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!

Country Vegetable Beef

I made this the other night for the whole fam damily. I questioned one particular step, which you probably will too, when we get to it, but it turned out just fine. This is by no means gourmet (but then, what have I posted so far that is? - Nothing!) but it was good. Good enough to be gone when the meal was over.
So let us begin:

*2 cups water
*2 tablespoons cornstarch
*1 pound ground beef
*4 cups frozen mixed vegetables
*2 packages beef flavored ramen noodles - with seasoning packets

That's it - five ingredients - EASY. So easy my son finished it up for me when my parents stopped over unexpectedly when I was in the middle of it. Anywho, this is how you throw it together:

In a small saucepan, mix water, cornstarch and seasoning packets. Stir constantly over low heat until mixture thickens. (I actually did this part last, thinking that way the mixture would still be hot when I mixed everything together. I don't think I really needed to.)

In a frying pan, brown and drain beef. Add vegetables and cook until tender. This is the part I questioned. There's no liquid for the veggies to cook in. I really wasn't sure about this part. But I worried for nothing. The veggies were fine.
Once the veggies are cooked, add the gravy and stir.
(Next time I make this I will add chopped onion to the beef as I brown it. Onion adds just a little more flavor that we like, though this was good without it.)

Cook noodles in water according to package directions and drain.

Now, you have two options.
Option 1: Serve gravy over warm noodles. (per the original recipe)
Option 2: Mix the noodles with the gravy and serve. (per, well, ME. That's what we did and it was delicious)

According to the recipe this makes 2 - 4 servings. But please, we're talking about 2 packages of noodles, 4 CUPS of veggies, and a pound of burger. It served the 5 of us. It was gone when we were done, but we were also STUFFED.

Roasted Vegetable Combo

This was SO GOOD. and actually healthy! I have a hard time finding things that are both 'healthy' and 'good'. So this is definitely a keeper!
I served this with the Homestyle Chicken and Gravy. Yea, I know, the gravy totally ruined the 'healthy' aspect. It was still good. SO good.
The veggies take almost an hour between prep and roasting time, so I got them started and then went on to the chicken.
Here are the ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups fresh baby carrots
• 1 pound small red potatoes, unpeeled, quartered (about 3 cups)
• 1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges
• 1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil (I used the olive oil - yummy)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 - 14 ounce package frozen whole green beans (that's 'beans', not 'beens' for those of you who confuse easily) (private joke, just for Mel)

This couldn't be much easier to throw together. Here we go:

Heat your oven to 425. Spray a 15x10x2 inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl combine everything except the green beans. Mix well so everything is pretty evenly coated. Spread evenly on the pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven, mix in green beans.

Bake 20 to 25 more minutes, or until the veggies are tender, stirring once.

DEE-LISH!!