sweet and sour pork

We had Sweet and Sour Pork for dinner last night. It was SOOO yummy!

The reason I am up and blogging about it in the middle of the night is because our fire alarm began going off about 40 minutes ago now and apparently it is something to do with the extreme cold like a pipe burst or something and there have been three brief periods when it turned off and then came right back on in it's piercing brilliance.

Now somehow and wonderfully so, my sweet little baby is sleeping right through this and believe me I've gone in and put my hand on his back more than once to be sure he's still breathing and fine and he stirs and keeps right on sleeping! Greatness! We'll take it!

So, back to the Sweet and Sour Pork.

We got the recipe from this book that I got for Christmas.

We have now made two things from this book and they were both GREAT!

I know the author. It is really fun to be able to say that. She is my adopted grandma. I roomed with her granddaughter in college and I got to go with Deborah to "the farm" many times. Glenave is the woman who taught me to make a pie crust from scratch. She knows her stuff.

I got permission to share the sweet and sour pork recipe with you!

1 1/2 lb. boneless pork, cut into 1-inch cubes

salt & pepper

3 T. flour (we used cornstarch instead and it was no problem)

2 T. oil

1/2 c. barbecue sauce (we found one without modified food starch! yea!)

1/2 c. pineapple juice (reserved from the can of pineapple tidbits below)

1/4 c. vinegar

2 T. soy sauce

1/4 - 1/2 cup white or brown sugar (half and half is good)

1 T. cornstarch

1 20 oz. can pineapple tidbits, drained; reserve juice

1 green pepper cut into 3/4 inch chunks

1 medium onion, cut into chunks

Sprinkle meat with salk and pepper. Toss cubes of pork in flour (or cornstarch). In a Dutch oven, heat the oil on medium-high heat until a cube of meat will sizzle. (Sizzle is such a fun word!) Add about half the meat and brown, stirring often until lightly browned. Repeat with other half of meat, adding extra oil if needed.

Mix together barbecue sauce, pineapple juice, vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and cornstarch. Stir into pork; bring to a boil, cover and simmer about 35 minutes. Add pineapple, green pepper and onion and simmer 10 minutes longer. Serve over rice.

Yield: 6-8 servings (perfect for a meal for the three of us - David loved everything but the rice, go figure - with plenty of leftovers for me to use for lunches!)

We really liked it a lot. We may add cashews next time for fun.

Hope you are sleeping peacefully right now and hope I am back to doing that soon. Fire alarm still going off at an hour, six minutes and counting . . .

Kelly

edited to add after Mindy's comment: This is my 3rd time to be woken up by a fire alarm in the middle of the night. Thankfully there has never been a fire. The first time was in high school, like Mindy mentioned at a girls' retreat with our church. The second time was in Montreal when Adrian and I went for New Year's as our Christmas gift to each other the first year we were married. On New Year's Eve at about 4 in the morning the fire alarm started going off and the announcement in French sounded like "pot of gold". Just last night before bed I said to Adrian, "do you know the last time I wore my long johns? . . . pot of gold" (meaning Montreal). An hour later . . . eeeeeeeeeeeee the shrill sound of the fire alarm going off again. Craziness.