We decided not to do anything too elaborate on Sunday since we had done the whole (disastrous) camping thing on Saturday night; we used it as another day to lounge around and relax, in addition to getting some of our usual Sunday chores done (namely grocery shop). On the menu for our "anniversary" dinner?
Sweet and Sour Pork and Pineapple Stir-Fry. With beer. We really know how to class things up for an anniversary.
Seriously though, it was quite good. And Darrell said that it was pretty easy to throw together (as is par for the course with most stir-fry recipes). I'll do my best to relay the recipe, but I was pretty much not in the kitchen for any of the prep work, so I have no idea how closely Darrell followed the recipe (and chances are, knowing him, he modified it because that's his style). But here goes:
Sweet & Sour Pork and Pineapple Stir-Fry
(from a Pampered Chef cookbook thing)
1 lb pork tenderloin (I do know that we used chops instead of tenderloin)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp cornstarch, divided
2 cups sugar snap peas
1/2 a medium pineapple (We used about 10 oz canned because we had some in the pantry)
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1/3 cup apricot preserves
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium red onion, cut into 1/2-inch thick wedges (optional--Darrell chopped ours a little finer than that because I don't like big onion pieces)
Hot rice for serving (we always use brown rice!)
Slice the pork into thin strips. Combine pork, salt, and 2 tbsp cornstarch in a small bowl, set aside. In a separate bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar, and remaining cornstarch; whisk well. Add preserves and mix until well combined. Add oil to large skillet and heat over medium-high heat until warm. Place pork into oil and cook five to eight minutes until browned on both sides. Add onion and cook thirty seconds until onion begins to brown. Reduce heat to medium; add peas, pineapple, and sauce. Cook one to two minutes or until sauce is thickened, stirring constantly. Serve over hot rice.
That does sound fairly easy! Granted, using canned pineapple tidbits was probably a huge time saver because core and slicing pineapple can be a bit tedious. But definitely worth the effort because this was a good one. Lots of different flavors and textures--crunchy peas, sweet pineapple, tangy sauce. My only regret is letting Darrell take both leftovers :-)
I wasn't about to let our anniversary pass without a dessert though. We opted not to do the traditional "freeze the top layer of your wedding cake" bit since that sounded insanely gross (and not to mention a waste a space!). Our baker had said that she would recreate the top layer for us at a super reasonable rate... But we got so busy we forgot to call her and arrange it. Whoops. But really, I think it worked out better this way. Because now I have an excuse to bake something special every year for our anniversary. And maybe some year I'll actually do a cake (like when we have kids to help us eat it...), but for this year we feasted on this:
Nom nom. And it was super quick and easy to throw together, which (in addition to being extremely tasty) is a huge plus in my book. It's actually a slight alternation of a recipe I've previously posted. I used the same concept as the Fudgy Crinkles, but made it with a box of red velvet cake mix and 1/2 cup softened butter instead of oil. And instead of rolling them in powdered sugar, I slapped some cream cheese frosting in the middle (I'm partial to the stuff in the can; I really need to find some good and reliable homemade frosting recipes) and made them sandwiches. And for fun I stuck our cake topper from our wedding in there. Not too shabby for a first anniversary if you ask me!
Like I said, I'm not going to spend all week recapping our wedding and honeymoon and all those details, but since this time last year we were reveling in all things wedding, I am going to do a few more wedding-related posts. But hopefully they'll be worthwhile instead of boring!
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