Oyster Sauce Beef with Broccoli

We’ve been enjoying the grassfed beef from Natural Local Food Express, particularly the flank steaks, which at approximately 1.5 lbs are plenty for 2 meals when used in a stirfry. If you can’t find flank steak or it’s too pricy, you can use another fairly large-grained cut of beef – because you cut it across [...]

Pearl Meatballs

These delightful little meatballs are coated with rice – they will look like they’re studded with pearls if you use short-grain rice, and if you choose to use longer-grain rice, they will look like little hedgehogs. A big hit with kids, and a good school lunch item if packed in a thermos. Can be made [...]

Steamed Pork with Five-Spice Rice Powder

This is a delicious dish that can be quickly assembled if you use Cream of Rice cereal or the rice powder sold in Asian markets. Or you can make the rice powder from scratch – it’s not difficult, but will take an extra step (see note below). You can then let the dish steam while you [...]

Mooshu Vegetables (or Pork or Beef or Chicken or Shrimp or…)

“Mooshu” will never be the same after Disney’s character (voiced by the hilarious Eddie Murphy) in Mulan, but Mooshu (also spelled moo shu, moo shi, or mu xu in Mandarin) is probably found in most Chinese restaurants in America. Its name appears to come from the dish’s appearance: the ingredients are basically cut into such [...]

Stirfried Beef with Bell Peppers

Super-easy basic stirfry recipe – the trick is to keep the food moving and not overcook it, or you will have tough meat, limp veggies, and too much juice! If you have a small wok, cook the food in 2 batches, or it will crowd the pan and steam instead of stirfry.
Once again, I strongly [...]

Beef or Pork in Garlic Sauce

This is another recipe that is originally from Sichuan – like the Eggplant in Garlic Sauce it is at once spicy, slightly sweet, and a bit sour. The Mandarin name, yuxiang rousi (literally “fish fragrance meat shreds”), comes from a style of cooking fish using the mixed fragrances/flavors of garlic, scallion, ginger, hot pepper sauce, [...]

Stirfried Beef with Onions

I like to think of myself as a Michael Pollan vegetarian – this quote from him is my motto: “Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” As you can probably tell by the recipes on this blog, I tend toward vegetarianism – not complete, and certainly not veganism (love that cheese a bit too [...]

Beef with Cilantro Stems

A super-quick stirfry that uses up the stems of cilantro – waste not, want not. I strongly recommend that you look for pastured beef, which is available through many CSAs and at some farmers’ markets – check out what’s available near you at this fantastic site: LocalHarvest.org. Not only will the flavor astound you, you’ll [...]