Sweet and Sour Pork

Notice the name change this week? No more Sunday Dinner - 9 November 2008 type headlines. I found out whenever I wanted to go back and find a meal I previously cooked I had to click on every Sunday Dinner Post to find it. Needless to say it got to be frustrating so now I am starting to label my titles with the meal of the week or formally known as Sunday Dinners. Does it mean I'm not cooking a meal every Sunday anymore? No not necessarily it only means that whatever I post might be cooked on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc. Or maybe I cooked it in the morning, noon or night. You see Sunday Dinners was starting to run my weekends. I felt like I had to do a dinner every Sunday and it was starting to feel like a job. There were times the wife wanted to cook something and I would say NO NO you can't I HAVE to do my Sunday Dinner today. I also felt like I had to do full blown dinners every week. There are lots of other ideas I want to do they just aren't Sunday Dinner types. I think this will help me do these other ideas.

I am also think about putting my cooking stuff on another blog much like young Shae did with her stories. They never seem to fit in here and the title Jock's Random Thoughts just doesn't fit a food blog. I think I have done enough meals in the last year to have a pretty good food blog right now. (If anyone knows how to move posts from one blog to another please share.) This blog will be left for all those family related things, sports posts, and maybe a little politics. To be honest that is what it started out to be the food thing was just an accident.

Okay enough rambling let's get on with this weeks Sund....opps I mean this weeks meal of the week.

Anyone who lives around Midland knows they have the best Chinese restaurants and if you aren't aware of that just move anywhere else and you soon will be aware of it. We have lived in both Virginia and Wisconsin and we have never been able to find any chinese restaurants equaled to he ones in Midland.

I love my chinese food and I have withdrawal pains when I don't eat it every now and then. Since we can't find good chinese restaurants around here naturally I thought maybe I should try to make my own. Most of my forays into chinese cooking so far have been disappointments but one dish I have started to figure out is Sweet and Sour Pork.



Let's introduce the cast of characters.



I think I got everything in the picture this week.

If you want to make good sweet and sour pork you first need to have a good sweet and sour sauce. Sometimes when I am making this at night I reach in the cupboard and grab this stuff....



That's kind of like cheating for todays meal so I decided to go the old fashion way and make my own. It really isn't all that hard and I actually have all the ingredients already in the cupboard.



The sauce is garlic, ginger, apple cider vinegar, pineapple juice, sesame oil, ketchup, soy sauce, red pepper, and brown sugar. Bring all this to a boil and add sherry or red wine vinegar with corn starch to thicken it up a bit. It's as easy as that and in five minutes I have a pretty darn good sweet and sour sauce.

Time to cube up the pork and start browning it.



Now if you really know your sweet and sour pork you will already know the pork is usually coated with corn starch and deep fried. Since I'm not into deep frying and really don't need any more deep fried foods than necessary I brown mine on the stove. I know it's not really classic sweet and sour pork but since I'm running this operation I will cook it anyway I find fit.



Since the pork is browned now things start to happen. I crank up the heat and add the onions and green peppers.



Mix them in with the pork and let cook for a couple of minutes.



Quickly add the sweet and sour sauce I made earlier.



Stir everything together and bring up to temperature and then add the pineapple and green onions.



Time to plate up this delicious meal, start with some rice.



Every now and then I forget to start the rice but not this time.

Now add the sweet and sour pork to it.



Mmm good stuff if you like sweet and sour pork. Here take another look....



Go ahead and smell it. Smells like chinese, probably because of the sesame oil I used.

My next chinese meal I make will be Mongolian Shrimp, my favorite. I have tried to make it before but always been disappointed. In that true Porter spirited though I will not give up, sooner or later I will figure it out and when I do you can be sure to find it here or my new blog.

Stayed tuned.

Welcome to the Party

I didn't do my college football predictions this week because after I posted my Sunday Dinner Episode on Friday night I really didn't feel like writing another post on Saturday. If I had I would have picked Michigan to loose, MSU to win and to be honest I wasn't really sure who I would have picked between ND and Boston College. But guess what? We still have time to predict the Lions game today.

Jacksonville Jags vs. the Detroit Lions

First of all let's welcome to the party the Lions newest quarterback Daunte Culpepper. I'm not sure this is a wise decision for either party. Daunte has not been in football for the last year and a half because of a severe knee injury a couple of years ago. With the problems of the Detroit Lions offensive line, and if you watch them you know they are really offensive, Daunte will have to run for his life. Just one problem he can't run. I suspect his game life with the Lions will only last a couple of games before he gets hurt and spends the rest of the year on injured reserve with Kitna and Orlovsky.

On the other hand what are the Lions thinking signing a washed up, has been, never was quarterback? Culpepper's best years were when he had Randy Moss and Cris Carter as wide receivers and all he had to do (or any quarterback with Minnesota at that time) was throw the ball up in the air and either one of them would come down with it. Once Moss and Carter were gone from the Vikings Culpepper turned into one of the worst quarterbacks in he league.

I just don't understand why the Lions would waste money on him. What does this say about their number 2 draft pick, Drew Stanton, two years ago? Is this another Matt Millan wasted draft pick? I say let's get him in there and see what he can do and find out if the Lions need another quarterback. I would use Drew Hanson, their practice team quarterback, before I would use Culpepper. I have a feeling that we will see one if not both of the Drew's before the season is done.

If the Lions hope to win a game this year it has to be today against he Jaguars. The Jags lost against the Bengals last week who were the only other team that hadn't won a game this year. The Jags have some internal problems of their own but I'm not too sure that will prevent them from winning the game today. I think this may be the most boring game in the NFL this season with neither team doing a whole lot of scoring. Jags 17 Lions 9.

MICHIGAN

We must send out another welcome to the Michigan defense for showing up to the party in Minnesota yesterday. All I can say it's about time too. The defense was suppose to be the back bone of the Michigan team this year until the offense got itself on track. Up to this point they have been a big disappointment but yesterday they finally played like they are suppose too. The big difference was they tackled. Meanwhile the offense looks like it is starting to figure out this spread offense. I know they still have a long way to go but there is improvement every week and you can't ask for any more than that. The score to the game, 29-3, was a lot closer than the score should have been. I think the Wolverines could have easily scored 45 points if the offense was running in top gear. Once Coach Rod gets the right quarterback in his system the future will be bright.

Notre Dame

There is nobody to welcome here in fact I think we might want to send out and invitation and invite the Irish offense to the next game. What happened? Ever since the second half of the Pitt game last week the offense has gone into the tank. I predicted a 6-6 finished for the Irish but that was more wishful thinking on my part. I actually thought they would end up with a winning record but now I'm not to sure. They need one more win to become bowl eligible and right now I'm not sure where the win will come from. If they don't make a bowl game will they fire Charlie? If they fire Charlie who will the next coach be? Will it be Brian Kelly one of the masters of the spread offenses? Am I getting ahead of myself? Probably but I like it when the scrutiny is on the other team and not mine.

Michigan State

Didn't watch this game and didn't really care about this game but we must welcome the Spartans to the Big Ten Championship game. Boy that's hard to admit but it looks as though the Spartans and Penn State will be playing for the right to go to the Rose Bowl in a couple of weeks. Boy talk about a screwed up season.

Michigan Tech

Michigan Tech beat Northwood University yesterday 25-13 to finish the season at 8-3. The only thing left for Tech to do is to wait for an invitation to the Division II playoffs. I will keep you posted.

Here is this weeks top 6.

1. Alabama
2. Texas Tech
3. Florida
4. USC
5. Texas
6. Oklahoma

No changes this week but stay tuned I think we may have some changes coming in the next two weeks. It looks like I was right about Penn State they have a good team but they don't deserve to be in the top five and if I did a top 10 it would be close there too. If I have to predict who will end up in the national championship game this year right now I will guess Florida and Texas.

My Heisman is as follows:

1. Gramham Harrel - Texas Tech
2. Colt McCoy - Texas
3. Tim Tebow - Florida

I moved Harrel from Texas Tech ahead of Colt McCoy because he was on national TV last night and he impressed everyone. I still think he is a product of a system and if I was drafting a quarterback for the NFL I will still take Colt McCoy ahead of him.

Be sure to tune in next week when I give some more useless uninformed predictions and opinions.

Sunday Dinner - 2 November 2008

It's that time of year again when the sun starts to slowly sink farther to the south making the days shorter and shorter. That means the mornings are getting chillier and the days are getting colder. It also means hunting season is here and it won't be long until deer season opens. Even though I haven't gone deer hunting for the last couple of years it doesn't mean I can't cook some of the food I normally cook for hunting season. The one meal I like to cook this time of year when the temperatures cool off is..............

......Chili.

Just so you know I am not a big fan of "normal" chili, by that I mean burger, chili powder, beans, tomatoes and water. A few years ago I was watching an Emeril Live Episode and he made chili, not just any type of chili but sausage chili and instead of using water he used beer. Needless to say he got my attention. It wasn't long and I decided to make it and ever since then I make sausage chili once if not twice a year. I did make one slight change from his recipe Emeril used andouille sausage. Since I could never find andouille sausage when I lived in Michigan I decided to use chirizo instead. If I was the only one eating the chili I would only use chirizo but since I was afraid it would be too spicey if I did only use chirizo sausage I decided to use half chirizo and half sweet italian sausage. I will mention that I did use all chirizo once and ended up winning a chili cook off. Grand prize was a $25 gift certificate from WalMart. Lucky me eh?

Let's get started with the good stuff. First let me introduce you to this weeks cast of characters.



First we must start by browning the sausage and then add some the this weeks cast in the browned sausage.



Now it is time to add the beer.



Okay so I didn't use all beer this time like I normally do I decided since it was just me and the wife I would only use a half of bottle of beer and a half of box of chicken broth.

Bring this to a boil and time to add some more stuff.



Let this cook for a hour to and hour and a half and it should look like this.



Nice and thick and tasty just the way chili should be.

Now that we have the chili cooked we need to decide what type of bowl to serve it in. We might choose one of these...



Nah that bowl is for cereal.

How about this one?



This bowl is normally used for soups, chowders and stews. I suppose it can be used for chili but I think I have a better idea. How about this....



You don't think that looks like a bowl? How about if we do this then?



Now does it look like a bowl? It is hard to beat a bread bowl but try to find one that is the right size. Normally they are to big or to small I can never find the right size. This particular one is a little big but it will do.

I think it is time to fill it....



Don't forget to add the shredded cheddar cheese and green onions on top.

How about a little different angle......



I'll rate this chili a 4.75 spoons out of 5 only because I used chicken broth instead of just beer.

The big bonus with this meal is you get to eat the chili soaked bowl afterwords too. Now how can you beat that no bowls to wash.

How about one more look at this weeks episode.



Perfect meal for a cold chilly Sunday but the only problem was it was 65 degrees on Sunday. Oh well can't be perfect.