Day 2: B&B

This was a perfect evening, a wonder to behold. And it came at the end of a very long day. I opened at the restaurant ant 5Am and worked till about noon. Then came home to discover the the power company had shut off all power to our complex till whenever they feel like it. So I'm hot from work, and because my apartment is 80°, and I need to go shopping but the fridge is off so I don't want to open it to add new food or look to see what I have. So what do I do? I bust out my Kindle and look up better and better recipes for that nights dish, Beef and Broccoli. And do you know what I found? I found wonderful, and wonderfully complicated recipes. Then I cam across this gem at cookingpanda.com, a web site devoted to Fun and easy recipes. 

Well the power came back on, I went shopping and low and behold it was a wonderful excuse to go to 99 Ranch. 99 Ranch is a wonderful Asian Grocery Store located on I10 here in Houston, and they have the most wonderful things. Fresh Produce, they got it all, things you have never heard of, and so many fresh herbs. Live seafood? Yes. The butcher has out prefrozen and cut meats, and that’s why I went. You know at the Chinese food restaurants they have this slices of pork or chicken or beef cooked up, and you always wonder how they get it cut so thin, well they freeze it first, and here you can get anything you want pre sliced for you, all wonderful wok wok cooking.

I also got some Pork Steam Buns an some Lo Mein Noodles, and a Melon Soda. This is when Whittney came over with the rest of the groceries.

Beef and Broccoli
*1/2 lb flank steak
* 1 tbsp lite soy sauce
* 1 tsp sugar
* 1 tsp canola oil
* 1 tsp corn starch, activated with 1 tsp water
* 4 cups broccoli florets and stems, chopped and tough parts removed
* 2 tbsp peanut oil
* 1/2 tsp ginger bulb, grated
* 1 garlic clove, minced
* 1 tbsp organic oyster sauce
* 1/4 tsp sea salt
* 1/4 fresh ground black pepper
* 1 tbsp rice wine


Now to cooking, first thing I did was to poach the veggies. This means to add them to boiling water for about 60 seconds then move them to ice water to stop the cooking. This gets them nice and bright colors and cooked, but not mushy. I used broccoli and carrots. Then I used that same water to cook off the noodles. They were packet noodles that only needed about 2 minutes in the water. Those went aside in a colander and I made up some soy based sauce to cover them. Whittney was spending this time making super fine Cream Cheese Wontons.

Blanch not Blanche  

Whittney making wontons. 

Then take the beef and the next four ingredients and marinade the beef, about 20 min. then add oil to your wok, it says peanut but I used veggie. Toss the garlic and ginger in and just get them cooing before adding the beef. When the beef is almost done add the oyster sauce and then the rice wine. Now we had no rice wine, and all it dose is help thicken the sauce so I used a slurry instead, just a splash. Slurry is a mix of water and corn starch or flour. Then I tossed in the veggies and it was done.

Beef, it's whats for Dinner 

 Tools of the trade

We cooked Jasmine Rice and the steam buns in the rice cooker, and fried up the Wontons in the wok and before you knew it we had a meal.

 You Noodle Head!

 Best Picture EVER!

Also a good picture 

Melon Soda, we took shots of it.  

That is when Scotty Boy showed up. Scotty is a friend in medical school, and Whittney felt he needed a little home cooking. SO with that the eating began and let me tell you it was mighty fine. The evening was topped off by ice cream sandwiches and youtube. I cooked, I eat, I laughed so hard, and it was a wonderful end to a long day.

Would I Make it Again? You bet your sweet buns I would.

The Evenings Music: This night was underscored by my Linger Pandora radio station. Linger of course being the Cranberries song, the whole station is a wonderful mix of sixpence none the richer and Dido. Nothing too strenuous.