Sweet & Sour Hot Dog Stir-fry

Ok, so my first blog is going to be about food! Not just any food, but enough food to "feed a small army" (as my dad would say). So, my dear husband found a blog about feeding large families for $75/week and decided to purchase her books. She is Mary Ostyn and many adoptive families already know about her and what she has to offer in the way of money savings for larger families.

Well ... I'm not so sure about all this, but I told him I'd at least give a couple of the recipes at try. For those who don't know me very well, I am a "hot mess" in the kitchen! I burn myself, drop food while cooking (dogs appreciate this), measure too little or too much, completely melt the butter when the recipe calls for "softened," run out of ingredients in the middle of a recipe, overcook/undercook, burn things, make too much, don't make enough, and the list goes on and on!

Also, as a working outside the home mom (I am not dissing stay at home moms, I was one for over 7 years), I just don't have the time to visit several grocery stores per week to find the best prices. I also don't have the time (or desire) to chop, mince, grate, slice, julianned (???), simmer for 45 mins, etc. I need 5 or less ingredients, at most 1 thing to chop, and less than 1 hr from the time I start prep to the time it hits the table!

 

For my first try at a new recipe, I choose something very similar to food we already eat. There were two primary differences: 1) I made the sauce instead of it coming from a jar, and 2) It called for hot dogs instead of the traditional pork or chicken or shrimp. I thought the hot dogs might appeal to the kids since the rest of this dish I know is not their favorite.

Pretty simple (other than the sauce, which I began to think I messed up and also I did cook it too long and it got a bit thicker than I wanted it)

• chopped hot dogs (ok, so 1 item for chopping)
• chopped bell peppers (ok, so I can handle two)
• canned pineapples & mandarin oranges
• peeled & grated fresh ginger (are you kidding me?) fortunately I use ginger quite often in what little bit of recipie's I actually use, so I have a standard quick fix for this - at Harris Teeter they have in the frozen veggie section some spices that are minced and frozen into teaspoon size servings - BINGO - almost out though, put that on the list to restock next time (tip from the new book)
• white vinegar - given that we HATE vinegar (we don't even put it in deviled eggs), I wasn't sure if I had any left and it was not in the spot I usually keep it ... I asked the hubby ... he said he let one of our daughters use it for science project ... where would she put it? Oh, mother-in-law put it under the stove with the rest of the cooking supplies ... a much better location anyway! :)
• cornstarch - another one of those things that I never use and wasn't sure if we had or if what we had would be in usable condition ... fortunately it was, but I didn't measure correctly, so I used too much and it "stuck" to the bottom of the mixing bowl ... had to break it apart with a knife before whisking the sauce
• brown sugar - another baking essential that we buy 1 box and use up over the course of the next 5 years - fortunately the stash was still good!
• serve over hot rice .... ooooppppsss ... should have read the entire recipe BEFORE I started ... now the food has to keep warm on the skillet while I take 25 mins to prepare the jasmine rice! (this is why the sauce got overcooked and was too thick, but still edible)

I liked it, hubby liked it ...
one kid ate only the hot dogs ...
none of the kids ate the RICE!!!