Whip-It-Up: Week 8

Here we are, at the end of the Whip-It-Up challenge. I can’t believe it’s been 8 weeks and I am so psyched that I completed it! Woohoo!

The final week’s theme is Take-Out and the first things that came to mind are Chinese food, pizza, sushi and other ethnic cuisine. I debated between the various foods and after eliminating pizza and sushi, I decided on Indian, Chinese or Thai.

I did a search for the various cuisines and found a pretty delicious one for Sweet & Sour Pork. This is one of the most common Chinese foods, one that everyone knows. So here it is!

Ingredients:
1 lb. boneless pork loin
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 medium green pepper, cut into 1" pieces
1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges
1 (15 1/4-oz). can pineapple chunks in juice
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 tbsps. cornstarch
2 tbsps. soy sauce

Directions:
* Partially freeze pork. Cut across the grain into 2 1/2 × 2 1/4-inch strips; set aside.
* Preheat a wok or large skillet over high heat; add oil.
* Stir-fry green pepper and onion in hot oil for 2-3 minutes or till crisp-tender.
* Remove from wok. Add more oil, if necessary. Add half the pork to wok; stir-fry until browned. Remove pork; stir-fry the remaining pork. * Return all pork to wok; keep warm.
* Drain pineapple, reserving juice. In a small saucepan combine the juice, brown sugar, vinegar, cornstarch and soy sauce. Bring to a boil; cook about 1 minute or till thickened, stirring constantly.
* Return green pepper and onion to wok. Stir in pineapple and the thickened pineapple juice mixture.
* Cook and stir until heated through. Serve with rice, if desired.

I have a feeling I bought the wrong kind of pork loin but it still works! The sauce was surprisingly easy to make and it turned out really well.

This recipe was easier than I thought it will be so I was stoked. It was delicious and definitely tasted like sweet & sour pork! I would definitely make the sauce again and the next time, I think I will try it with beef.

So this brings us to the end of the Whip-It-Up challenge. I can’t believe that 8 weeks have gone by and I’m done! I am very glad that I decided to do this. This experience has made me more curious about cooking in general and I realized that I actually like it! I’m looking forward to trying more complicated and intricate recipes in the future.

Who knows? There may be more food blogging coming up, so stay tuned!