Soba Noodle Stir-Fry

Have you all been introduced to the 5,000+ recipes from Joy of Kosher? There are so many on there, I don't have time to sift through them all!! They have a magazine with great articles, a blog, and countless articles you can look through! I'm always a sucker for a good Asian dish, and came across the Soba noodle stir-fry and couldn't help myself! The only drawback I came across was that the amount of oil that goes into the vinaigrette, in my personal opinion was too oily. Next time we make it, I'm going to reduce the oil, you make it how you want to though! It still tasted great! Let's get started...

Ingredients
Vinaigrette
1/2 c rice vinegar
1/4 c soy sauce
1 TB minced ginger
2 tsp. sesame oil
1/4 c olive oil

Stir-Fry
1 TB canola or olive oil
1 carton fresh mushrooms sliced
1 TB minced ginger root
1 clove minced garlic
1/3 c green onions
2 TB tasted sesame seeds
salt & pepper
1 pkg. dried soba noodles

To start out, you're going to want to mix all the ingredients to the vinaigrette together and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large skillet and saute the mushrooms over medium heat. After a few minutes add a pinch of salt, the minced ginger root, and garlic and turn the heat to low and allow to heat through for a couple more minutes! By this time. you should be smelling the ginger and garlic aromas throughout the whole house! YUM! Stir in the pepper, 3 TB of the vinaigrette, and I added some green onion just because! Mix all this together and turn off the heat!

Cook the noodles according to the package directions (it took about 3 minutes once we added the noodles to the boiling water). Drain the noodles, run cold water over them and add them to a serving bowl.

Mix in the stir-fry and the remaining vinaigrette and garnish with the sesame seeds! Not too much work goes into this delicious meal, and the best part is you can eat it hold or cold. Either way tastes great, so you can make this ahead of time then pop it in the fridge and serve it later!

Stay tuned for some delicious baked ziti pasta, and until then...

~Happy Eating~

A little taste of the Orient

Is everyone as excited as I am about the return of Fall weather? I love the Fall...the smell, the world changing colors, the football games, the World Series baseball games, and definitely the cooking! Making dips and chili for Sooner football games, and warm, hearty foods to ease into the return of colder weather (hopefully)!! This recipe I made reminded me of Fall. It was warm, delicious, hearty, colorful, and would be divine with some lo mein noodles. We ate it as is, no rice and no noodles and it was absolutely wonderful! Next time, I will definitely "beef" it up with some noodles to make a exquisite dinner! So here is how you're going to cook up this delightful piece of the Orient...

For starters, I found this recipe on myRecipes (it can also be found on my Pinterest). It is full of colorful and tasty ingredients, so let's get started!

Here are the ingredients you're going to need:
2 TB ginger
1 TB minced garlic
3 TB low-sodium soy sauce
4 ts cornstarch, divided
1 ts sesame oil
1/2 ts red pepper flakes
1 pound of flank steak thinly sliced (I used tri-trip and cut it up into slices...it still worked and didn't break the bank)
Cooking spray
2 cups thinly sliced mushrooms- Shiitake
1 cup vertically sliced onion
1 cup red bell pepper strips
4 cups Bok Choy sliced/chopped
1 cup beef broth

First (about an hour or so before you're actually ready to cook) you are going to marinade your steak. I actually kept it in the fridge for 3 or 4 hours, just as long as it is in there for at least 20-30 minutes. You are going to combine the ginger, garlic, soy sauce, 2 ts of cornstarch, sesame oil, and crushed red pepper in a large Ziploc bag. Add your steak, seal the bag and pop it in the fridge.

When you are finally ready to get going, you are going to coat a large skillet with cooking spray and warm the pan over med-high heat. Add your mushroom, onion, and bell peppers. Cook about 3 minutes, then remove and transfer the vegetables to a bowl. Add the bok choy to the pan and saute until it is wilted (only takes a couple of minutes). Then, add the bok choy to the bowl of vegetables! 

Now you are going to re-coat your skillet with cooking spray and add half of you steak mixture. Cook about 3 minutes until the steak is browned (I actually had to turn up the heat just a tad). Remove the steak to the bowl, then repeat the process (coat pan--add steak--brown steak--place in bowl).

Now in small bowl, you are going whisk together the broth and remaining 2 tsp of cornstarch. Add this mixture to the pan and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen the browned bits stuck to the skillet. Bring broth to boil and return your bowl of goodies to the skillet.

Toss this all together (gently) to coat everything with the "gravy". Take your skillet off the heat, make noodles or rice if you wish, and serve! It is delicious and packed with lots of goodies like greens, peppers, and mushrooms!!

This truly is a wonderful dish, and if you add noodles or rice, let me know how it turns out!! I get a lot of feedback from you all about what you like! Don't forget either that we are on Facebook!! Be sure to "like" the page so you can see when new recipes have been added!

Here is the link to the actual recipe again...RECIPE

~Happy Eating~

Here is my funny photo I found this week that I had to share with ya'll!! Keep your head up...Tomorrow is Friday!!

 Photo courtesy of http://www.mopo.ca

 

Venison Stroganoff as requested by Dee Jay

Randomly one evening Dee Jay decided he wanted Stroganoff. I started thinking about it, and looked up some good recipes for this dish that is often forgotten. It's not always the "prettiest" dish, and I must have put it in the back of my mind because I couldn't remember the last time I had it. I finally settled on Paula Deen's Beef Stroganoff Recipe, but instead of beef we used some of our venison stew meat we had frozen from last hunting season. Venison is actually better for you than beef, and you can click here to read more about it on Livestrong.com, which I look at almost daily for fun facts for just about everything I need to know!! So here's how it went down venison style in our kitchen...
Remember you can substitute beef into our version if you don't have venison in your freezer :)

You start out with one to one and half pounds of venison stew meat, a couple of dashes of salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

(You will find her recipe for "House Seasoning" in the link...I just didn't want to make that much of it, so I improvised).  Sprinkle the meat with the seasoning and then dust the meat with flour.

So tender...I know this picture looks real appetizing ya'll...Sorry

 

Then in a large skillet you are going to add two tablespoons of olive oil and three tablespoons of butter. Once that is warmed and ready to go, go ahead and brown the meat on all sides. Once the meat in browned take it out of the pan and reserve the liquids (as in leave everything in the pan but the meat). To the liquid in the skillet you are going to add one medium size onion chopped (we just halved a large onion), and an 8 oz package of mushrooms sliced up!  

 

Saute this around until the onion gets tender (it smelled so fantastic in our kitchen right at about this point)! After the onion is looking tender go ahead and sprinkle a teaspoon of flour in the skillet.

Makes your mouth go mmmm...mmmm....mmmmmm!

Then add the steak back in to the pan with the onions and mushrooms. Now you're going to pour in one (10 3/4 oz) can of beef broth, and one (10 3/4 oz) can of cream of mushroom soup, right in to the skillet and turn the heat down low! You're going to simmer this on low for about 30 minutes and let it soak up all the gravy goodness and do the loosen your pants dance while you get the pasta ready and eat it all up!! Now we used bow-tie pasta but egg noodles work great too, it really came down to the fact of what I saw first in the cabinet! So I cooked the pasta and by the time I had the pasta cooked and drained the meat was ready and we were good to go! (NOTE: Right before you serve it up, add one cup of sour cream to the skillet and stir around and let it warm up). All you do now is place the pasta on a plate or in a bowl and cover with the meat and juices from the gravy in the pan and get ready for a delicious dinner!!

Yummy and hearty! Can't go wrong with that combo

 

So, here is the run-down and the link to Paula Deen's Beef Stroganoff 

~Happy Eating~

 

1 1/2 pounds venison (or beef)
House Seasoning (that's the salt, pepper and onion powder)
All-purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil 3 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, sliced
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can beef broth
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
Salt and black pepper
1 cup sour cream
Cooked egg noodles

 

Sprinkle house seasoning over the meat then dust with flour. 

Heat up olive oil and butter in a large skillet and brown the meat. Remove meat from skillet (save drippings). 

Add onion and mushrooms to skillet and saute until the onion is tender (just a couple to three minutes). 

Sprinkle in 2 teaspoons of flour and add meat back in to the skillet. Cover with beef broth and cream of mushroom soup and cover and simmer on low for 30 minutes.

Add sour cream just before serving over a bed of cooked noodles!!

Just a fun side note...I've had a few people send me recipes this week on things they wanted me to share/try out/eat/pig out on etc etc....So, in a week I'm going to be cooking up your recipes!! The ones you have e-mailed me and random recipes I find on my friends Pinterest pages! Stay tuned to see if your recipes are coming up and send me recipes at ShellyHendrix@gmail.com because you know I'm game to try most anything once and love to discover what ya'll are cooking in your kitchens!!!

If you don't know what Someecards are you need to look them up or follow this link here

to go to their Pinterest page where I found this little gem floating around :)

 

 Photo found at someecards.com