Succulent Sweet and Sour Pork

I love Chinese food, and one of my favorite dishes is sweet and sour pork. It seems like every time that I go out to eat at a Chinese restaurant I have just got to get this as part of my dinner. Unfortunately, this can become an extremely expensive habit. I don't know about you, but I don't just have the money to keep going out and spending the money when ever I feel like having this. So, instead of paying someone else to make it for me, I decided to make it for myself. Now you can too, here's how.

Pork Ingredients:

• 2 pounds lean pork
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 2 cups carrots cut into diagonal chunks
• 3 small onions, quartered
• 1 green pepper cut into strips
• 1 20-ounce can pineapple—drain and save the juice

Sauce Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups of liquid (drained pineapple juice mixed with water)
• 2/3 cup vinegar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce

Side Dish:

Make a marinade for your pork by mixing the soy sauce and cornstarch. Place the pork and marinade into the refrigerator for at least an hour, and as long as overnight. After marinating the meat for as long as you desire, drain and save the marinade.

Stir-fry the meat in hot oil, until evenly browned and tender, this should takes roughly 10 minutes. Once the pork has been properly browned, remove the meat and set it aside. Now you stir-fry the vegetables in the same pan that you browned the meat in. If you need to, use more oil to do this. Cover and cook on low heat until tender on the inside, and crisp on the outside. As with the pork, this should take only about 10 minutes. Once you have done this, add the green peppers, pineapple, pork and the saved marinade from earlier. Set on low heat and simmer.

It's now time to make the sauce. In order to make the sauce, mix the sauce ingredients into a small saucepan. Stir all of the ingredients together, heating and stirring until thickened and clear. Pour the sauce over the meat and veggies, heat the combined mixture until all the flavors are blended, which should be about 10 minutes. As the mix is heating, taste and correct the seasoning to your personal taste. When finished serve over cooked rice and enjoy.