Teriyaki Pork Lo Mein

As promised, I made a meal that contained a noodle packet. It was one of those of 10/$10 deals where you also get a rotisserie chicken for 99¢. Well, at least it was the first time I made it. It's been so long since I first made this recipe that it's no longer the one on the back of the bag when you buy it, so I had to look it up online. If they ever discontinue the noodle packet, I may have to learn how to make lo mein from scratch.

Basically the whole recipe is the standard noodle packet with the addition of some sliced pork loin, a red bell pepper, and some garlic.

As far as pre-prep, I just very thinly sliced the bell pepper, about 1/4"x1", a little bigger than matchstick sized pieces. I thawed the boneless pork loin chips in the fridge, but they were still a little too frozen in the afternoon for me to want to pre-slice them.

Pretty pepper

When I eventually cut the pork chops into bits, I decided to make small cubes instead of longer slices. It would be delicious either way, and longer, thinner slices work better with chopsticks in my opinion.

Here's the meat starting to cook

Cooked through and set aside

Tossed in soy sauce

Stir-frying

Added the garlic, noodle packet, and water

Noodles mostly cooked

Added the pork back in

Tada

I called Dan and had him pick up some egg rolls and cream cheese wontons from our local restaurant because I hadn't bought any frozen ones, and I didn't want to run the oven anyway. That added a few extra dollars to what would have otherwise been a very inexpensive meal.

A couple of little prep notes I didn't include above: I love using the same container I plan to serve the main dish in, when I need to set aside fully cooked meat. I did the same with the fajitas the other night, but I didn't end up taking a picture of the serving dish in the end. It saves a dish and warms the serving dish so that your food stays hotter longer. 

Also, slotted spoons in various sizes and materials are a god-send for these sort of "remove meat from pan for a minute, but don't remove the oil from the pan when you do it" sort of recipes. I have a very nice metal one that I use for serving certain foods, once they are out of the nonstick pans. I have a nice wide plastic one and a more ladle-shaped plastic one that I like to use to move food out of the nonstick pans into other containers. I used the ladle one to put the pork back in the pan without bringing too much of the soy sauce with it, to reduce the overall sodium content. If I were feeling lazy, I might just have dumped the whole container back in the pan, but it's nice to have an easy way to not do that.

This morning I started some crock pot chili, which I've written about before here, so tomorrow's post may be less about food and more about life. Sam and I are starting to get into a groove with our school routine, and he is actually going to bed at a more reasonable hour (9:30 pm, which, trust me, is early for him), and I've been making use of my mornings alone.