Simple Sweet and Sour Pork

Simple Sweet and Sour Pork

1-1.5 lbs. boneless pork loin, sliced thin
1 T. canola oil
1 small onion, chopped into narrow wedges
1/2 bag frozen red, green, and yellow bell peppers
20 oz. can of pineapple chunks, drained, juice reserved

Sauce:
1 T. brown sugar
3 T. Splenda
2/3 c. pineapple juice
2 T. cornstarch
2 T. soy sauce
1/4 c. rice vinegar

Combine sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk. Heat oil in pan and stir fry pork in batches. Keep warm. Meanwhile use pan spray on a microwave safe bowl and microwave the onion on high for 1 minute, then add the frozen peppers and cook for two more minutes or until heated through. In the same pan you cooked the pork in, heat your sauce over medium heat, until it bubbles and starts to thicken. Add about a 1/4 c. of sauce to peppers and onions in the bowl, toss to coat. Add pork and pineapple to the pan, and cook just until heated through. Serve over hot sticky rice. Makes 4 servings, although if everyone likes vegetables at your house, you might need the whole bag of peppers and a larger onion.

Make sure you use GF ingredients, especially your soy sauce. ( I have been using La Choy lately, because the Great Value Soy Sauce was reformulated recently and now has wheat in it. Stinkers.) I was going to call this a stir fry, but it's really not. You could use fresh peppers, and stir fry your vegetables and meat, but then it wouldn't be quite so simple, would it! You could also just add your vegetables to the pan with the pineapple and peppers, but certain people at my house do not like onions and peppers, and I find that this makes it easy to humor them. And leaves more vegetables for me. To make sticky rice: Buy a good bag of short-grained Asian-style rice, follow the directions on the bag. It's not that hard. Generally it is 3 parts rice to 4 parts water. Bring it to a boil, turn the heat down to simmer and put a lid on it. Cook for 20 minutes.

Gluten-Free "Fast and Friendly" Meatballs

"Fast and Friendly" Gluten-Free Meatballs

2 T. olive oil
20 oz. lean ground turkey, not turkey breast
1 egg
1/3 c. gluten-free bread crumbs
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. salt
2 T. Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 glass pan with olive oil and put in the oven while it is preheating. Mix rest of ingredients in a large bowl until well combined. (Use your hands.) Roll tablespoons of the meat mixture into balls. Transfer to pan and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the meatballs over and then bake for another 10 minutes.

I adapted this recipe from a recipe called Fast and Friendly Meatballs that I found on Allrecipes.com. I save the crusts from my GF bread, or any gluten-free bread that has gone stale in a bag in a the freezer. Then when I need bread crumbs, I just break the bread slices into the blender and blend them up. If you want a more authentic meatball, you could use ground beef or meatloaf mix. This recipe makes between 25-30 walnut-sized meatballs. I quadruple the recipe and cook the meatballs on two large baking sheets (I got 117 meatballs this time). Then after the meatballs cool, I freeze them. This makes enough meatballs for about 5 meals. They are great with spaghetti sauce, just thaw and reheat them in the sauce. They are also delicious as an appetizer; cook them on low in a crockpot for about 3 hours with your favorite barbecue sauce.

A pan of meatballs ready to be baked.

Meatballs ready for the freezer.

Gluten-free spaghetti and meatballs is a definite crowd-pleaser at my house.