Easy Mongolian Beef

My mother-in-law and I have a... complicated relationship.  

And that's enough on that topic.

However, when she praised my Mongolin Beef a while back, and even - GASP! - asked for the recipe, I was sincerely flattered. 

Then I was slightly embarrassed to tell her how easy it was.  I MAY have exaggerated just a bit and added in false details like "Oh, I grew my own ginger root, of course," and "Oh, I grew my own cow, of course."  But no matter how easy it is, it has been a crowd pleaser every single time I've made it.

[Printable Recipe]

WHAT YOU NEED:

1 lb. flank or other lean steak, sliced 
1⁄4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. cornstarch, divided 
1⁄2 cup soy sauce
1⁄2 cup brown sugar
1⁄4 inch fresh ginger root
3-4 cloves garlic, peeled
1⁄4 to 1⁄2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes water
canola or vegetable oil 


WHAT YOU DO:

Toss the sliced steak with 1⁄4 cup cornstarch and allow it to sit.

In the food processor or blender, put the soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger and garlic and pulse until totally incorporated.

Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in a large skillet or wok, then brown the steak until it's no longer pink. 

Add 1 cup water and red pepper flakes to the sauce and stir, then pour into the skillet with the steak and bring it to a boil. Allow it to cook at a low boil for 5 minutes. 

You can thicken the sauce with 2 Tbsp. cornstarch mixed with a couple splashes of water. 

I serve it over white rice and with a side of Asian-style vegetables.  

Give it a shot.  

I mean seriously, even my mother-in-law likes it.  

Project potty.

This week I have started to potty train cj.

He is two and a half, and was exhibiting all the signs of readiness, like pretty much insisting on going to the potty himself.

But I kept putting it off.  Mainly because potty training zj ranks in my top 5 worst experiences ever, right up there with major abdominal surgery, going to the gynecologist, and "drop-by" visits from my in-laws.

See, way back then, zj seemed ready, too.  Well, until I actually ASKED him to do it.  Then all bets were off.  There was much yelling, screaming, and crying, and he didn't like it much, either.

More than A FULL YEAR after I started potty training zj, I could call done.  Mostly.  Well, good enough.

I assumed that potty training cj would be a similar experience.  I would have seriously put it off even longer - I mean really, it's not like we actually GO anywhere, and we have three whole years before he starts school, but people were starting to ask me when it was going to happen, and by people, I mean cj.

"Pee potty, Mama?"

"Soon, baby.  Really, really soon."

So I began preparing myself.  I read about a zillion articles on potty training success, then chucked it all and stocked up on Mickey Mouse and Yo Gabba Gabba underpants, paper towels, flushable wipes, tequila (for me) and peanut butter balls (courtesy of my Sis B) for cj.

Two days ago, I started.

And...  it's fine.  Better than fine, really.  It's pretty great.  It works.  And two days in, it's pretty much done.  He has had one accident - ONE - and seems totally on board with the whole thing.

It has been so easy that I'm pretty sure I'm doing it wrong.

Maybe I shouldn't say it out loud, or I'll jinx it.

Actually, forget you just read this.  I don't want to push my luck.

Vegetable Lo Mein. From the best Asian restaurant in town.

There are foreigners among us, where by "foreigners" I mean all my boys, who are of the Vietnamese persuasion, and by "among us" I mean in my house.  And they all LOVE them some Asian food.  So even though my tastes run more toward biscuits and gravy, beans and cornbread, fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and grain alcohol, I have learned over the years to cook things with a semi-Asian flair.  Is it authentic?  Some of it.  RJ's mother has seen to that.  Is it good?  All of it.  Even my redneck-I-only-eat-deep-fried-things-made-from-white-flour-and-cornmeal taste buds water for homemade spring rolls and pho.

My latest undertaking has been vegetable lo mein.  This is definitely the more Americanized restaurant takeout style, not the more traditional "this is a big pile of noodles for your soup" style.  But it is damn tasty, and far better - and better for you - than what you can buy at the China One Buffet King, or wherever.

[Printable Recipe]

WHAT YOU NEED:

One pound of lo mein noodles.  Just go into your local Asian food store and ask what kind of noodles are best for lo mein.  They will tell you.  It is not an ancient Chinese secret.  I have heard of people using spaghetti or some such, but that just seems so wrong to me.  If you aren't gonna put meatballs on it, put the spaghetti away. 

This is what RJ came back from the Asian food store with, and it was perfect.

When I first saw this kind, I wasn't sure if they would be good because they were kinda flat noodles, not the round ones that I was used to.  Then I read the back of the box, and I felt much better.  

I can set my mind at ease?  You will safeguard my expenditure?  Well allllllllright!  Nothing to worry about, then.

YOU WILL ALSO NEED:

1/2 tsp. fresh ginger - I keep a big hunk in the freezer.  It will store for months and months.  I lopped off a quarter inch piece and while it was mostly still frozen, zested it up with my microplane.

3-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1/3 cup soy sauce - I use the low sodium kind, because I read the label on the full-strength stuff one time and realized two tablespoons had my RDA of sodium.  Ummm, I still need my potato chips, ya know... You cannot tell the difference.  Get the low sodium stuff.  Really. 

1 tablespoon Hoisin sauce

1 teaspoon sesame seed oil

I bought the two ingredients above at my local Kroger.  They are yummy.  They are a bit pricey.  A little goes a long way.  They are totally worth it, especially the sesame oil.  I could drink that stuff, but be careful not to overdo it like I did the first time because it does have a strong flavor that will overpower everything else if you use too much.

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

3-4 green onions, roughly chopped

1-2 cups sliced mushooms.  Canned, fresh, whatever

1 cup bean sprouts, or not, if you don't like bean sprouts

1 16 oz. bag frozen stir fry vegetables.  I used the Wal-Mart brand, and they worked just fine.  

1-2 tsp. canola oil, or vegetable oil, or whatever other frying oil you have

WHAT YOU DO:

Cook the noodles according to the package directions.  My particular package recommended that I "Put noodles into boiling water and stir till water is reboiling up.  While water boiling make flame weak so avoid it over boiling over."   Simple, huh?  When they're done, drain and rinse them and set them aside.

Next in a large pan or wok, heat the canola oil, then begin to saute the onions - both kinds.  After a couple minutes over medium heat, start adding in the mushrooms, the bean sprouts, the garlic and the ginger.  Give that a minute to saute, then add in the frozen vegetables.  Continue to heat it over medium heat until the veggies are warm through, then add in the soy sauce, Hoisin sauce and sesame seed oil.  Heat till it begins to bubble.

Now add in the noodles, a few at a time, stirring and stirring and stirring and stirring until all the noodles are incorporated into the veggies and sauce.  There will be much stirring.  You will think there isn't enough sauce.  There is.  You just need to keep stirring ;-)

Eat it all.  It's delightful.  

If I would have had some leftover roast chicken or pork, I would have thrown that in, too.  This would be a fabulous way to use up any leftover meat or veggies you have lurking in the fridge.  

This is a meal unto itself, but I had some of my famous spring rolls in the freezer, so I thawed some of those to go with the lo mein, and it was good in my mouth.  

 

On Rick Springfield, barbed wire necklaces, goldfish, and school fundraisers.

One day a couple months ago, RJ's dad called him.

"Hey, how would you guys like front row seats and meet and greet passes to see Rick Springfield?"

Ummm, lemme think about it for like .675 seconds.

"Yes!"

At this point, I was already humming "Jesse's Girl" under my breath and planning what to wear with my hot hooker boots and secretly hoping that Ricky might fall in love with me, just a little, and maybe write a song about me and I was already thinking that "Bobby's Girl" had a nice ring to it when I heard RJ, who was still on the phone with his dad, say "Oh, well I guess we can't go then.  That's the same date as zj's school's Fall Festival."

Well, damn.

RJ and I don't always agree on much everything, but the one thing we always agree on, so much that we don't even have to discuss it, is that the kids come first.  Always.  Even if it means I don't get to become the next ex-Mrs. Springfield.

Since I couldn't, ya know, have a life-changing experience with Ricky that night, I did what any other crazy Mama with aspirations of taking over the PTO would do.  I signed up to volunteer at one of the booths.

My assignment came, and I was scheduled to work the sand art booth from 6-7pm.  Piece of cake, surely.

The night of the Fall Festival arrived, and after a quick moment for me to mourn the loss of meeting my Ricky, the entire J family piled into the car and took off.

To give you a little background here, let me just say that zj's school would be considered a rural school.  And that's on a really, really good day.   Most days, I think, it would be considered a redneck haven or possible a white trash mecca.  As a girl with a little, ok a LOT of redneck experience, this doesn't concern me at all, but RJ is usually a bit taken aback at first whenever we walk into these situations.  Plus, since I've gotten away from the redneck lifestyle a bit over the years, so it usually takes me a few minutes to re-acclimate.   It had been a LONG time since I'd seen that many wallets on chains, Confederate flag shirts and people openly chewing tobacco in one place.  Well, since my last family reunion, anyway.

We checked things out, let zj play a few games, and then RJ agreed to take the boys to get something to eat while I worked my stint at the booth.  As I was walking away, I turned around and joked "No blue hairspray and no goldfish, please."

This is what is known to you literary types as FORESHADOWING.


I got to my assigned station a couple minutes early.  It was one little round table, a shitload of colored sand, some funnels, and it was piled three deep with kids.

"Um, I'm here to work?"  I said to one of the two people who was working the booth.

"Oh, thank god.  Here's the extra sand, here are some funnels, and here are the things they can choose from to fill.  It costs four tickets.  Have fun!"

And with that, she took off toward parts unknown.

The other grown-up there, presumably a teacher, said, "I have to leave in a few minutes too, but I'll be right back."


Famous last words.

She also took off, never to be seen again, leaving me with hundreds of kids who all needed help getting their funnels into the little openings of their necklaces or bracelets or whatever so they could overfill them with colored sand - "Why isn't there any more pink?  I WAAANNNNTTT pink!"  "Suck it up kid.  Life's full of disappointments.  You'll get used to it.  Just look around." -  and then unsuccessfully close the tops so the sand spilled out all over the cafeteria floor, making the whole area look like some sort of weird psychedelic acid-trippy beach.

THIS is why I'm not a teacher.

At 7 on the dot, my replacement showed up, and I gave her some basic instructions, but because I'm THAT person I couldn't just abandon her, so I stuck around for another 45 minutes just to make sure she could handle it.

When I finally walked away - "Are you SURE you can do this last 15 minutes by yourself? The teacher promised she would be RIGHT back.  She should be here ANY minute now."  - to look for my family, this is what I found:

One with rainbow-colored hair.

One with blue hair.

Some lovely prizes - because nothing says school fundraiser like neon orange barbed wire jewelry and four wheel drive tattoos.

Oh, and one more thing.  

Well, actually, there are TWO of them.

One for each kid, or course.

Dreamsicle Cake

I've been known to pour liquor onto and into pretty much every cake I bake, and although this recipe would be easily modified to include a little something... special, like Absolut Mandarin - yum, last weekend I was cooking for some people, and one of them is pregnant.

Damn pregnant people and their "no alcohol" rules.

Anyway, I asked Preggo if there was anything she currently hated and/or craved, and the only thing she said she had been craving was oranges.

I could have bought a big bag of oranges and been done with it, but somehow that didn't seem like much of a dessert.

I remember eating a cake something like this one at some point - maybe a potluck at work? - but I don't remember it being as good as this one was.

I give this amalgamation of about 47 recipes I read on the internet two thumbs way up.


[Printable Recipe]

WHAT YOU NEED:
1 box of orange cake mix - Duncan Hines makes it, but it's kinda hard to find.  You could also use a yellow or white cake mix, but if you do, I'd use orange juice instead of the water called for, so it tastes orangey-like.
Oil, eggs and water according to the cake mix directions
1 package instant orange Jell-o
2 packages instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup super hot water
1 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 8 oz. container of Cool Whip, thawed

WHAT YOU DO:
Use a 9x13 or thereabouts sheet cake pan, and prepare and bake the cake according to the directions on the box, adding one box of the vanilla pudding mix to the batter before you start mixing.

After the cake is cooked but is still warm, use a skewer, or toothpick, or chopstick, or something long and skinny and pointy to poke holes all across the cake.  You can make some of the holes deep and some shallow.  You can make a few or a lot.  It's your cake, after all.  It's a great way to practice your stabbing so the next time you get mad at somebody, you're ready.  There are so few good practical stabbing exercises available...

Next, mix one cup extra hot water with the orange Jello, and slowly pour over the top of the cake.  Make sure you get some into all those little holes you just stabbed into your cake.

Now let it cool completely.

After it's cool, mix by hand one cup cold milk, the second package vanilla pudding, the vanilla extract and the orange juice.  After it's mixed, fold in the Cool Whip and spread on the cake.

Cool it in the fridge for a couple hours before serving it, and it is definitely best served cold.  It will keep in your fridge for several days, not that it will last that long.

Investments.

When RJ and I first got married, we were poor.

Dirt poor.

Like, I worked at Wendy's 25 hours a week, we lived over a grocery store and stole our cable, we shared our one and only toothbrush, we only had one car, and we mostly ate the $5 pizzas you could find on special around campus poor.

Ok, I made up that toothbrush part.  But still, damn poor.

Luckily for us, RJ's mom's family came through with wedding gifts in the form of cash.

It may have been a total of $3000 or so, which seems like a lot now, but then, we were pretty sure we were rich.  Seriously, that would have covered all our living expenses for at least six months.

Being young and incredibly stupid somewhat fiscally irresponsible, we spent that money in our heads a million times.   We finally narrowed it down to two options.  We were either going to buy some cheap-ass inexpensive pressed wood bookcases, or we were going to use some of the money to invest in a small start-up company that we both had an interest in... called Amazon.

See, I loved books, and RJ was a technology geek, and this was going to be a revolutionary meeting of both our passions.

I remember we had enough to buy around 100 shares.

Guess which one we decided on?

Yeah, since I'm not blogging from my summer home in the Hamptons or wherever, you guessed right if you said: Cheap-ass bookcases.

They lasted through one move, then fell to pieces and had to be broken apart with a hammer and shoved into about a million trash bags so the garbage company would haul them away without charging us an "oversized item" fee.

I started to do the math one time to figure out how much our little 100 shares of stock would have been worth today if we had purchased them then, and somewhere around a quarter million dollars, I stabbed myself in the eye and drank a pint of gin straight out of the freezer.

Whatever.

Being independently wealthy has lots of pitfalls, too, I guess.  Like, ya know, the maid is always in your way when you're trying to lounge around, and sometimes the cook forgets that you prefer your  eggs scrambled instead of fried and you have to send them back.  Sigh.

Anyway, there have been a ton of things over the years that I probably should have invested in but did not.  Like AA batteries.  Pretty much every toy in this house requires somewhere between four and six AA batteries.  And since my kids leave every toy in the house in the "on" position most of the time,  I have to replace the batteries in every toy every time someone wants to play with it.

"Mama!  Can you put batteries in this?"

Seriously, kid?  Go make a mud pie or something.

Mama's just going to be online spending her imaginary money.  Again.

Vietnamese Pancakes. A secret family recipe.

When I think of comfort food, I think of mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits, cornbread and potato soup, and chocolate pudding made with graham crackers, as God intended.

When RJ thinks of comfort food, he thinks of spring rolls, whole fish cooked WITH THE HEADS STILL ON, and these Vietnamese pancakes.

He has mentioned them a time or twenty over the years, so last week when I saw RJ's mom, I took the opportunity to ask her for the recipe.

Hmmm.

Then I came home and Googled it, and came up with these.

RJ said they are "almost" like what his mom made.

The boys and I LOVED them.

That's close enough to authentic for me.

Do you like how my fancy Vietnamese food is plopped down right in the middle of zj's Spiderman plate? Yeah, me too.

WHAT YOU NEED:
1 can of coconut milk
1 cup rice flour (you can find this at any Asian food store, or in the gluten-free section of the grocery)
3 green onions
1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder

1 1/2 cup cooked pork tenderloin meat, sliced and chopped into matchstick-sized pieces
1 1/2 cup of bean sprouts, washed and dried
1 medium white or yellow onion, cut into pieces similar in shape and size to the sprouts and pork

Vegetable or canola oil for frying


WHAT YOU DO:
Pour the coconut milk, rice flour, green onions and curry powder in your food processor or blender and blend it up for a couple minutes.  The consistency you're going for is a thick pancake batter.  If it's too thick to pour, add a couple tablespoons of water then give it whirl in the food processor again.  Set the batter aside.

It a skillet over medium heat, add a teaspoon of oil,  the pork, bean sprouts, and the onion.  Saute it, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent.  Remove the meat mixture from the skillet and wipe out any remaining residue.

Add another teaspoon of oil to the skillet and put it back over medium heat.  This next bit is sort of an art.  Add enough of the batter to cover the bottom of the skillet, swirling it around for even coverage like you would with say a really thin omelet or a crepe.  If you were making an omelet or a crepe.  Which you're not.  But still, like that.  Cook it about 3 minutes on that side, then gently flip it over with a spatula, praying all the while it does not fall to absolute pieces like my first three did.  After you'e flipped it, spoon some of the meat/sprout/onion mixture over half of the pancake - think omelet again - and wait 2-3 minutes for the bottom side to cook.  Fold it over and serve it immediately.

These were simple to make - after I got the whole frying/folding/flipping deal down, and they were yummy.  This recipe made 6 pancakes, but it would be easy to double it for more.

This is probably the second-best thing I've ever gotten from my mother-in-law :-)

A picture's worth a thousand words. Lucky for you, I have both. Part one of a two part series.

I hate blank walls.

My obsessive personality is such that I see a blank spot an a wall as a challenge.  I HAVE to find the perfect thing to fill the emptiness.  I have been this way for as long as I remember.

I also subscribe to the thought that the things you surround yourself with are a reflection of who you are, your personality, and what's happening in your life.

Here is a timeline of what my artwork has said about me over the years.

Pre-1992: During my elementary and high school years, my tastes ran toward posters of cute kittens, calendars of Chippendales dancers, and framed pictures of teddy bears wearing lace.

What that says about me:  Oh, come on.  You were 16 once, too.  What did you expect?  

1993: RJ and I got married for the first time and were gifted with these from his Mother:

They have hung on our bedroom wall ever since at least during the times we had a bedroom that was, you know, together.  At some point along the way, I learned the shiny parts were possibly made from snail shells, which freaked me out a little.  Still, they are quite lovely.

What that says about me:  I'm terrified of RJ's Mother. Duh. 

1994-1995: We were living in a little ramshackle apartment over top a grocery store where cable was free, money was tight, and decorating the lovely feather-painted mauve walls was NOT a priority.  I don't remember much about what we had hanging up on the walls - except a gigantic poster of Elvis - at the time, but I do remember we spent all our wedding money on some particle-board bookcases instead of on this little start-up stock we were looking at... called Amazon.  Worst. Decision. Ever.

What that says about me: I have poor financial planning skills and my love for the King will never change.


1996-1998: This was the first of many "art-acquisition" phases.  We had moved to a slightly less crappy apartment, money was slightly less tight, and aside from the Elvis poster which still hangs in my house today and the snail-art, the walls were painfully bare.  We shopped around for things we could agree on, and discovered our love for Disney sericels - Mickey Mouse to be specific, with an occasional Fox & The Hound thrown in for good measure.  I mean, after all, they were LIMITED and therefore INVESTMENT pieces.

When we moved to our current home, these (and the million more like them) started out in zj's room and when he started to get opinions, moved to cj's room, where they will stay.  Forever.  Sorry, baby, we're out of rooms to move them to.

What that says about me:  I had more money than taste.  

During the same time frame, RJ and I both became interested in J.W. Waterhouse, specifically his mythological series.  I paid an exorbitant amount of money framing picture as a gift for RJ:

But that was ok, because I knew I would always get to enjoy it, too.  Now, fast forward a year to our break-up, during which I got custody of the cats and RJ got custody of the Waterhouse.  So I did what any crazy person would do.  I got my own, identical except for the slight variation in the frame.

Both of these pictures now hang on opposite walls in our library.

What that says about me:  I have no flippin' clue.  But RJ and I also ended up with matching lamps, matching silverware, and matching dishes, all purchased while we were divorced.  I like to file this little tidbit into the "Stuff I Can't Think About Too Much Or My Head Will Explode" category.


1999-2001: At this point, I was a young, single girl living on my own for the first time ever, and EXPRESSING myself became very important.  Aside from the 496 journals I spent hours drunkenly writing MEANINGFUL quotations in, my biggest takeaway from this time was my love of black and white photography.  Since I didn't have two pennies to rub together, I began to frame (in Dollar Store frames) random things I had ripped out of magazines.

What that says about me:  I'm resourceful.  Also, I overuse the word "MEANINGFUL."

One day while walking through some sort of flea market/antique store kind of place with my friend Natalie, I happened on a picture that struck me in a way a piece of art never had before.  It was a black & white photo (of course) of a woman sitting on the porch of a ramshackle house with laundry strung all around.  It was titled "Monday Morning."  I had never wanted any THING so badly in my life. Sadly, the price (maybe $75?) was way out of my price range, so after visiting it over and over during our time in the store, I walked away without it.

That year for Christmas I unwrapped my present from Natalie to find this:

Today it hangs in a spot in my house that I pass a million times a day, and I stop from time to time just to look at it.  It's still my very favorite piece of art.

What that says about me:  I don't make friends easily, but the ones I have are keepers.

2002-2003: I moved from my crappy little single -girl rental house to a slightly less crappy single-girl rental house in a different city.  I had just received a a big promotion with a small raise, I was footloose and fancy free, and I was starting a new chapter in my life or so I thought.  The overall mood for me at the time was "whimsical" and my decorating choices definitely reflected that.

What that says about me: I have the tastes of a 12 year old girl, and I'm comfortable with that.


Join me next time as I walk you through the past eight years in J artwork.  It's a tale fraught with danger, intrigue, love and loss.

Or at least with pictures of shit I have hanging on my walls.

Tightly bred.

My kids look just like me.

My sister's kids look just like her.

My brother's kid looks just like him.

And they all look like each other.

No matter who our spouses are, the white trash gene pool is strong.

Also in my family the following scenario occurred:  My Dad and his brother married my Mom and her sister.  So their kids are my double cousins.  And guess what?  THEIR kids look just like mine, too.

Before zj was born, I was on bedrest for a while, and during that time I became addicted to the show Jon & Kate Plus 8.  At that time she was not yet a skank ho evil bitch a celebrity, and I thought (and still do) that Jon looked an awful lot like RJ.  Good thing looks are only skin deep, huh?

So I was convinced that my kid was going to look like all the little Gosselin children.  In all their cute Asian-ness.  With their slightly slanted dark eyes, and olive skin and dark hair.  I was going to be the one who had different-looking kids.

I was sure of it.

After all, Asian features are usually quite dominant, right?

Wrong.

When zj was born, his hair was darkish, but his eyes were (and still are) round and bright blue.  CJ's eyes aren't blue, but they sure aren't brown either.  And they are quite round as well.

When RJ's mother saw zj for the first time, she said, and I quote: "Eyes so round.  So blue. Such shame." Then she made that tsk-tsking noise through her teeth to make sure I was well aware of her disapproval of me for making a baby that was so white.

I was aware, all right.

Whatever.

Anyway, I was discussing this phenomenon with someone at work one day.  Her brother's wife is Japanese, and their baby boy looks darn well like he should, slanted eyes and all.   Oh, and as an aside, she also raises horses in her spare time.

I mentioned to her that I thought Asian characteristics were usually dominant.

"Well, that's true." she said.  "Maybe your gene pool is tightly bred."

This was not a phrase I was familiar with.

"Tightly bred?"

"Oh.  You have dominant traits." She laughed, slightly embarrassed.

"But what does 'tightly bred' really mean?"  I was curious.

"Well, it means that there is a lot of the same family characteristics that get passed on and the dominant traits...  insert very good and very technical explanation here."


I finally got it.

"Oh, what you're trying to say, quite nicely, is that my traits are dominant because my family tree doesn't branch so much?"

Yeah, I got it all right.

Asian style beef with broccoli. Because we're Asian, you know.

I have not always enjoyed Asian food.

This quickly became a problem in my relationship with RJ, because, oh wait, he's half Vietnamese.

So I learned.

I learned

how to make spring rolls, which are delightful, and I learned how to make Pho, which is hard and smells weird and which I won't eat because of the weird smelling part, and I learned how to eat out at Asian restaurants without embarrassing either one of us.

And over time I developed a fondness for a few things.

Like Beef with Broccoli.

Oh, and I'm not completely Asian-uninformed. I do realize that this particular dish is not of Vietname

se origin, and that it is really some Americanized thing that is served in Chinese restaurants for the white people to enjoy, but so what? It tastes good in my mouth.

WHAT YOU NEED:

2 Tablespoons flour

2 cups (give or take) of beef broth

2 teaspoons of white sugar

2 Tablespoons of soy sauce

a tiny tiny bit of fresh ginger root (like about the size of a penny)

1-2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 pound sliced steak - I use the really thin breakfast steaks, or flank steak. The thinner you can slice it, the better it will be.

1 large head of broccoli, chopped into bite sized pieces

some chopped mushrooms (optional)

Don't you just love it when a recipe tells you something is optional, like everything else HAS to be there, but that one thing really doesn't? Hello?!? Recipe?!? I don't really even have to make you AT ALL. So there. You are completely optional to me...

Oil (vegetable, olive, canola, whatever)

WHAT YOU DO:

Put the first six ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend it all up. If you have a smallish food processor like I do, you might have to leave half of the broth out of the mixture until after blending. Just put it in later. I won't really care.

In a large skillet or wok, heat a bit of oil - maybe a tablespoon of it. After the oil is heated, toss in the steak, mushrooms and broccoli, and toss it around on high heat until the meat isn't pink any more.

Add in the sauce and reduce the heat to medium. The sauce will start to thicken. I like mine well done and kinda mushy, so I cook it for about 10-12 minutes, but if you prefer your vegetables to still look like their original form, 5 minutes or so will do ya.

Serve it over white rice.

Or brown rice.

Totally OPTIONAL.

Authentic Vietnamese Spring Rolls. Made from authentic Vietnamese stuff.

For those of you who know me and my family, you may have heard that RJ's mother is Vietnamese.  This means, of course, that she makes delicious Vietnamese food.  Several years ago, at RJ's request, I spent the day with her to learn how to make spring rolls, and it was the second most stressful day of my life, second only to my faux-Vietnamese wedding, which I still have a difficult time talking about.  But anyway, the end result was that I now know how to make these delightful things.  Of course, if she ever finds out that I posted her secret family recipe on the internet for the entire world to see, the Vietnamese mafia will be waiting to roll me in a parking garage, but live dangerously, I always say.

First, make sure your children are occupied.  This whole process takes several hours.

WHAT YOU NEED:

3-4 large carrots, peeled

3 cups bean sprouts

1 bunch green onions

1 cup bean threads (also known as rice noodles), soaked in warm water for 15 minutes and drained

1/2 cup dried black mushroomssoaked in warm water for 15 minutes and drained

2 lbs. ground pork or chicken (pork is usually much cheaper, and honestly, it tastes about the same)

2 egg yolks

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 heaping tsp. sugar

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. Ac'cent

50 spring roll wrappers

vegetable oil

(Note:  The spices are approximate.  After I have mixed everything, I take out a tablespoon of the mixture and cook it in a skillet like a bitty baby burger.  That way I can check and add to before I make 50 freakin' spring rolls that may need more salt.  Trust me, it's a good idea.)

WHAT YOU DO:

Chop the carrots, bean sprouts, green onions, noodles, and mushrooms in a food processor.  If you do not have a food processor, use a blender.  If you do not have a blender. get one.  When you're finished with all the chopping, it will look something like this:

Add in the meat, spices, and one egg yolk.  Now you've got this:

Next, take the other egg yolk, beat it with a fork and mix it with a little water.  This is what you'll use to seal the spring rolls.  

Lay a spring roll wrapper out flat (smooth side out), and put a heaping tablespoon full of the mixture on it.  Shape the filling like this: (I highly recommend you remove your engagement ring first.  Ask me how I know this.)

The rolling process looks like this:

At this point, dab your fingers in the egg yolk/water mixture and smear it around the corner of the wrapper.  Use this to seal it.

Repeat 49 times.  This is a good time to listen to music, drink beer, or drink beer.

The result:

Heat your oil in the biggest, deepest pot you've got.  Your oil should be at least 2-3 inches deep, and you should heat it over medium heat.  When you see the oil start moving around a bit, drop in some spring rolls.  I usually cook 6-8 at a time.  When you drop them in the oil, make sure the side sealed with the egg is DOWN.  This ensures that they will not come apart as they are cooking.  Cook for approximately 5-6 minutes per batch.  Drain on paper towels.

Note:  your house is gonna smell like China One Buffet King, and it will smell like that for days.  This stuff gets all up in your pores.  I prefer to cook these in the summer when I can open the windows, but we have to eat in the winter time, too.  Just be prepared, and shower AFTER, not BEFORE, making these.

The result:

Delightful.

Tonight, I am serving these with Vietnamese Pho Ga.  I did not get this recipe from my mother-in-law.  My constitution was too weak.  Instead, I got this recipe from Nathan Lyon of A Lyon in the Kitchen, who is super hot a really good cook.

Enjoy!

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