Three Beautiful Things 4-07-2023: Exercising My Left Foot, Gochujang Pork and Vegetable Stir Fry, Columbo is an Actor!

 1. Over a month ago, while on a walk, I did something that evidently strained the side and top of my left foot. In the last couple of days, right along with that stubborn big toe, my foot has been feeling better. I gave my foot a small workout today by driving to Wal Mart, parking quite a ways away from the entry, and walking back to the electronics department and to the pharmacy for some ear buds and Dr. Scholl foot inserts. 

I didn't limp or hobble and I only felt twinges of discomfort in my left foot. I'm hoping this means that it's improved to the point that I can get back to taking regular walks again.

2. Back home, I decided I'd fix dinner with the food we had on hand and save myself a trip to Yoke's. 

I knew HelloFresh had sent us a packet of ground pork by mistake and that we had leftover ginger jasmine rice from Thursday night's dinner. I also knew that Debbie had bought a container of a red pepper Korean paste called Gochujang. I checked out the crisper and we had carrots, celery, and purple cabbage. I knew we had yellow onions on hand and that we had a tube of garlic paste (we are temporarily out of fresh garlic).

I found a recipe for a sauce combining Gochujang with sesame oil, soy sauce, maple syrup, and rice vinegar.

So, I cooked the pork in one cast iron pan and, once browned, I add the left over ginger rice. 

At the same time, I heated up some minced ginger and garlic paste, cooked half a chopped onion, and then stir fried the purple cabbage, carrots, and celery. I transferred half of the pork, rice, and vegetables into a Dutch oven, coated it with the Gochujang sauce and then transferred the rest of the food and poured the rest of the sauce on it. 

The sauce was a tasty blend of red pepper head and mild sweetness and the ground pork, rice, and vegetables worked together deliciously.

I was ecstatic that this meal turned out so well and that I made use of ingredients we had on hand. 

3. Debbie's work weeks tire her out and by Friday she is totally bushed.

For a couple of hours, it looked like we would forgo watching tv together and Debbie would go to bed early. 

But then Debbie got a second wind.

She wanted to watch Columbo.

Tonight's episode from Season 10 was fascinating. Columbo spent parts of the episode undercover, working with a small team of detectives to recover 4 million dollars that had been stashed after a bank robbery six years earlier. Lt. Columbo got to show that he's quite an actor. He pretended to be a small time gangster and a Mafia guy while undercover and played these roles most impressively.