Little darling, stir it up!

After reading this you may rethink my qualifications for having a cooking blog. I've never made stir fry before. I've never even cooked rice before. There! I said it! phew glad I got that off my chest!


We had some new beef stir fry meet ready to be cooked so I figured I'd go ahead and tackle it. We didn't have soy sauce (bought it, left it in Raleigh), sesame oil, peanut oil, or cooking wine. We also had no rice, carrots, onions, or bean sprouts. Basically the only thing we had in the fridge was the beef stir fry meet. Oops. In insight next time I make this meal I'll probably make it a 'clean out the fridge' type deal.

What you need for beef stir fry a la alison:
1 onion
3/4 cup of sliced mushrooms
white rice (or whatever kind of rice you choose to use)
1lb beef stir fry meat
head of broccoli (is that a measurement?)
handful of beansprouts (somewhere between Shaq's handful and Jen Arnold's handful)
Peanut oil
Sesame oil
vegetable oil
white cooking wine
soy sauce
garlic clove
ginger root (Ginger?! Whatcha doin, Ginger?!)

No, not that Ginger!!

Step 1: Find all of these things.
Step 2: chop up all the vegetables into delicious sized pieces and mix them together (bean sprouts are fine the way they are (just like you ;)))
Step 3: chop up the garlic and some ginger (Ginger?!) and throw it in your massive pan that you will use non stop throughout this meal. Make sure it can hold ALL the crap you plan to throw in it. Seriously.
Step 4: Chop up your stir fry meat into little cubes.
Step 5: Throw some peanut oil, sesame oil, vegetable oil, soy sauce and some of that nice cooking wine into a pan with your garlic and make it nice and steamy in your house. This combo should make your house smell like an Asian restaurant (in a good way). If it doesn't smell like an Asian restaurant then add some more of your favorite oil from the ones you already put in.
Step 6: Toss in the meat! Oh yeah! Cook it on medium heat so it slow cooks and cooks evenly. Your apartment should smell like deliciousness even more now.

This picture reminds me... go ahead and cook your rice. It doesn't have to be hot when you add it into the pan, just cooked.

Step 7: Remove the meat from the pan and put it in a bowl beside the stove. Add some more veggie oil and some more of that rice wine... maybe some more of the other oils too if you're feeling saucy (see what i did there?). Make sure it's all mixed up real nice like.
Step8: Throw all your veggies into the pan and stir it up. It should continue to smell like delicious. If it no longer smells like delicious then you put something gross in your stir fry. Don't do that again. Stir the deliciousness around for a while until it's all coated in the sauce and make sure the broccoli is cooked all the way. Your mushrooms won't cook through because as we learned from Julie and Julia, you can't crowd the mushrooms if you want them to cook and honestly we just threw them into a big ol' pot of grand central station at 5pm so you're a little S.O.L. on the 'not crowding' thing.

Step 9: Throw the Meat in. This will make it browner and meatier and deliciouser. If you don't eat meat, I don't know why you read this blog as all of the recipes have amazing meat in them. You should start eating meat.
Step 10: Seriously. Start eating meat. It's so good if you do it right :D
Step 11: Add the rice and keeps stirring. 

Good grief that looks amazing.

Step 12: Put it on a plate and freaking crush that stuff! It was super tasty.

Step 13: Say bye to your man as he walks out of the house for the weekend, leaving you with this:

Oops. That was way too many dishes for this simple of a meal. My b.

Delicious Level: 4/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom) - Super delicious but still haven't topped those short ribs!

Difficulty Level: Kind of a pain in the neck in terms of cleaning up and having enough hands to get it all cooked at once but overall it was pretty easy.

Lesson Learned: Use less dishes. Dear lord.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!