Home stretch is finally here!!! We’ve officially got only one week left for this school year, and I am so proud of Little MrC and I for surviving our first year of school lunches. I never thought we could do it, but we did. I feel so happy.
I originally thought that because this would be the last baon week for the year, it would be more special. I’m sorry, I was wrong. I honestly just want to be done, I want summer to be here already, and so my final baon week is simply ordinary. Also, after giving it a lot of though, I have decided to put a pause on the baon planning over summer, first so that I can build some excitement for the coming year, and second, because I don’t always pack lunch for MrC. I will still be sharing a featured recipe on each Thursday of the week, though, so there still is something that you can look forward to each week.
If you’ll notice, my grocery list and menu plan has specific brands of food, particularly in the snack portion. That’s because I’m finishing up whatever I still have on hand here at home. Also, I’ve decided to make use of some kitchen friendly friends to make life simpler. For the breaded pork chops, I’m using McCormick Season’n Fry. For the chicken teriyaki, I bought bottled Kikkoman roasted garlic marinade and used that instead of making my own from scratch. Twice I’ve placed ready to fry options into the menu – Bounty Fresh Top Torikatsu and Century Smoked bangus belly.
My recipe for this week is a typical Filipino dish, pork steak, that our old helper used to make with a twist. The twist is that the dish is a little sweeter than your normal pork steak, and the soy sauce is watered down, resulting in really pale meat. Honestly, not everyone likes it. My dad thinks it tastes like soap. My brother and I love it though, and we would have this for our packed lunch many times when we were little. So, I figured it would be a great packed meal to use for my little boy’s last lunch in school as a second grader.
- 1/4 kilo pork tenderloin (lomo) cut into medallions
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sugar
- The juice of 1 calamansi
- 1/4 cup water
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil or butter for frying
- Combine all ingredients and marinade the pork overnight in the refrigerator. Yes, even the water.
- Fry the pork medallions in butter or olive oil.
- Pour the marinade over the meat and let it simmer. Reduce the sauce to your desired thickness, and you're done.
- Serve with hot rice.
- You can totally adjust the amount of sugar in this if you find the dish too sweet.
So excited to be taking a break from my 5AM kitchen routine! Hooray for summer vacation!!!
This looks like a really tasty dish. I hope you get some extra rest when the school year ends.