Stir-Fried Beef and Vegetables

I love going out to Chinese restaurants. My wallet doesn't. So I've been trying to find some 'sort of' Chinese recipes to make at home that are good and easy. Haven't found many. But this one - it's good. The entire family liked it. So here we go...
Your Ingredient List:

-4 tablespoons soy sauce
-4 tablespoons water (actually could use sherry as well, but I have water, no sherry. It tasted great with water)
-2 teaspoons sugar
-1 pound beef top round steak
-2 ounce cellophane noodles, broken or 1 package rice noodles, broken (I haven't used the cellophane noodles, but we LOVED the rice noodles. They were different but good. You could probably boil up some thin spaghetti as well.)
-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
-2 teaspoons ground ginger
-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped (just bought myself a garlic press. LOVE IT.)
-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
-2 cups fresh snow (Chinese) pea pods or 12 ounces frozen snow pea pods, thawed and drained
-2 medium onions, cut into thin wedges

Mix soy sauce, water and sugar, set aside. Trim fat from beef and cut into 2 inch strips. Cut strips in 1/8 inch slices. This is much easier to do if the beef is partially frozen.
Soak noodles in enough water to cover, about 15 to 20 minutes, then drain.
Heat wok or large skillet over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons oil, rotate wok to coat. Add beef, ginger and garlic. Stir-fry until beef is no longer pink – about 5 minutes. Remove from wok.
Add 2 tablespoons oil to wok, rotate to coat. Add pea pods and onion. Stir-fry until vegetables are crisp-tender. Stir in beef mixture and noodles. Heat to boiling. Stir in soy sauce mixture. Cook and stir about 2 minutes until heated through.

Serve with some egg rolls or egg drop soup.
Enjoy!

Chile-Chicken Enchiladas

1 can (19 oz) enchilada sauce
2 cups diced cooked chicken
1 ½ cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (6 oz.)
1 cup sour cream
1 can (4.5 oz) chopped green chiles
8 – 8 inch flour tortillas
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Heat oven to 350°. Spray bottom of 13x9 inch (3 quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. Spread ½ cup enchilada sauce in bottom of baking dish. In medium bowl, stir together chicken, Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream and chiles.
Spoon about 1/3 cup chicken mixture down center of each tortilla. Roll up tortillas; arrange, seam sides down, in baking dish. Top enchiladas with remaining enchilada sauce. Sprinkle with Cheddar cheese. Spray sheet of foil with cooking spray; cover baking dish with foil, sprayed side down.
Bake 35 minutes. Remove foil; bake 5 to 10 minutes longer or until hot and cheese is melted.
If desired, serve with avocado, green onions, lettuce, chopped tomato and additional sour cream.

Pizza Sandwiches

We started a new 'thing' at our house. Well, it's not new anymore, but new since my last post. Tuesday nights are "Kid's Night". Which basically means each week the boys take turns planning a meal. They do this over the weekend before I get groceries, they make sure we have all the ingredients, and when Tuesday rolls around, they make dinner. I supervise. I chose Tuesday because we normally don't have a lot going on on Tuesdays, so if dinner takes a bit longer that's okay. I'm hoping that eventually my supervisory role will be diminished as their cooking skills improve. And looking into the future, I also hope that my daughter-in-laws thank me for making sure their hubbies know how to cook for them. And eventually the princess will learn how to cook this way as well.
Pizza Sandwiches is one of the first choices my 11 year old made, and they were fairly quick, and certainly easy enough for him to make.
Here is the list of ingredients:

• 8 slices Italian bread (3/4 inch thick) - but seriously, we used regular white bread, and they were just fine
• 8 slices part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 8 slices tomato (slice thin)
• 4 teaspoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 24 slices pepperoni
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• Pizza sauce, warmed

Obviously this only makes 4 sandwiches, but it's easy enough to double up everything and make 8. Or only make 6. Hey, you could even be crazy and only make 7. Whatever floats your boat.

Let's put these sandwiches together.

On four slices of bread layer one slice of mozzarella, two slices of tomato, 1 teaspoon Parmesan cheese, a dash of garlic salt and six slices of pepperoni. Top with remaining mozzarella and bread. Spread outside of sandwiches with butter.

Grill sandwiches for 3-4 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Serve with pizza sauce.

These were really quite good. I did help with the flipping of the sandwiches, as he tends to get carried away and I didn't want any pepperoni stuck to the ceiling.