There are 7 days of school left and I am surviving on caffeine, wine, and knowing that our Italy trip is rapidly approaching. Soon, I will be basking on the Amalfi Coast drinking Italian wine without worrying about writing 29 narratives for 6 subjects each. *deep breath* 7 days. If you still have teacher friends in school, check on them. We are NOT OKAY.

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At this point in the year, I have no energy left to cook elaborate meals. All of my energy goes towards teaching tiny humans to be good humans. I teach them other things too, but I really like teaching what a mentor of mine called the “good human” standards this time of year. That’s about all we have the mental capacity for anyway. After researching this weeks wine, a Semillion, I found out it goes well with spicy foods. This Pork Basil stir fry didn’t hit that spicy note (it will when we do it next time and use jalapenos) but it was exceptionally tasty. I chose to put it over a Jade rice, which is ever so slightly green because it has bamboo it in! The rice was not salty at all, but the saltyness of the stir-fry sauce totally made up for it. If we had salted the rice, the whole dish would have been pure salt. I wanted to do something with basil because it is finally back in season, and I’ve missed it! We also made pesto this week, and if you’re good I’ll share that recipe. Here we go!

Pork-Basil Stir Fry

Sauce:

• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2.5 tbsp Golden Mountain Sauce (a saltier, sweeter version of Soy Sauce, found on Amazon)
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• fresh-squeezed lime juice (half a lime)

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and set by the stove!

Stir-Fry

• 1 lb ground pork
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 red chilies, minced (if you want more kick, do one red and one jalapeno)
• 1/4 cup chicken stock
• 1 egg (totally optional, I don’t think it added anything to the dish)
• A couple handfuls of fresh green beans (really specific, I know), ends removed and cut into pieces
• LOTS of fresh basil, sliced
• 4-5 scallions, sliced and separated greens and whites
• oil for frying
• Garnish: fresh basil and sliced red chili

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Heat a big skillet with the oil over medium heat. After it’s warm, add your chili and garlic and stir until fragrant. Add your pork and break apart into fine pieces. Once the pork is mostly cooked, add in about half of the chicken stock, reserving the rest. When that has combined add your green beans and scallion whites and stir together.

Push all the ingredients to the side, and add your egg to scramble. I scrambled mine in a side dish and added it in then quickly stirred it together. You could also totally leave this out, it didn’t add anything to the dish.

Once the egg has mixed in, add your stir fry sauce. This stuff is SO SALTY. Look at the ingredients in it, and please don’t use full sodium everything if you have an issue with your sodium levels. Reduce your heat a little bit, stir the stir-fry sauce in and reduce for about 2 minutes. Add the remaining chicken stock and let it reduce more. Close to the end, add the basil and scallion greens.

I served this with the jade rice, but you could use basmati, jasmine, or whatever floats your boat. You do you. Make sure you don’t oversalt whatever rice you use, because you’ll overload!

Semillon

I was too late to get a picture of this wine bottle full, see intro paragraph if you’ve forgotten that I’m #teachertired. This Semillon was just what I needed after a long day of Boxland, where the whole school literally build a city of boxes and is run by students. I would compare this wine to a mild Sauv Blanc. It was similar in body to a Chard, really full and balanced, but not as acidic or tart as a Sauv Blanc can be. It has potential for being the perfect “sip by the pool from my plastic wine glass” wine. There are two distinct “types” of Semillon, hot and cool climate. Hot climates produce a more buttery Semillon, whereas a cool climate produces more citrusy ones. The one we had was from southen (ish) Australia, so my reasoning is that it must be high altitude there to make it a cool climate wine! Either way, I really enjoyed it!