It’s been a while since I’ve posted any recipes for dinner that are super fantastic.  I’ve posted other food stuffs, but no new dinner ideas.  I have made a few, but nothing worthy of posting here.  I’ve been less than inspired lately and have resorted to some older recipes and haven’t been ultra motivated to come up with something new or alter something inspiring.

So I still haven’t done that, but I’m going to jump on the backs of those who have already done all the work.  My hubby sent me these recipes.  Somewhere in his wanderings he found these recipes and sent them to me… I’m wondering if he just thought they looked good or if he was noticing the lack of inspiration and hoping for some new and exciting dishes!!!

Either way, I’m happy! I wasn’t too motivated so motivation landed in my lap!  And boy am I glad we tried these recipes. Also, I apologize for the low quality of the photos. I only have a cheap point and shoot cameral.  I would really like a nicer camera so the photos could show improvement…. but alas… that will be well into the future before that happens.  In the summer there is plenty of light when dinner is served and taking a quick photo isn’t a problem… winter however, natural light is gone at dinner time and everything turns out yellowish.  So… all that to say… sorry for the poor photography… but stay tuned for summer!!!!

So… on to the recipes… The first is the Char Siu Pork from The Domestic Man.  This was such a hit that we ran out of meat for dinner!  Which is good and bad.  I did use 3 lbs and usually I try to feed our family on 1 lb a meat for dinner… so this definitely took us WAY over budget, but next time I’ll just have more sides to go with it!  This was melt in your mouth delicious!

I didn’t change the recipe really at all, so I definitely can’t claim it as my own and I don’t feel right posting it here, so I will just provide the link. However, I do have a few quick notes of what I did and how it turned out:

• I used 3 lbs of pork chops and cubed it
• I copped it and let it marinate overnight.
• 3 lbs of chops only made 6 skewers… not enough for our fam, unless I increase the side dishes.
• Sauce was the perfect amount and amazing flavor
• There was an ice storm the night before we had this and I didn’t want to send hubby out to grill.  I just used the grill pan on the stove over low heat and cooked for 1 hour.  Turned out perfect.  Tender and had a bit of crisp on the outside. PERFECTO!!!

The other recipe for Cold Sesame Cucumber Noodles came from The Clothes Make The Girl blog.  This too was fantastic. Both these dishes will be entering into our frequent dinner rotation as high on the favorite list.  A couple of the kids said they were going request it as a birthday meal!  It was that good!  There were a few changes I’d make to this recipe next time we have it, but they are few!

Here are my few notes on this recipe:

• The cucumbers I used were super wet.  I need to make sure the cucumbers are well drained and even dried before adding the sauce.
• We only needed ½ the sauce, but makes for a good peanut salad dressing!
• I doubled the recipe and used 1 tsp of hot sesame oil with the rest reg sesame oil to add a bit of spice. I could add probably 2 tsp, but then we like A LOT of spice!

If you didn’t get the point… these dishes were AMAZING! If you give them a try, please let me know if you liked them and if they will be high on your “to make again” list!
Enjoy!