Friday, July 23

Cooking is Not My Forte...

and I know that I will never win any awards or ribbons for it - but - now and then I come up with a winner, and tonight was the night!

Years ago I found a recipe for Chinese pepper steak. After making it according to that recipe a few times, I began to experiment - usually because I didn't have everything the recipe called for. Tonight's  dinner was delicious and so fresh! Here's what I did:

I chopped about 1/4 cup of red onion, a stalk of celery, a carrot and  1/4 of a green bell pepper, which I put into my wok (it's not really a wok, but a round-bottomed skillet with a glass lid) with a teaspoon of oil, a little pat of butter and some low-sodium soy sauce. As that sauteed, I chopped a large tomato, opened a pack of sliced mushrooms, sliced some tender young asparagus shoots, a handful of fresh spinach leaves and two small leaves of basil (from my kitchen window).I tossed all that into the skillet and warmed it - while (removing the fat from and) slicing some very thin beef steaks I had bought yesterday. I removed all the vegetables from the skillet while I sauteed the beef, again, in some oil and soy sauce. When it was done (it only took a minute or two) I put all of it back into the skillet to reheat.

We had ordered Chinese take-out last Sunday, and neither of us ate any of the white rice (I prefer brown), but I saved it. Tonight I put it into a bowl and nuked it in the microwave for two minutes - and it was perfect for spooning out onto the plates and topping with my skillet mixture.

A little pepper and a smidgeon of salt - and it was fit for a king - and mr. kenju went back for seconds (as did I.) I was hoping that there would be enough leftover to take to work tomorrow, but no such luck. The skillet is empty!

It's too bad I didn't take a photo of it. It looked very pretty, too.

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