Week 1 - Thursday pork

Last night's recipe was Pork Cutlets with Spicy Noodles.

Kind of an odd sideways shot - I overbrowned one of the cutlets but it was still good.

Was the recipe easy to follow?
It was easy and quick. I was a little worried about the pork, which had to be dredged in flour, then a beaten egg, then the panko bread crumbs, then the pan, but I set up a right-to-left assembly line, and used tongs, so it went very quickly and - bonus! - I never had to touch the raw meat. I got all 5 cutlets in the pan within a minute so they cooked evenly.
Did it taste good?
It did. The only thing is, the Real Simple blogger wrote about the flavorful meat, and I found it to be bland. Not sure I seasoned it enough with salt and pepper before all the dredging. Maybe the salt and pepper should have been in the flour? Or in the panko? Or maybe there should have been extra seasoning in the panko - some parsley, or maybe some dried basil? Something that kept it asian flavored - I originally thought grated parmesan, which would give more flavor, but wouldn't really match the other flavors. Or maybe the meat marinated in soy sauce?

Adjustments?
I was game to try jalepeno (which I have never once cooked with before), but Rich had done the grocery shopping and didn't buy one, figuring it would be too spicy for the kids, particularly Elizabeth. I was planning to use less than half, but none was probably the right call.

Also, I have to say the recipes themselves are turning out to be good. I hate to keep harping on this, but this is supposed to be a "meal plan," and I just wonder why there is this aversion to vegetables and/or side dishes? I want my kids to be eating plenty of vegetables, so once again we had a side dish - green beans. I thought about throwing peas into the noodles, but we were out as we didn't buy extra veggies in the grocery trip. Next week I'll know better and stock up.

And one last issue - half a pound of shitake mushrooms is a heck of a lot of mushrooms. Rich bought two 3.25 ounce containers. Once sliced, there were more mushrooms than noodles! So now I have a couple of extra ounces of shitakes sliced in the fridge, as I added as many as reasonable to the noodles but just could not add them all in.
I'll use the extras for tonight, so that'll be fine. Also, if you look at the real simple blogger's photos, I jsut don't believe that's 8 ounces of shitakes. Mushrooms are really light.

Kid friendly?
It was. Elizabeth (5) picked out the mushrooms with a big eeewwww, but ate the rest (oh, where did my good eater go?). Andrew (22 months) shoved fistfuls of 'new-news' (noodles) in his mouth whether there were mushrooms or not. Neither seemed to notice the ginger.

Would I make it again?
Sure. It was tasty, and the noodles would certainly work with chicken or fish or shrimp, while the breading on the cutlets could also be used different ways with different recipes.