - this was DELICIOUS and we'll definitely make it again. We will make twice the sauce next time.

So we used up the pork chop, almost half our remaining rice, some more carrots, and threw in the bamboo shoots and water chestnuts that I found in the pantry. Funny thing is that I skipped over some recipes that called for black bean paste, hoisin sauce and plum sauce. Guess what 3 items I found on the refrigerator shelf??? You guessed it. I'll check them out for the next stirfry.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to think of creative ways to use all those potatoes. Will also enjoy the gorgeous weather we're having after all that wonderful rain. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you on Monday.

Welcome rain and pasta

It was a dark and stormy night...oh, wrong lead-in - sorry. Well, the rain WAS welcome last night - we enjoyed the sounds. We also enjoyed a nice dinner of spaghetti with Ken's homemade sauce from the freezer, and a salad. Ken is having his fall cravings - potatoes and beans are high on this list, so we now have 10 pounds of potatoes to add to the mix. I love potatoes too, but my heart did sink just a little when I saw them. Oh well - creativity is the name of the game, isn't it?! Stay tuned for potato action.

I spent a few minutes this morning looking in my Oriental cookbooks for a nice recipe for our stir-fry tonight. I pulled out the can of water chestnuts and the jar of bamboo shoots from the pantry shelf, and made a mental note of the pork chop, 2 scallions, and carrots in the fridge. I've got fish sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch, ginger in the freezer - I think we're set.

Does everyone have a zillion bottles of various liquors and liqueurs on their shelf, like we do? We don't even DRINK hard liquor or liqueurs, really. I use some for cooking - dry or cream sherry, coffee liqueur, rum and brandy. But we also have Scotch and Becherovka (a Czech liqueur I only drink in the summer mixed with grapefruit juice). The other night I discovered we still had some Pimm's, that quintessentially British stuff that makes a dandy summer drink mixed with lemonade and garnished with a cucumber spear and some mint. There are at least 6 more bottles of stuff with suspect origins that we will NEVER use. Maybe I'll organize a liquor swap, like the spice swap I mentioned in an earlier post. We'll see where that goes.

I'm all about using up or giving away what we don't use. The recipient's reward is something new on hand - MY reward is empty shelves. Looking forward to that day! See you tomorrow.