Sweet and Sour Pork Recipe

Little Panda Daddy got a pineapple home because Cheeky Panda wanted some. As soon as he got the pineapple, he was craving Sweet and Sour Pork for dinner. He remembered what I usually put in the dish, so he got all the ingredients home and asked me to make dinner. He rarely ask me to cook something specific, so I knew he really wanted it. I wouldn't disappoint my dear husband and was happy to satisfied his taste buds. 

While I was cooking, some new ideas came to my mind and I decided to try something new this time. Little Panda Daddy was playing with the girls but so curious about the strange ingredients on the counter top. He asked me a few times what were those extra ingredients doing there. He looked concerned and probably worried about his dinner might be ruined. I told him everything fine and I was just trying something new. Luckily, the new recipe was a success, everyone loved it.

Sweet and Sour Pork (Serve 4)

  


Ingredients:
Fresh Pineapple                1/2 
Green Pepper                    1 
Pork Rib Eye                      1 Pound  
Sweet and Sour Sauce      3 Tablespoons
Salt                                      1 Tablespoons
Plain Bread Crumbs             1/2 Cups
Vegetable Oil                      4 Tablespoons


Tool:
Ziploc bag                            1


Steps:1. Wash and cut all the ingredients into 1 inch cube

2. Add salt to marinate the pork for 5-10 minutes

3. Put bread crumbs into the Ziploc bag

4. Put the marinated pork into Ziploc and zip close

5. Shake the bag upside down and back and forth

6. Shake until every pork cube are covered by bread crumbs (This method will save your hand from getting messy)

7. Heat 3 tablespoons oil into a sauce pan with medium to high heat

8. Tilt the pan around until oil covers the pan

9. Add pork into the hot pan (Tips: make sure the pork are evenly spread on the pan)

10. Do NOT move the pork until they turn golden brown

11. Flip the pork and cook until it is done (Tips: Do NOT move the pork until it is cooked)

12. Remove the pork and reserve for use later

13. In a clean wok, heat the remaining oil and add green pepper until it starts to be soften

14. Add the cooked pork and stir

15. Add the sweet and sour sauce and stir

16. Add the pineapple, stir until everything was covered with sauce

17. Done and serve

Sweet and Sour Pork (serve with steamed rice)

Educational iPhone or iPad App reviews (Highly Recommended)

Panda Daddy found a few educational iPhone and iPad apps that work quite well with the little pandas, there are some of the reviews for them.

Cheeky Panda is 2.5 years old now, here's her favorites apps:

Monkey Preschool Lunch Box (monkeypreschool.com)
Cost: $0.99 (Highly Recommended)

What the app do: It teaches the children shapes, colors, numbers, alphabets, matching, counting, problem solving and motors skill through little game tasks.

Why it works: Cheeky Panda has been playing with the game for 2 months. From the very first time, the colorful app with cute little monkey capture her attention right away. She tried to play with it all by herself since the beginning. With successful and fail attempts, she learned the shapes, colors, numbers and matching (which I tried so hard to teach her but failed) very well. Somehow she just figured out all these complicated concepts through the game herself without me explaining much. She can match and find the different object from a group easily now. At the same time, her motors skill and problem solving skills are clearly improved since she need to use her little fingers to drag and place some puzzle pieces to form some fruits' shape. Therefore, she is learning different kind of fruits also.



Monkey Math School Sunshine (http://monkeymathschool.com)
Cost: $0.99 (Highly Recommend)


What the app do: It teaches numbers, pattern, counting, concept of more or less and simple calculus (sum and minus)

Why it works: It shows the pattern along with narration, which have a blank in between, for the kids to pick 1 out of 3 objects to fill it. I found out the narration of the pattern actually help a lot for her to understand what is going on.

For counting and numbers, she has to connect the numbers dots from 1 -14 (more or less numbers) accordingly, so the turtle can cross the sea. She can count from 1 - 14 now, thanks to the turtle count along every dot he through.

There are four groups of sea creatures or objects to choose from, she has to pick the one with the most or the least.

Natural method that help heal my baby's eczema

My baby was suffered from eczema for 10 months since she was 3 months old. Thanks God, she is free from these itchy red bumps now. I have been trying all kinds of remedies, lotions, soaps and stuff that doctor, family and friends suggested. Nothing work and those cream and soap the doctor suggested were so expensive.

The brand my Pediatrician suggested was Cetaphil. I bought both the moisturizer and a bar of soap, they cost me $20. If they worked or I could feel and see the different, I wouldn't complain. I knew so many people are using these brand for the same reason, maybe it worked for them but not my kid.

I discovered a much cheaper alternative which is not a moisturizing soap, but known as purity and mildness - Ivory Soap. It was on sale at $1 for 3 bars in the store and I got a few $0.50 coupons. That made it $0.50 for 3 bars, a very good deal compared to my Dove soap, so I decided to give it a try. My husband then told me Ivory soap actually known as its purity, their commercial always have a baby in it (I never saw a commercial of the brand, didn't know about it at all). He suggested we can tried it on Cheeky Panda, the very sensitive him tried it and he was fine, so I gave her a try. I can feel her skin was not as moisturized compared after a bath using the $4/bar Cetaphil Soap. However, it definitely did not irritate my baby's skin and clean her perfectly.

And there was another discover for cheaper moisturizer instead of Cetaphil which works for Cheeky Panda. The well-known Johnson & Johnson's brand have a new product called Head-to-Toe Baby Lotion which is fragrance free. Honestly, I like it much more not only because of the price different, I actually see improvement of my baby dry skin after using it. It absorbs as quick as Cetaphil moisturizer and I can  apply it repeatedly if I wanted to. And it didn't not clog the pores like some other brands do.

Thanks God I found these products and they works so well with her. And I found one last product that works magic and it is Avene thermal water. This brand is famous for its sensitive skin products. All I do was spray this water on wherever she had eczema, mostly on face and neck. It soothed her itches right away as you can tell by her smile. I used it myself to soothe the itches from bugs bite and general irritation. I said it works like magic because I saw the red bumps faded to light pink only after a few sprays within 15 minutes (I usually spray immediately after the prior spray was dried). And I repeated it every hour or two. About half a day later, I saw her face and neck are regular skin color again although the bumps are still there. I continuously used it for a couple weeks, the bumps were finally gone and she has a perfect smooth little face again. Hope this will last and she don't need to suffer again. Wish this can help those loving parents out there seeking the method that works for their children. Good luck everyone.

Fun way to lose baby weight at home

After Cheeky Panda was born, I started doing exercise to tone the arms and legs by using Wii. Yes. the video game system. I don't like to go to gym stared by strangers or ended up staring at strangers. The EA Sports Active game actually work very good and it came with a elastic band for strength exercise. I used it for a month or so, I saw my upper arms are toned and were so happy of the result.

Honestly, I didn't really expect much in the beginning. I only want to move a little to boost the mood and feel like I am myself again while the baby sleep. The visible result was unexpected and the confident boost was just amazing. I wanted to continue but a one day break of the routine just killed it. I got too lazy to get up the couch again the next day and just forget about it.

This time, after a whole year of nursing Chunky Panda, I started to try exercise again. After all, two pregnancies have their huge effects on me. I gained 40 lbs then lost 30 lbs for the 1st one. Gain another 40 lbs and lost 30 lbs again for the 2nd one. Lucky for breastfed my babies, the 30lbs actually lost by itself from nursing, I didn't do anything extra to loose them. But also because of nursing, breastfed moms' bodies will keep the 10 lbs just to make sure there will be enough fat to product milk. I was pregnant again before I done nursing Cheeky Panda, so.... before I could try to loose the last 10 lbs, I started gaining weight again.

I was on the scale another day, 20 lbs more than I have these two wonderful kids. I think it is time to do something again. This time I am going to use XBOX 360 KINECT. Sound weird but they actually are fun and help you burn calories. The main reason I switch to Kinect is no controller, you (the player) is the controller. I enjoy the Wii but really hate to exercise with two remotes on hand, who work out like that? The Kinect make much more sense, at least for exercise purpose.

My favorite games are Dance Central and Your Shape. They are both fun and sure keep your body moving. Dance Central is more fun to me because I like dancing to begin with. It has hit songs and cool moves in the game, started from a step by step tutorial, then you can perform it and even try a dance battle. Every song have different levels, you can build up your dance skills to your favorite tunes. I have to say they do have quite different moves in different levels which keep it fun.

Your Shape is more an exercise core game, I bet you can tell by the name. It has different programs for you to choose from. The one I tried was for loosing baby weight (yes, they have a program for that). Starting the game, those exercises don't really look hard at all. But you will know how hard it is when you actually doing it, at least for someone like me who do not exercise on a regular basis. The screen will have a computerized personal trainer showing you what to do, and you will see yourself right behind the trainer. This helps you  realize how exact or how far off you are comparing to the model positions from the trainer. Since the cameras track how you move, they compare your moves to the right positions, so it is less likely you will hurt yourself by doing them wrong. It also have a calorie burning scale right there as you working out, quite motivating.

Drop my grocery bill form $90 to $70, not too bad

Couponing for a while now, had my 1st TWO Salad Dressing today. Ken's 8-9oz salad dressing was on sale today for $1. I got 2 coupons which were $1 off per product ($1/1). YEAH. I normally will not buy the flavor I bought today, but this is the only two flavor left on shelf, the rest of them were gone. So, it's free, what the heck, I will give them a try. Maybe I will like them. Or not, I don't have to loose anything. 

But there is a weird thing. HEB supposed to accept 1 Code B (Big Saving coupon) and 1 Manufacturer coupon.  I saw they have $4 off IF you buy 4 ($4/4) for Cereals, so I bought 4. I was looking at the coupon and all of a sudden I noticed it was a B coupon (they usually are marked as M which can't be combined with Manufacturer coupons). Cool, I can use my own coupons on top of that, a few extra dollars to save. But when I checked out, the cashier keep trying to scan my own coupons, they all showed as invalid. Only one of the $0.5 off Cheerio coupon scanned okay. She started to look at the coupons and said that was for a lot of cereals. I said 'Yes, I got 8 of them.' So she counted how many boxes of cereals was the coupons for, and didn't checked the computer or my cart again, she overrode it. I was glad I didn't need to say anything extra or she had to call the manager for that. I was just prepared to take those didn't scan back and forget about it. Since my girls are so tired and hungry, I just wanted to go home. 

So be careful if you are going to HEB hoping to use B coupon with your own Manufacturer coupons. It may not go as smooth as you think. I remembered the B coupon fine print mentioned "do not combined with other offer." Maybe that's why. However one of the Cheerio coupon did go through without a problem, so it is really confusing. Whatever, the transaction is done. I got my 23% off my bills. I think it is a good start. And I received a few print out coupon at the cashier. It included a $5 off next shopping for HEB (printed complimentary from General Mills, I guessed because I bought 8), $2 off 5 boxes of Big G (General Mills) cereals and $1 off any 2 Ball Park Deli Beef Franks.