We were headed home on Sunday night from a long day of playing with nothing planned for dinner and two very hungry kids.  I knew I needed to get dinner on the table quick with whatever I had in the refrigerator.  We thought of spaghetti and sauce, meatball sandwiches and cans of soup.  Yes, we ALL have days like this.

Suddenly I remembered I had some broccoli and leftover pork steaks in the refrigerator.  I knew we had spaghetti but was not sure if we had rice noodles.  But, I thought I could make some sort of Chinese food-esque dish with what we had on hand.

I found a recipe for Quick and Easy Pork Lo Mein at Two More Minutes.com.  Anything with the words quick and easy in the title are going to catch my eye.  I didn’t have some of the ingredients but my motto that comes from  Tim Gunn on Project Runway – “Make it work!”

Verdict:

It was good.  Was this the best dish I ever made?  No.  But, it was filling, edible and kept us from ordering out.   Next time I would change the noodles from the spaghetti to either rice noodles or a thin lo mein noodle.  I did not have broccoli slaw on hand so I used regular broccoli and my pork was not a marinated pork loin so I just added the pork at the end with a bit of extra dark sesame oil for flavor.

Ingredients:

• 1 – 1 1/2 lbs. of pork steaks pre-cooked and cut thin (great use for leftovers)
• 2 TBS sesame oil
• 2 TBS cornstarch
• 2/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 TBS brown sugar
• 4 TBS rice wine vinegar
• 1 small onion thinly sliced
• 1 lb of broccoli florets
• 16 oz of rice noodles, lo mein noodles or spaghetti

Directions:

1. Begin to cook the noodles according to package directions.  Once it has completed cooking drain.
2. While the water is boiling for the noodles in a large skillet, heat the sesame oil over medium high heat. Add the pork and onions and allow it to start to warm.
3. While your pork is warming in the pan add your broccoli to a microwave safe bowl with 1/4 cup of water.  Place in microwave for 1-2 minutes on high.  Stir and return to microwave.  Cook broccoli in 1-2 minute increments until broccoli is done to your liking.
4. Sprinkle the cornstarch over the pork and onions then add the soy sauce, ginger, garlic powder, brown sugar and vinegar.  Stir and let thicken a bit.
5. Drain the water off the broccoli and add the broccoli to the skillet. Taste and adjust spices to your liking.    Add the spaghetti and stir.