Dinner Tonight! (Or, All Because We Received a Cabbage.)

I haven't made a meal for Hunky Husband since we've gotten married.

I know, I know. The camp where we live and Zeke works provides three meals a day throughout the week, so I haven't done much cooking. Much eating, yes. But not much cooking.

Anyways, tonight there was no meal (being that it's Friday and most families leave on Friday nights...) and I had this cabbage.

Now, camp is a wonderful community. The people here are kind, caring, and generous. So generous that one of the camp volunteers gave us a cabbage. Actually, he gave everyone a cabbage. An overabundance in his garden resulted in his generosity- that, and he's just a great guy. As generous as the gift was, after he placed the cabbage in my hands, I thought, "What am I ever going to do with this cabbage?"

Answer: Citrus-Picante Stir-Fried Pork and Cabbage!

Stick with me on this one. I saw the recipe on AllRecipes.com and thought it looked good, and not too tough. I did do a lot of tweaking, though, so I could use what we had on hand and so I didn't have to drive to the grocery store. I'll give you both the original recipe and also my version.



Pineapple-Picante Stir-Fried Pork and Cabbage Original Recipe- Source: allrecipes.com

 1 cup Pace® Picante Sauce

1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger root
1 (8 ounce) can pineapple chunks in juice, drained, reserving juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 (1 pound) pork tenderloin, cut into thin strips
1 (2 pound) head green cabbage, cut in quarters and very thinly sliced
1/4 cup water

1.  Stir the picante sauce, vinegar, ginger root, pineapple juice and cornstarch in a medium bowl.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pork and stir-fry until well browned. Remove the pork from the skillet.
3. Heat the remaining oil in the skillet. Add the cabbage and stir-fry until tender-crisp. Add the water and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the cabbage from the skillet and keep warm.
4. Add the picante sauce mixture to the skillet. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens. Stir in the pineapple chunks. Return the pork to the skillet and cook until the mixture is hot and bubbling. Serve the pork mixture over the cabbage. 

Okay. So, here are some of my changes. I didn't have any rice vinegar, so I went with plain old white vinegar instead. No fresh ginger root, either, so I used ground ginger (and only used 1.5 tsp). I didn't remember to grab cornstarch, so I used a little flour instead, and I substituted olive oil for the vegetable oil. We had left over pork tenderloin (already cooked), so I grabbed some of that and cut it into chunks.

Then this is where things got crazy. I totally expected to find a can of pineapple somewhere in the camp kitchen, or at least a fresh pineapple, but nope. No pineapple to be found. So I used fresh oranges, some sugar, and a little apple juice instead. 

As I was making the sauce, I found that the recipe really didn't yield very much, and I know Zeke. He likes his sauces (he's that guy who gets forty extra ketchup packets at McDonalds). I ended up doubling the amount of sauce.

And, with all this going on, I didn't take any pictures. Blog sin. Forgive me. 


Citrus-Picante Stir-Fried Pork and Cabbage Little Wife Style

 2 cups Pace® Picante Sauce (Mild)

  2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon powdered ginger
4 oranges, juiced

1/4 cup apple juice

2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 (1 pound) cooked pork tenderloin, cut into thin strips (It would work with beef or chicken, too)
1 (2 pound) head green cabbage, cut in quarters and very thinly sliced
1/4 cup water

1.  Stir the picante sauce, vinegar, ginger, orange juice, apple juice, flour and sugar in a medium saucepan. Heat on low.
2. Heat 1 tsp oil in the skillet. Add the cabbage and stir-fry until tender-crisp. Add the water and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and stir as needed.
3. Add the pre-cooked pork to the picante mixture. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens. Serve the pork mixture over the cabbage. 

 Notes: The cabbage kind of acts as a crunchy noodle base to the dish, and the spicy picante sauce combats the cabbage-y taste really well. The orange gave the sauce an extra freshness. I think that this recipe would work great with any kind of meat- so that makes this meal a great one for using left over meats (grilled chicken, steak), as long as they're pretty plain, flavor-wise. I was worried that we'd have tons of left over cabbage, but it actually cooks down quite a bit; we didn't have any left over. 

Zeke's Consensus: Monthly meal! (Or whenever the cabbage crop comes in again)