Month 6 day 4: Moo shu pork and green beans

Back from California for the last time! Now I am back in Boston for the duration. My cousin's love celebration was great, with delicious farm-food, including a whole pig they raised and roasted themselves:

They also had some great popsicles: apricot-lavender and hibiscus-grape-mint.

Today I made:
Moo Shu Pork, Food Network Magazine July/August 2010
Green Beans with Toasted Garlic (Sesame-soy variation), Cooking Light July 2011
Served with mixed rice

Now that I'm finally back in Boston for a long time and with no dietary restrictions, I finally feel like I can go grocery shopping and cook without worrying about when I'll be able to use the leftovers and such. I went shopping for ingredients for the next four meals (sixteen servings, really) and it cost $70! Jeez. It hurts to be back on the East Coast. There were a lot of odd produce items which I think drove it up-- like this small head of Bibb lettuce, a single bulb of fennel, and some leeks which are all $3-4 each. Also, the pork tenderloin for this recipe was $10! I guess I normally get it only when it's on sale. I misread this recipe as calling for a 1 3/4 lb tenderloin, but when I got home I realized that actually it was for one tenderloin weighing 3/4 lbs! So I just used half and froze the rest for the Cantonese-Style Grilled Pork I'll make next week. This dinner still ended up costing $14 for four servings, not counting things I had at home including shiitake, so it's a little pricy.

It was pretty straightforward though, so that was nice, and with the cole slaw package there isn't even that much cutting to be done. I love moo shu pork at restaurants, but this doesn't have quite as full of a flavor (it's basically just hoisin sauce and vinegar). I think I'll still keep the recipe. I think it would be better in the normal wrappers you get at restaurants-- that's the best part! The lettuce is just meh. I did make a mistake when cooking-- you're supposed to cook just the pork, reserving the marinade. For some reason I thought that you were supposed to cook the pork and the sauce, and then remove the pork, reserving the marinade in the pan. I'm guessing it doesn't change the flavor, but I wonder if it affects the texture to have the pork basically getting boiled instead of fried. Not that there was anything wrong with the texture.
The green beans were good, but not too notable. There is a citrus-nut variation with hazelnuts, parsley, and orange rind which I bet would be delicious.