My Niece's First Birthday

I made it back in town from my San Angelo trip to go to my niece's first birthday. It looked like she had lots of fun and enjoyed all the attention. She's a cutie!!!

San Angelo Trip

I had a great time visiting my sister, Wendy, and her family in Texas a couple of weeks ago. We just hung around and I tried to make myself useful. Below are my favorite pictures of all the kids from the trip.

Bread Maker

A friend of mine gave me a bread maker and I used it for the first time today. I made cinnamon rolls and they turned out very pretty and yummy!

Pineapple Plant

It's one of the most adorable things I have seen. Back in August I moved to a different cubicle at work. My new cubicle has a window, so I thought it would be appropriate to buy a plant. I went to Ikea and found the pineapple. I hope I can keep it alive.

Oriental Pork

I was going to go to my brother's place for dinner with a friend tonight, but my niece got sick. I'm sad I missed out...but I had to come up with something else. After making an inventory on my ingredients I decided on cooking some pork chop steaks into an oriental dish. This was inspired by mom's Oriental Beef/Chicken.

Oriental Pork

Pork chop steaks (that's what I call the thick cut), cut in strips
Garlic
Onion
Bell Pepper
Sugar Snap Peas
Rice, cooked

Marinade:
Soy Sauce
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Cayenne Pepper
Ginger Powder
Pepper

Marinade the pork strips in the marinade sauce. Saute the garlic, onion and bell pepper. Add the pork till all strips are browned, add sugar snap peas. Cover and cook thoroughly. Serve over rice.

As you can tell, I have no measurements. That's because I was improvising. So, just add everything to taste. If I had pineapples, I would have added a little of the pineapple juice to the marinade and served the pineapple on the side. This can be a quick meal if you prep the ingredients early in the day. Also, you can use chicken or beef, and you can mix up the vegetables you have on hand. This is basically a stir fry. And...if you want to be adventurous you can try to eat with chopsticks.