Sweet and Sour Pork

I don't know about you guys, but I can't eat the same thing for every meal. Surprise! Surprise!  I love variety whether it's Italian, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, American, or Spanish cooking.  I love it all!  I often go to restaurants and either 1. feel ripped off at how expensive the food is (yes, I'm cheap) or 2. annoyed at the quality of food knowing that I could have made something better at home.  This isn't always the case and yes...I do enjoy not having to cook All.The.Time., but I feel this recipe rivals any chinese meal I have had in a restuarant.   This recipe comes from Ourbestbites.  She adds cashews, which is wonderful, but I never have them on hand so it is often omitted from my recipe as is a couple of other things.

Ingredients: Recipe from Our Best Bites- This color is my changes to the recipe.

2 Tbsp. cornstarch, divided
1 Tbsp. cooking sherry or apple juice *One of those things I omit because I don't have it
1 lb. pork tenderloin or boneless pork chops, thinly sliced
1/3 c. water
¼ c. sugar
¼ c. cider vinegar
3 Tbsp. soy sauce
3 Tbsp. ketchup
1 Tbsp. oil
1/3 c. chopped cashews (or exactly one of those little .99 bags of Fritos cashews at the front of the grocery store) *Omitted
¼ c. green onions
2 tsp. minced or grated fresh ginger *I use abt 1/2 tsp of ground dry ginger not the same but still good
2 tsp. fresh garlic, minced or pressed *I use bottled garlic
6-8 oz. snow peas, trimmed
3 heads of broccoli
1 8-oz. can pineapple chunks, drained

Now…to get your pork super thin, you’ll need to partially freeze it. When it’s semi-frozen (or mostly-frozen), you can either cut it very thinly with a sharp knife or pop it into your food processor fitted with the slicing blade. It’s like magic.

When I say trim your snow peas, I mean get the icky hard parts off. Little baby snow peas are very tender and don’t need to be trimmed, but you’ll probably have some bigger ones in there. Just snap the corners off and then tug a little to get the tough string that goes along the side of the snow pea. It’s like a vegetarian version of a fish-gutting. Without the guts. Okay, it’s not really like that at all.

Begin cooking your rice.

Combine 1 tablespoon cornstarch, sherry, and pork. Toss well.

Combine 1 tablespoon cornstarch, water, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, and ketchup. Stir with a whisk; make sure there are no clumps with the cornstarch.

Now collect everything that’s going into the stir fry next to the stove so you can access it easily.
Heat 1-2 Tbsp. canola oil in a large frying pan or wok over medium-high heat. Add pork and stir-fry 3 minutes. Add onions, ginger, and garlic and broccoli.

Stir-fry 1 minute. Add snow peas and pineapple. Stir-fry 3 minutes more. Whisk sauce ingredients again and add to pan.

Bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute, stirring frequently. Stir in cashews and serve over hot rice. Garnish with more cashews and green onions if you want.