Experiments Around The House

...kinda. Here's two things we have going on right now, can you guess what they are? (Just-for-funsies!)

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Easy Sweet & Sour From Scratch

Delicious Sweet & Sour pork or chicken, better than the bottled sauce, and without the nasty red dyes. This will make a big huge batch, family sized!

First prep your veggies so they're ready to go:

• 2 or 3 bell peppers, of any colors- chopped in 1 inch-ish pieces
• 1 whole onion, roughly diced in 1 inch-ish pieces
• 1 celery stalk, very thinly sliced on the bias

Then begin cooking your meat of choice and setting aside, keeping warm. Many like to batter & deep fry, some like to brown in a little olive oil to save calories, I do kind of an in-between and shallow fry in a wide shallow pan with a sprinkling of cornstarch. I made about 1 1/2 pounds for a big batch.

While cooking your meat, combine in a small mixing bowl:

• The juice drained from a 15oz can of pineapple tidbits. You'll also use the pineapple later- so don't let grubby little hands steal it! 
• 1/2 can frozen (but thawed) orange juice concentrate.
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 rice wine vinegar
• grated ginger to taste, 1teaspoon or more. I use A LOT, it is delicious!
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 2 Tablespoons ketchup- I don't know why, but my sauce never worked until I added this odd ingredient!
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch

If shallow frying, or browning with little oil, dump all but about 2 Tablespoons of oil out of the pot, or add oil if needed. If you deep fried, add about 2 Tablespoons oil to a wide, shallow pot. Toss in your veggies and stir often while scrapping the lovely brown bits off the bottom of the pan. When your celery is soft through, and your larger veggies are al dente,  add back in your meat and the pineapple tidbits. stir to combine. Whisk the mixture in your bowl, then pour in. Lower your heat to medium, and stir until heated through and the sauce thickens. Serve on a bed of rice.

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I Still Love You Sharpie, but I Also Have A New Love...

At least when it comes to writing on plastic bottles and containers! I use a few spray bottles throughout the house, clearly marked with their contents (SAFETY FIRST!), for cleaning and such. Every couple-few weeks I'd whine and complain that the marker has rubbed, or been cleaned off, and re-write it. Why is that such a problem? Because it starts to look cloudy & gross. AND sometimes it comes off on my hands. (I'm going to go with it being my lotion, because I'm preeeeetty sure my hand aren't THAT greasy!)

I don't know WHY I didn't think about this earlier- it is like the greatest idea EVER!

Nail polish! Not any old nail polish though, my handy-dandy decoration-drawing L.A. Colors Art Deco polish. It has a long, thin brush that makes lettering look neat and tidy!

I got mine super cheap at Dollar General for $1 each. They don't have all the colors, but they often add a new one to the rotation, so I pick one up for my stash when I see them. Black obviously works for all purposes in container identification....but I'd imagine other colors would be cool for coordinating with your color schemes.  Stay clear of the glitter ones (for containers- for nails they ROCK!) because you wouldn't be able to read them. I think I need to hop over to DG and grab a back-up bottle of black before I use it all up! =-)

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