Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

It's only a few days until Halloween, what are your plans?  My family is attending a friend's Halloween party, after we stuff our bellies, we're going to go walk it off around her neighborhood and go Trick-or-Treating with the kids.

My boys are going as Thor and Hawkeye, and my daughter is going as "new" Cinderella - the one with Lily James and Cate Blanchette.  I was going to be Lady Tremaine, but couldn't find a costume that I liked. So I got my creative juices going and made my own costume.  It's the first time I've made my own costume and I was pretty proud of my idea. I'm going to be a clock that strikes midnight!  Isn't that fun?!  My husband always dresses up in as outrageous a costume as he can find (he was a full on Olaf to our daughter's Elsa last year), so he wanted to be the Hulk to match the boys' Avenger's theme.  But we just couldn't find a good Hulk costume.  So I told him that I'd make his costume too.  We'll all match our daughter.  And...he will now be Cinderella's pumpkin!  The problem was, I couldn't find a good pumpkin costume.  Every single one has a scary Jack-O-Lantern face on it.   So I got a piece of blue fabric, sewed it on the pumpkin costume to cover scary Jack, then used black felt and made a pumpkin carriage silhouette.  Then glued that on the fabric.  It's looks totally awesome.  I'll post pictures of the three of us once we all put our costumes on.  :)  I think we should win any costume contest!

Well, enough talk about Halloween (I think I'm more excited than the kids!).  I recently made these short ribs and they were a fan favorite at my house.  Everyone loved them.  Even my husband!  And he's a man that's hard to please.  I adapted this again from a Chinese cook book. So I will translate and post it here for you.

Ingredients:
1/3 lb short ribs
2/3 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp cooking wine (or any wine)
1/2 tbsp chopped garlic
dash of salt
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp ketchup
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp water

Instructions:
1) Marinate ribs with soy sauce, wine, garlic, and salt mixture for 20 min
2) Coat with cornstarch and flour, then deep fry until golden.  Remove.
3) Combine ketchup, sugar, and water.  Cook with 1 tbsp of oil until boiling. Put ribs in sauce and coat evenly in high heat.  When sauce has nearly dried up, remove and serve.

Happy cooking!

Xo,
Lin