Guest Post - Favoritist EVER Hot & Sour Soup and Pork, Pepper & Carrot Stir-Fry

This is a guest post from McVal at Sew Not My Day.  I will resume regular posting soon.

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Thank you Annie Jones for letting me guest host for you today!  We miss you and hope you’re back soon. She never ceases to amaze me with her thrift and good recipe ideas!

But… anywhoo…

My hubs and I used to go out to our fave Chinese restaurant all the time before kids.  The Hot and Sour soup was our absolute favorite! After kids, we had to go to Chinese buffets where the kids could get the authentic Chinese food.  You know… sugared donuts and jello cubes.

Also because you can only bring so many McDonald’s kids meals into the Chinese sit down restaurant before they start getting suspicious about your allergy stories.

So anyway, once when sitting in the doctor’s office waiting my turn, I found the following recipe in a magazine.  HAD to try it out!  So I “tore” the page out of the magazine and took it home… SSH!!!  It had gotten torn and dirty since so I make a copy of it and that and several other “good old stand bys” and they’re taped forever on the inside of my cabinet door.

Because as you may or may not know, I will die in this house….  Just ask my daughter! (I’m not really… I just don’t plan to move again EVER!)

Pork, Pepper & Carrot Stir-Fry
Rice wine vinegar lends a sweet-sour flavor to this saucy stir-fry.

1.5 lbs lean boneless pork – but really I’ve made it with just any kind of pork sliced up.
½ cup soy sauce
¼ cup rice wine vinegar or red wine vinegar
2 tsp. Cornstarch
1 tsp. Ground ginger
½ tsp crushed red pepper
1 Tbsp cooking oil
6 medium carrots, thinly bias sliced (3 cups)
2 cups shredded cabbage (if you want.  We add that for more bulk and to stretch it)
2 sweet red peppers, cut into thin bite-size strips(2 cups)
2 small onions, cut into wedges
2 cloves garlic, minced
Hot cooked rice

· cut pork into matchstick sized strips, or just smaller chunks
· for sauce, stir together soy sauce, vinegar, cornstarch, ginger and the crushed red pepper.  Set aside.
· Preheat a wok or 12 inch skillet over high heat.  Add oil (Add more oil as necessary during cooking.) Add carrots, sweet red peppers, onions and garlic.  Stir-fry for 4 to 5 minutes or till vegetables are crisp-tender.  Remove veggies from wok.
· Add 1/3 of pork to hot wok or skillet.  Stir-try about 3 minutes or till no longer pink.  Remove pork.  Repeat twice with the remaining pork.  Return all the pork to the wok. Push pork from center of wok.
· Stir sauce; add to center of wok.  Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly.  Return veggies to wok.  Stir ingredients together.  Cover and cook for 1 to 2 minutes or till heated through.  (Reserved 3 cups of the pork mixture and chill up to 48 hours or freeze for Hot and Sour soup later on)
· Serve remaining portion over hot cooked rice.
· Makes 4 servings.


Oriental Hot and Sour Soup
Crushed red pepper adds the hotness while rice wine vinegar makes it sour

3 cups Pork, Pepper and Carrot Stir-Fry (thawed If frozen)  From the recipe in the bottom picture.
1 49.5 oz can chicken broth
1 Tbsp soy sauce
¼ tsp crushed red pepper
2 cups shredded cabbage with or without carrot
2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar or red wine vinegar

· In a big pot on the stove combine broth, soy sauce & crushed red pepper.  Bring to boiling.  Add the 3 cups reserved stir-fry & shredded cabbage and vinegar.
· Return to boiling.  Spoon into 4 soup bowls.  Makes 4 servings.

I’ll leave out the nutritional info because that’s on the pic of the recipe and also because I don’t add the mushrooms or tofu.  Sometimes I add tofu, but very rarely as most of my family hates the stuff.

Enjoy!