Leftovers | Garlic Pork Noodles

Keeping inventory of pantry staples for our family makes nights when dinner was not considered less panicky.

When my husband and I are planning to date after bedtime, I usually go for a tried and true recipe for the children. This way, I avoid cooking two elaborate meals; one for the children and one for the parents.

On Parent Nights, we let the children either have leftovers as is or I try to recreate the leftovers into something unrecognizable to excite them.

Over the weekend we had a simple BBQ feast. In the back of fridge wrapped in foil was a sad, single, bone-in pork chop. Revamped it became an Asian inspired dish from Modern Proper. It took three seconds to prep and minutes to cook.

It helps to have basic ingredients for dishes like these on hand:

• Ramen or stirfry noodles

• Green onions

• Ginger

• garlic

• Seasame seeds

• Asian sauces like oyster, soy and fish

If you can prevent these from running low, you can have a dinner at-the-ready any day of the week.

Dry spices can often replace fresh flavors like ginger and garlic too. But use less of them than the recipes calls for because dry tend to be more potent in flavor.

Everything needed to make this satisfying—and quite frankly, addicting, meal!— can fit on a small cutting board. Whisk the sauce in a small bowl while boiling the ramen noodles to package specification. While the sauce simmers with the garlic, dice leftover meat into cubes. Toss the noodles into the pan with the sauce, followed by the meat to warm everything through and allow the sauce to coat and absorb into the noodles.

Let’s just say, with a dinner date with my husband still hours away, it was hard to resist eating a bowl of this myself.