Sweet & Spicy Beef

This recipe was my introduction to the "Chinese ketchup", and now that I've used Hoisin sauce I don't know how I did without it. This is a recipe of my 20's that often appears on the menu today by request of my husband.

The building blocks of hoisin sauce, garlic chili sauce (another red combination sauce found in the Asian section of my grocery store), soy sauce and oil can be used for marinades, dipping sauces and more. Fresh garlic (what this recipe calls for), ginger or chinese five spice can be added to round out the flavor.

The soy sauce provides plenty of salt for my tastes, so verify before you add more.

This is a great recipe to stuff lots of vegetables in and I found that my mouth objected to them less if they are cooked instead of left crunchy and partially raw. So, depending on what vegetables I'm using I'll "pre cook" them before assembling the dish. The broccoli pictured in this post was blanched in boiling water for a few minutes. You could also sauté and then add a bit of water to cook further in a separate skillet if you wanted to expend more effort for a little flavor. Honestly the sauce is such a huge part of the taste that blanching works just fine.

I guess a wok would be good but I don't have a wok so I use a large ceramic or stainless steel pot. I really try to practice minimalism in the kitchen and not have my limited cupboard space stuffed with specialized equipment. No, the veggies and meet don't brown quite as well or fast - but the results are still delicious.

What you need

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 12 oz flank steak or any other cut that you can slice thin and it's edible.
• ~1/2 to 1 tablespoon Sesame oil (OK to use peanut or vegetable oil, anything that won't smoke at high temps)
• 8 scallions chopped with greens and whites separated
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 cups mushrooms, sliced
• 4 cups of "suitable" vegetables - green beans with ends snapped, or sugar peas, or broccoli cut into florets. Some combination of carrots, baby bok choy, water chestnuts would probably work and be delicious too.  
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1 or 1 1/2 tablespoon chili garlic sauce

How to get 'er done

Mix the soy sauce and the corn starch together. Toss with the beef in a bowl and let sit for at least 10 minutes. 

Chop and prep EVERYTHING. Put in little cute bowls next to the stove. This is going to go fast. 

Heat the oil blazing hot. But don't actually catch on fire. 

Add garlic and white scallions. Stir briskly ~30 seconds until fragrant but not brown. 

Add mushrooms and veggies and stir fry for 3-4 min, keeping in near constant motion. If you using vegetables that you want more cooked than this, blanch them first in boiling water (or sauté them in a separate pan, add a little water if needed yada yada). Anywho we are getting distracted. 

Add the beef along with the soysauce mixture and stir fry for another 3 min, until the beef is browned. Stir in the hoisin and garlic chili sauce, cook until sauce clings to the meat and vegetables. 

Garnish with scallion greens. 

It's fabulous by itself but if you insist serve with rice, or maybe these scallion pancakes? 

Adapted from Cook This Not That Easy and Awesome 350-calorie meals by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding

Guinness Molasses Bread

Banish the thought that this is a bread recipe and embrace it as a dessert much like those cupcakes masquerading as muffins we eat for breakfast. This way you won't make the same mistake I did and put a traitorous note at the top of the recipe that says "very sweet! experiment with less sugar?".

The truth is, it's an absolutely divine combination of bitterness, sweet, and deep molasses-ly flavor that I fell in love with each time I made it and I never did get around to trying to make it more bread and less dessert.

This is a recipe from Simply Recipes that I first discovered in my 20's living in an apartment with my cat. I made it countless times - probably because I could make it from ingredients I had on hand without  special trips to the grocery store - and every time I was helpless against it's chewy sweet-bitter goodness.

I put a loaf together last night since the last time I made it was pre-vetschool, pre-kid, pre-husband, and pre-ultrarunning. Would the recipe hold up to my memories?????

YES.

OMG YES.

The version I've cooked over the years deviates very little from Simply Recipes's version - but here's a few notes of my own.

• I don't own a bread pan anymore so last night I threw it in a #6 cast iron skillet and it was perfectly adequate. 
• I've never used Self-rising flour and I'll take their word that it makes a better loaf. But the appeal of this recipe for me is that as long as I have beer, I can make this with just a few simple ingredients that I already have on hand. The loaf is slightly dense and chewy and perhaps it would be more bread-like with self-rising when it comes out of the oven. This might explain while I like it just fine out of the oven with its caramelized top and moist sweetness of the loaf, for me this bread doesn't REALLY shine until the next morning when you slice and toast it and let your mouth roll over the toasted caramelized bits mixed into the soft body of the loaf. 
• If you do use Self rising flour, Simply Recipes notes it should be fresh (less than 6 months old). 
• Your beer needs to be carbonated and cold. Don't use the flat stuff sitting in your garage. The bread is worth the sacrifice of a drinkable beer, I promise. 
• Simply Recipes warns to not over-combine when mixing everything together, but to combine well enough that there aren't lumps. I'm so afraid of over-combining that while I don't have lumps, the color of loaf isn't uniform after it cooks and I have darker and white splotches in the finished loaf (you can see this in my picture above). I don't feel like it detracts from the taste or texture of the finished loaf, and it's not lumpy. Maybe the next time I make it I'll get brave and whip that loaf into shape (I think this every time and never follow through because why mess with something that works???)

As usually, I'm neither a professional photographer, nor a pro blogger. for really PRETTY pictures of this, you should go to the recipe at Simply :). 

Ingredients

• 3 cups self rising flour OR 3 cups of flour, 3 3/4 tsp baking powder, 3/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar 
• pinch of salt (~1/8 tsp). Consider making it a large pinch...every time I've made the bread I've wondered whether it could be improved by just a touch more salt. 
• 12 ounces of Guinness beer. I usually use extra stout since it's what I can find easily in the stores in this area. I've used other beers and it's turned out just fine, but the flavor is best with Guinness IMO. 
• 1/3 cup mollasses
• Butter for greasing pan (or the olive oil spray worked fine in the cast iron skillet), and more for floating on the top of the loaf after cooking. 

How to git 'er done

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease loaf pan (9x5 inch) or a number 6 cast iron skillet. 

Mix dry ingredients together. 

Slowly pour the beer into the flour mixture. Mix into the dry ingredients, and when about half way done add the molasses. Don't over combine (see note above). ,

Pour into pan, no more than 2/3 full. Cook for 50 min. It's done with a butter knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

Let cool 5 min and then paint the top of the loaf with a butter stick. Don't be tempted to skip this step in the name of calories, the amount of flavor it adds is phenomenal, and this is dessert, not a health food. Just make your slice a little thinner and add the butter please!

- Adapted from Simply Recipe

Paul's Cheesecake

This is the cheesecake I grew up with - made in a pie plate, crustless, with an optional fruit topping served on the side. No fancy water baths or springform pans needed. My husband makes a dang good fancy "New York Style" cheesecake that does use all that, but on the nights I make cheesecake, I make the one that I begged my mom to make me for my birthday as far back as I can remember. 

P.S. My husband and I love cheesecake so much it was our wedding cake. 

Ingredients

• 1 pound cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp almond extract

Topping:

• 1 cup sour cream
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Oven: 350 degrees

How to get 'er done

Beat cheese, eggs, sugar, and almond extract together throughly till smooth and lemon colored. When I tried to make it this time I loosely interpreted "beat" as something I could do in a large bowl with a wooden smooth. NOPE. All it gained me was TWO dirty bowls as I then poured it into my stand mixer bowl to finish it up. Smooth is also relative as I *always* have small soft chunks of cream cheese suspended in the finished batter. *shrug* seems to turn out OK in the end. EDIT: Highly recommend that you cream the sugar and cream cheese together first, and then beat in eggs and almond extract. Whatever texture you pour the raw batter into the pan is the texture you get in the finished product. 

Pour into a greased pie plate and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, take out of the oven and cool for 20 min. 

While cheesecake is cooling, beat sour cream, sugar and vanilla throughly. 

Pour this over the top of the pie. Return to 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Cool, then refrigerate. 

Optional - can be baked on a "crumb crust" that I assume means those nasty graham cracker things - although why someone would ruin a perfectly good cheesecake with it I'm not sure. The original recipe from my mom says "adjust initial baking time to reflect that." which I assume means it takes longer - because Matt *does* like the crust and that's what I did when I cooked it this week and it took FOREVER. 

Other Recipe notes: 

"From Paul Barnes. It was his mother's recipe." Paul was a navy friend of my Dad's and the best man at their wedding.

Succotash

I can't even pronounce the name but every time I've made it over the years, I've devoured every morsel of it without a single serving going in the trash. I made this Sunday and even knowing I was going to write this post, still managed to snarf it all before getting a picture,  so that's my excuse for a photo-less post (at least until the next time I make it and then I pinky-promise swear to update this post with a picture).

Original recipe called for bacon, corn scraped off of a fresh ear of corn and thawing the lima beans along with encouragement to try all sorts of seasonal varieties (zucchini, green beans, whatever frozen veggies you have on hand).

Almost immediately I made substitutions and discovered something wonderful. Even to this mostly vegetable hating person it is just as delicious (and just as pretty) made with frozen and canned veggies. AND it reheats. It's not mushy, stringy, bitter, or any of the 100 objections I usually have to vegetable dishes.

I know, amazing right?

I ADORE this recipe. It's a great side if you go easy on the meat, but I can easily eat a huge bowl as a meal too, especially if the protein content is bumped up.

Adapted from: Cook This Not That: easy & awesome 350-calorie meals by David Zincozenko & Matt Goulding

Ingredients

• 4-8 oz. Sausage (I commonly have a roll of sausage in the fridge, but you can substitute 2 strips of bacon or some other flavorful meat here. How much sausage I use is usually dependent on how much of a "main dish" I want, and what other uses I have for the sausage that week. )
• 4 scallions, chopped, greens and whites separated. A regular onion is great too. 
• 1 bell pepper (red? It's prettier with red, but just as tasty with green. My advice? Go with what's the cheapest), chopped
• 1 can of corn 
• 2 cups of frozen lima beans (theoretically thawed if you are into an extra step)
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup half-and-half (I've used canned whole coconut milk and it substitutes very nicely)

How to get 'er done

Cook the sausage in a large pan over medium heat until cooked and browned. Remove, leaving the grease in the skillet. If it's excessive, wipe the skillet out. You want to leave enough that the onion and pepper can cook without sticking and without adding additional oil. 

Add the scallion white and bell pepper and cook until softened, about 3 minutes, then stir in the corn and lima beans. If you are like me and are lazy, you haven't thawed your lima beans and the corn was canned. Thus I've never experienced the "light toasting" that theoretically is supposed to be achieved. Don't worry about it. I sorta just stir everything together until I'm satisfied that everything is starting to warm up. 

Turn the heat down to low and season with salt and pepper. Then add half-and-half. Gently simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated and coats the vegetables (~3 min). 

Stir in the sausage and the scallion greens.