Char siu pork

Char siu is a Chinese version of barbecue. Serve with rice and stir fried vegetables for a fabulously tasty meal.

Char Siu Pork

2 T soy sauce
2 T hoisin sauce
2 T ketchup
2 T honey
1 clove garlic, minced
1 t fresh ginger, grated
1 t sesame oil
1/2 t five-spice powder
1 lb pork roast, trimmed of fat

1/2 c or more of chicken broth


Place soy sauce through pork into bag and marinate for a few hours or overnight. Place pork and and the sauce into a crock pot, cover and cook on low for at least 8 hours. Using two forks, shred the pork. Add enough chicken broth to moisten.

Chinese-style green beans (OAMC)

These beans can be made up in bulk as a OAMC vegetable and frozen for later. Don’t steam them for very long if you plan to freeze them. They also keep very well for a few days in the fridge, so they’re great to make ahead during once a week prep time. If you’re eating them right away, steam them for several minutes, until they’re the tenderness that your family likes.

Chinese-Style Green Beans

1 lb whole green beans, lightly steamed
1 t canola oil
1 t ginger
1 t ginger
1 clove of garlic, mashed
1 T soy sauce
1/2 t brown sugar
1/2 t sesame oil
crushed red pepper

All of these ingredients can be simply tossed together, or if you’d prefer having a real sauce on the beans, mix 2 T water with the soy sauce and add 1 t cornstarch. Mix with the rest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Baby back ribs, Chinese-style

Long and slow is the key to good ribs, so this recipe won’t fit into our usual 30 minute slot. When you’ve got enough time, plan to make these…an hour should be enough time, not counting the time that the ribs marinate. Mix up the marinade the night before, or that morning, and let them soak all day.

Chinese-Style Baby Back Ribs

1/4 c soy sauce
2 T toasted sesame oil
2 T sherry (cooking sherry is fine)
1 T brown sugar
1 T fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 t red pepper flakes
Black pepper

2 lbs baby back ribs

Hoisin sauce

Whisk soy sauce through pepper together in a small bowl. Place ribs either in a ziploc bag or in a glass dish, and pour on the sauce. Turn to coat and refrigerate for at least a few hours. Grill at medium heat until tender (usually around 45 minutes or so). Serve with hoisin sauce.

If you can't grill them and need to bake them in the oven instead, just cover a cookie sheet with two layers of foil. Spray with cooking oil, and spread out the ribs. Bake at 225 for about 2-1/2 hours, basting occasionally with spare sauce.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy New Year! 2009 is the Year of the Ox, and I am looking forward to sharing many tasty Chinese dishes with you, at least my untrained versions of them! :-)


Image: WikimediaCommons

La Sita chicken - a perfect OAMC dish

La Sita Chicken is a great example of a recipe that is made for Once a Month Cooking. It takes some pre-cooking before it’s ready to assemble, and the actual cooking time is low and slow. But it makes enough for a family of 4 to eat twice, varying the accompaniments! It’s worth the time, and it’s delicious.

I don’t usually like to use canned cream soups, but this recipe is just amazing, and I’m unwilling to fiddle with it. Indirectly, it came from a local restaurant (La Sita!), and when a friend of mine discovered how easy the recipe was, she was just overjoyed! Since my husband and I had always enjoyed this particular offering too, she was willing to share it with us.

La Sita Chicken

3 lbs chicken breasts, pre-cooked and torn into bite-sized pieces

12 corn tortillas, torn in strips

1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 c milk
1 large onion, diced
12 oz salsa

1 lb grated cheddar cheese

While the chicken is cooking, tear up your tortillas into long strips, and mix the cream of chicken soup through the salsa in a large bowl. Spray a 13 x 9 pan and layer the ingredients as follows: Divide each ingredient group in half. Starting with the tortillas, layer on bite-sized pieces of chicken, the soup mix, and cheese. Do this twice. Cover with foil and refrigerate over night. Bake uncovered at 300 for 1-1/2 hours.

If you are going to freeze it as a part of OAMC, do so after baking. To reheat for dinner, remove from the freezer and place in the fridge the night before. Reheat at 300 for about 1/2 hour.

Put more salsa on the table for those who like it hot, hot, hot! The first day, I’d serve this dish with a salad, and maybe with some stir fried veggies the second time since you’ll be able to simply heat the chicken up quickly in the microwave.

Individual tomato pizzas

How about super-fast individual pizzas for dinner tonight? You’ll need something else to go with these, most likely a fast salad or some crunchy cut up veggies and dip, but they are fast, fun, and delicious enough to make often! They’re also great when you really just want a light meal, a little something…

Individual Tomato Pizzas

4 large flat whole wheat wraps (split pita bread will work too)
14.5 oz can of crushed tomatoes with green chilis (or separate cans of each)
1/2 c black olives, preferably kalamata, chopped
1/4 c parmesan cheese, freshly grated
4 large fresh basil leaves, torn
4 t olive oil
Black pepper

Drain the tomatoes and save the juice for another time. Layer all the ingredients onto the wraps, topping with olive oil and pepper. Place on baking sheets and cook for about 10 minutes at 400 until the bread is crisp and the cheese is melty. Dive in!

Beef chowder - a hearty OAMC dish

Buy your beef in bulk and you can make quite a few OAMC meals from it, or at least get a few meals ready to go during your once a week food prep time. Here’s one really tasty and hearty soup that’s easy and fast to make. It uses ground beef , which you can also use for your make-ahead meatballs. Having your shopping and cooking time do double duty is a good thing!

Beef Chowder

1 1/2 lbs ground beef
2 stalks of celery, chopped
Medium onion, chopped
Green pepper, chopped

2 cans of crushed tomatoes, 16 oz each
16 oz whole kernel corn, fresh, canned or frozen
3 c White sauce, medium thickness (2 T butter, 2 T flour, 1 c milk for each cup of sauce)

Brown the beef, add the veggies and cook until soft. Drain off extra fat. Add the tomatoes and corn, and heat while preparing white sauce. Slowly stir into the beef mixture. Pour into containers and freeze.

To serve, heat the soup slowly, stirring often. Add water or beef stock if needed. You can also add cooked rice or pasta, and spices that suit your family. We like to add whatever fresh herbs are available, particularly basil, or sometimes dried bay leaf.