Tangy Sweet and Sour Pork and Peppers

This dish is a good meal stretcher for pork or chicken. With its rich and tangy sweet and sour sauce, tender crisp delicious yellow and green peppers, they won't even notice the cut back in meat.  I used 3 boneless pork chops in this, and it made enough for four people, maybe more. 
My sauce recipe makes a lot of sauce, so if you're not big on a lot of sauce, you can cut it in half. We like lots of sauce over here. :)
If you haven't tried yellow bell peppers, please do! It's hard for me to describe the flavor, but they taste nothing like green or red bells. They aren't sweet, persay, but I just love them! They are awesome raw in pasta salads too. I cook them tender crisp in this and the green bells just a little more well done. So I removed the yellows when they were how I wanted them, and let the green bells cook maybe 3 minutes longer before continuing.

The rice! The key to perfectly fluffy rice is to follow the directions exact. Use the amounts called for, wait JUST until little bubbles form in the pan, evenly pour in the rice. Give the rice just the tiniest of movement, to make sure it's distributed evenly in the water. Then cover it, reduce to the smallest of simmers, and LEAVE IT alone for exactly 15 minutes. Do NOT remove lid. Remove from heat and leave alone for at LEAST 5 minutes. Remove lid and fluff with fork.  Perfect!  The key is to LEAVE IT ALONE! LOL  Something hard for me to do for years! If you remove the lid, stir, etc, you will end up with sticky rice that probably isn't all the way done.

Enough with the lectures and on with the recipe!

• 3 boneless pork chops
• 1 large yellow bell pepper
• 1/2 large green bell pepper, or one whole small one
• 1 small carrot, ribboned with potato peeler
• 1 cup rice
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup chicken stock (or more if you want to cook your rice in it)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• salt and pepper
• oil for frying, be careful if you use olive oil, it'll spit at you on the medium-high heat!

The sauce:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 T ketchup
• 1 Tablespoon, plus 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
• 3 Tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 1/2 cup cold water
• pinch kosher salt
• small can of pineapple chunks, with a tablespoon or two of the juice (I cut the chunks in half because I don't care for the huge chunks of pineapple)

Put pork in a ziploc  baggie with 2 Tablespoons of soy sauce, the minced garlic and a pinch of salt. Marinade in fridge for 20-30 minutes. 
Remove from fridge and put into freezer for a few minutes to make them easier to slice.

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, add all the ingredients for the tangy sauce, except the pineapple and dissolved cornstarch.
Bring up just to a boil, whisk in the cornstarch dissolved in 1/2 cup cold water.When thick, remove from heat, add pineapples, cover and set aside.
Try to resist the urge to mess with the sauce here. It's going to taste a bit vinegary, but it's going to be added to the pan we fried the pork and veggies in, and all that pan yumminess is going to be mixed into the sauce.

Slice the chops against the grain, into thin strips. Season with a little kosher salt & pepper. Set aside.

Put two cups of water in medium saucepan, with ribboned carrot, 1/4 cup chicken stock, and salt & pepper.
Bring JUST til it starts to bubble, put in your rice (see rice notes above), cover and simmer on lowest setting. Let it simmer while you put together the pork and peppers, but don't forget about time!

 Over medium-high heat, fry pork strips in small batches, flipping over as they brown on one side, and removing each as they finish cooking.

 Set pork aside.

 Add bell peppers, a good pinch of salt and pepper and stir fry until desired doneness. Purple onions would be pretty in this right here..I was going to add them, but forgot! :)

 Toss everything into the pan! Pork, sauce, peppers, and stir, warming gently over medium-low heat.
When the flavors have been all stirred together, then you can taste and see if you need a bit more salt or pepper.

When rice is done and has sat it's 5 minutes covered and off the heat, fluff with a fork, and get your plates and forks!

Mild Orange Chicken Curry

I made this dish mild so to minimize the balking at the new tastes for the little ones.

You can increase the curry and jalapeno to your tastes. I'm also not exact on salt & pepper, as you may have noticed in other recipes. I do this because each of us has our  S & P preferences, as well as desired levels of heat.
If you don't care for purple (red) onions, shavings of a carrot would work well. Just take a potato peeler and shave long strips of carrot into the dish. The carrot will cook pretty quick and add color & sweetness to the dish.

If you don't have/care for broccoli, just about any hearty veggie would do. Maybe cauliflower! It's such a versatile dish and good for stretching a chicken breast and leftover veggies!

So if you have an orange or two hanging around, grab it, juice it and let's make some Orange Chicken Curry!

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in large cubes
• a Tablespoon or so of veggie oil

• 2 cups cooked rice, cooked according to directions 
• 2 cups fresh broccoli florets or thawed & drained frozen broccoli
• 1/2 purple onion, halved & sliced
• 1 1/2 minced fresh jalapeno, more or less to suit your tastes
• 1 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup chicken stock (about 4 cubes if you have it frozen)
• 2 cloves roasted garlic, or one raw, minced
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1 1/2 teaspoon curry, add 1/2 teaspoon more if you like a stronger curry taste
• 1/2 t. Worcestershire sauce
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon orange zest, plus some for garnishing (you can't see this in the pic, my orange was wet and the zest melted into the dish)

Brown chicken quickly in oil, add salt & pepper to taste. You don't want the chicken to cook all the way through, so do this over a fairly high flame.

Reduce heat to medium and add onion, stir around until onion begins to soften, add jalapeno and roasted garlic. Stir to combine, salting a bit more.

Add chicken stock, orange juice, curry, Worchestershire, s & p, and honey. Stir.
Add cornstarch to a bit of cold water. Maybe a couple tablespoons of cold water. When cornstarch is disolved, shove veggies and chicken to the side and add cornstarch mixture to chicken broth and orange juice. Whisk until sauce starts to thicken. Reduce heat to medium-low.

Add broccoli. Stir and and cook until broccoli is desired tenderness. Sprinkle in about 1/2 teaspoon or so of orange zest and stir.

Taste for s & p and oj. If you desire a more curry taste, add a tiny bit at a time. Same with orange flavor. If you'd like the orange flavor to be more bold, add a little orange zest at a time until it suits you.

Serve over rice (add lemon and orange zest to the rice's cooking water for a nice citrus rice to compliment this!) and pass hot sauce, if desired!