getting my fill of pork!

I've been such a bad blogger!

But, thankfully not so bad at cooking.  Thursday for dinner I made Mango-Pork Fried Rice.  The theme of this meal was "last minute-ness" and you'll see why.  First I had to chop up and peel the mango - but somehow I couldn't find my peeler.  It's kind of a crappy peeler anyway, so that need to go on the shopping list!  So,  I just used a knife to separate the skin from the fruit.

Next I cooked the pork, diced it up, and mixed it with cornstarch.  Note the prep and cook time combined is 20 minutes - because you hypothetically should have already cooked the pork.  But, I had raw pork, not cooked pork!  Oh well.

I also realized I had not thawed my peas - oops!  So I put them in this miniature pot and heated them up over a burner for a few minutes.  Isn't the mini pot so cute?  It's normally used for melting butter.  I inherited it from someone else and I absolutely love it!

Meanwhile, I cooked the rice.  The rice was also supposed to be already cooked - and COLD!  So as soon as it was cooked, I did something kind of silly.  I put the rice in the freezer to get it to cool down faster.

While the rice cooled, I stir-fried the water chestnuts, peas, mushrooms, and mango.  Note I used way more veggies than the recipe actually called for - yum!

Then, I stir-fried the rice... something I've never done before.  I think it went ok?

And mixed it all together!  This turned out pretty good.  The pork was perfectly cooked (woohoo) and the flavors were pretty good.  In hind sight, I should have diced the mango much smaller so that every bite could have some mango-y flavors to it. 

I probably should have also diced the mushrooms and water chestnuts even smaller, because I felt like every bite had huge chunks of food!  Other than that - this was a great dish.  I really like the combination of the soy sauce/ginger flavors with the mango!

Just so you know, on Thursday I DID make it to yoga!  I definitely have to speed walk to get there, but it was worth it!  This "beginner" class doesn't seem too beginner to me, but I really enjoyed all of the poses, even if I fell over multiple times.

Friday night for dinner I made Peppery Cajun Pork Pasta.  I substituted spaghetti for the fettuccine because it was what was in the pantry, and got to work!  I LOVE Cajun seasoning so I probably put way into this dish than called for - oh well!  I started by cooking my pork - which I have to brag - came out just right again! Not too dry, which is what I always fear!

Next I cooked together everything else in a pot.  Lots of veggies = a happy Sara!

And then I just combined it all together.  This recipe was quick and easy and delicious as well... but I felt like it might have tasted better with rice (err, or maybe with a different kind of pasta... oops?).  The pasta just felt kind of out of place.

This morning, M and I went for a 3 mile run.  Somewhere during the 3rd mile my ankles started really hurting and I had to take a walk break.  I told her to go ahead, and walked for three minutes before I made myself push for the last little part!  My overall time was 33:12 - an 11:04 pace even with the walking!  So, I know we were definitely going fast (well, fast for us) at least part of the time!  I hope my ankles don't hurt in the morning - I've been trying to stretch and ice today!  I'm not sure what made them act up - is pushing myself to go faster correlated with pain in my feet?  Or perhaps the hills? Lack of stretching on Thursday?  Who knows!  But I will say that after eating breakfast first, I felt much better cardio-wise during the run.  It was obviously still hard and I was tired, but I wasn't feeling quite as sluggish.  Then, after running, two of our friends met up with us in the gardens and one of them led us in yoga!  It was a great way to calm down and stretch out after running.

I have cooked since Friday, but I'm saving it for my next post! I'm doing something special this week - I hope you are excited to hear about it!