Spicy Pork Steaks with Tomato and Mint Salad

What Speedy and I had for breakfast yesterday were the same pork steaks that went into Alex’s school lunchbox. Small pork steaks are less than half an inch thick and about three inches in diameter. I packed three for Alex so there were only two left for Speedy and myself. So I decided to serve our minuscule pork steaks with eggs and a salad.

I bought this jar of chili garlic sauce with ginger a few weeks ago. I already knew it was great as a dipping sauce but I wondered if it could be used for cooking as well. I found out yesterday morning and the answer is yes.

I melted some butter in a pan and lightly fried the pork steaks. Then, I added about a teaspoonful of chili garlic sauce with ginger and poured in about a teaspoonful of light soy sauce for each pork steak, covered the pan, and allowed the meat to braise for about five minutes. The pork steak was delicious. When Alex came home later, she mentioned it and asked what I put in them. I told her and assured her it was easy to make because I knew she’d want an encore.

Cheese, tomato, and basil toasties

Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, we had breakfast in the garden. It hadn’t rained in days, the sun was shining and a light, cool breeze was blowing. Everything felt fresh on such a crisp morning and I thought that the occasion called for an appropriate breakfast. I prepared toasties with cheese, fresh tomatoes, and sweet basil from our garden. Just about any kind of bread can be used for making these toasties. I used split pan de sal because that was what we had. For best results, slice the bread thinly and flatten it with a rolling pin so that they require a very short time to turn crisp. If you have fresh sweet basil, it’s the best thing for this breakfast dish. If you don’t, use dried basil. But, fresh or dried, please don’t omit the basil because the leaves add a wonderful freshness to the otherwise blase combination of cheese and tomatoes.