Vegetables with Noodles and Beef

I made this today for our first day of Chinese New Year celebration.  Rave reviews.  I'm still not 100 percent satisfied with it, so tweaks will still take place, but it is really good as is.  Tom declared "This is a GREAT way to start off the New Year!"  As a side note, the girls and I were making Chinese lanterns to hang (Tessa's idea).    As we were finishing Tess said, "I wonder if Estee has her lanterns made yet."  As if the rest of the world joins us in this tradition!  But it goes to show how much this tradition is loved by our family.  I love how it brings us together.  But enough rambling. . .here is the recipe:

Vegetables with Noodles and Beef

Make Sesame Salt:

Toast 2 TBSP sesame seeds.  Let cool.  Finely chop/crush the seeds.  (I use a nut chopper, but a mortar and pestle or spice grinder would also work.)  Add 1/4 tsp salt.  Set aside.

1 cup bean sprouts

1 cup matchstick-size carrots

1 medium onion, sliced thin lengthwise

1 cup green onions, chopped (about 1/4" pieces)

1 cup slightly chopped peanuts (I use party peanuts)

2 TBSP fresh ginger, chopped 

1 tsp minced garlic

8 ounces flank steak (or other steak)

2 tsp sugar

1/8 tsp black pepper

1/8 tsp red pepper

2 TBSP soy sauce

Peanut oil

Bring 2 quarts water to boil in a large pan.  Add noodles, cook 2 minutes.  Drain and run cold water over them to stop cooking.  Return them to the pan.  Stir in 1/2 TBSP peanut oil and 1 TBSP soy sauce.  Stir to coat.  

In wok or frying pan, toast peanuts until slightly browned.  Remove them to the noodle pan.  Add 1 TBSP peanut oil and heat until hot.  Add carrots.  Cook until just starting to tenderize, then add onion (not the green ones).  Cook until just tender, at the very end, add the bean sprouts.  (You can add other veggies such as red pepper or celery or mushrooms.  Just cook everything until slightly tender.)  Add the veggies, including the green onions to the noodle pan.  Heat another TBSP of peanut oil.  Add garlic and ginger.  Stir fry for a few seconds then add the beef.  Cook until beef is cooked.  Add the beef to the noodle pan along with remaining ingredients.  Heat and add remaining ingredients (including the 1 remaining TBSP of soy sauce and Sesame salt.)  Serve immediately.

Possible tweaks:

Add a few dried red peppers (add to pan with garlic/ginger and cook with the meat).  A little more garlic would probably be good.  

Hawaiian Haystacks

I'm not a real fan of Hawaiian Haystacks, but a few months ago I decided I would try to make them so I would like them (as well as a few of my kids). I did pretty good. However, my additions make them labor intensive so they aren't a good fall-back dish liked I'd hoped. Oh well. Here is what I did:

I used the rub on this post for the chicken. Then I broiled it and cut it up. I just used a chicken gravy packet for the gravy, but I added some of the drippings. That made a yummy difference.

I also fried up some won tons. I made them once without these and I was not nearly as popular as when I made them. (Am I shallow to want to try be a popular mom at meal times? I guess I should say that I'm just trying to please my eaters. . . ) Anyway, yummy Hawaiian Haystacks have fried won tons on them!

Then I finely chopped up celery, green onions and red peppers (a must!). Those who like pineapple, coconut and cheese had that available.

Stuffed Onions

You may think I have a thing for stuffing vegetables. . . it's not really true, I've just been on a kick lately. Tonight we had this recipe. Pretty good, although I prefer stuffed peppers over stuffed onions. I also made this salad. We love it. I've made it numerous times with bok choy, Napa cabbage and regular cabbage. All are good, but I prefer it with Napa cabbage. Also, I cook the seasoning packet with the Ramen and omit the soy sauce in the dressing. Gives it a better flavor. I also use red onions instead of green. Tonight I didn't have any sesame seeds. . . it was okay, but they add a lot of flavor to this salad. Oh, and I cut way back on the butter, it doesn't need that much. We also had cantaloupe and homemade lemonade (with left over lemons from Sunday's fish).

Stuffed Peppers

Monday night was a big meal because we were anticipating company (however they didn't end up coming :(. . . they missed a great meal!) Here is what we had:

Stuffed Pepper Mmmmm. . . we love this recipe! I've never used the Hungarian peppers--I've always used Anaheim with great success. I follow the recipe quite closely. Although I was out of Basil so that was omitted this time with just as great results. (Just for my records: Greta was quite sick and needy this day but I needed to get the peppers done because Jerry and Carolyn were coming to dinner so I employed Chandler to put her in the stroller and walk around the block. That wasn't a lot of time and so unwittingly I used my index finger to pop out all if the seeds and membranes instead of using a knife like I normally do. . . .BAD idea. My finger was burning for close to 24 hours!)

I also made this Swiss Chard. It was quite good. Swiss chard is not my favorite vegetable but I (and a few others) had 2nds of this. I'll make this recipe again if I have more Swiss Chard.

Rice Pilaf--I just threw this together. I didn't think it was stellar, but Chandler loved it and requested this whole meal for his birthday. Here are the basics of what I did:

1/2 cup wild rice cooked for about 20 minutes in the microwave (it takes longer than regular rice to cook in my rice cooker so I have to give it a head start)

Add that to 1 1/2 cup uncooked rice and 2 cups of chicken broth and 1 cup of water. Also add to rice cooker, 1/2 tsp garlic, 1/2 tsp butter and some parsley flakes.

While cooking toast some almonds (I did about 1/3 cup but wished I had done quite a few more) in frying pan in a little butter. Remove. Saute 1 finely chopped carrot and 1/2 red onion (or more) and 1/2 tsp garlic. When rice is finished, add vegetables and almonds to rice. At this point it didn't taste quite right. I ended up adding about 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp. sugar. That seemed to do the trick, but it could definitely could use something else. I'll have to work on that next time.

Cut up cantaloupe.

For FHE treats we had Blackberry cobbler. We liked this.