It was close to suppertime, and no supper was in sight. We had three or four ounces of leftover pork tenderloin, bought deeply discounted and frozen until needed. I thought to slice it thinly, cook some rice and steam some peas from last year’s garden.
That would have been okay, but dull. Instead, I started pulling things out of the freezer:
A bag of chopped celery, also from last year’s garden
A bag of chopped red and yellow peppers, bought from the produce manager’s “ugly but still good” shelf
A bag of chopped onions – DF recently noticed an onion was starting to rot, so he cut and froze the still-good parts
A bit of turkey fat, from a bird we cooked a couple months ago; we save the fat from all pan juices, for cooking vegetables and making white sauce
Next, I put on a pot of rice (bought by the 50-pound bag at Costco) and melted the turkey fat, announcing that I planned to caramelize the vegetables and then add the diced tenderloin and some kind of sauce. DF diced the meat, then thinly sliced some carrots while I considered potential sauce ingredients.
What immediately jumped to mind was a bottle of General Tso’s sauce that I’d gotten free from our neighborhood’s Buy Nothing Facebook group. I poured maybe four tablespoons into a glass measuring cup, along with some rice vinegar (from an ancient bottle lurking in the lazy Susan) and a shake of powdered garlic (another Costco buy).
The slowly cooking onions, peppers, celery and carrot were making the kitchen smell divine. Maybe this olfactory distraction was what caused me to overdo the vinegar somewhat. It didn’t quite drown out the General Tso’s, but it didn’t do the sauce any favors, either. A few splashes from a jug of Langer’s pineapple-orange-guava juice (bought on sale, with a coupon) brought the vinegar into line and added a sweet hint of citrus.
Just typing this is making my mouth water. How about yours?
