Pearl Couscous Stirfry

Have you ever heard of Pearl Couscous? I hadn’t up until a few weeks ago. I saw a coworker eating it at the kitchen table at work. I asked, “What kind of grain is that?” “Pearl couscous”, he said. “Would you like to try some?” And try some I did. And then just another spoonful more. Such a yummy, nutty flavor to it!

I liked it so much that I made a point to find some when I went to the grocery store later that week.

Searching the Web and Pinterest, I easily found a bunch of recipes. Tonight, I was inspired by a post from Your Food Life.

Pearl Couscous Stirfry
Serves 2 to 3

Ingredients
1 cup vegetable broth
1/4 cup filtered water
2/3 cup Pearl Couscous
1 tomato
1/2 white onion
6 mushrooms
Shredded cabbage
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 orange bell pepper
1/2 lb ground beef
1 egg
Salt
Pepper
Garlic salt
Parsley
Butter
Olive oil

1. Boil the vegetable broth and water, then add the Pearl Couscous. Reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Let it cook for about 20 minutes. Mix in a 1/2 tbsp or less of butter once the liquid is almost vaporated.
2. Brown the ground beef on a separate pan, then set aside.

3. Peel the tomato and chop it in the half. Then peel the onion and chop it in half. Blend both ingredients together into a puree.

4. Mix the puree with the ground beef and cook with a drizzle of olive oil for about 3 minutes.

5. Chop remaining veggies and add them to the pan.

6. Once the veggies are almost done, break the egg into a bowl and whisk. Then make a space on the pan and slowly pour in the egg. Wait a minute or two, then mix it in with the rest of the ingredients.

7. Season the beef-veggie stirfry then serve with your delicious Pearl Couscous.

This was a big hit. So glad I made it. 🙂

Beef & Broccoli and Fried Rice

I’ve always been curious what makes the beef and broccoli sauce so good. The answer was pretty surprising: oyster sauce. Of course, there are other ingredients like soy sauce and sherry, but it’s the oyster sauce that’s important.

Well, I went to the store last night to buy the ingredients for my homemade Chinese dinner and I couldn’t bring myself to buy that oyster sauce. When would I use it again? Long story short, I ended up buying a premade pack of sauce (oyster sauce included).

Beef & Broccoli

Ingredients
1 packet of beef and broccoli sauce
1 pound round cut steak
Chopped green onions
Broccoli
Salt & pepper

Directions

1. Put about half of the sauce and uncooked steak in a large bowl. Leave in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, prepare the onions and broccoli. Chop and saute in a little canola oil, then set aside.

3. Cook your steak as desired. I like mine practically well done. Remove from heat, cut into thin strips. Return to pan with broccoli, green onions, and remaining sauce. Cook just long enough to mix and heat.

Fried Rice

Ingredients

Cooked rice
2 eggs (cooked)
Grated carrots
Grated cabbage
Chopped green onions
Chopped white onion
Chopped white mushrooms
Soy sauce
Red pepper flakes
Garlic powder
Salt & pepper

Directions

1. Coat the bottom of a large pan with a thin layer of canola oil. Crack the eggs and mix in a small bowl, then pour into the pan. Be sure to spread the egg out across the entire pan so it cooks really thin. Set aside.

2. Chop the veggies and saute with a little more canola oil in the same pan you used for the eggs.

3. Add in rice, soy sauce, spices, and eggs. Cook on medium high heat until all ingredients are incorporated.

Welcome to the weekend, everyone. 🙂

Breakfast Taco

I promised myself that I wouldn’t go grocery shopping this week. Mission accomplished. I didn’t think this left me with interesting menu items, but last night I came up with something pretty tasty for being so basic.

That’s right. I made breakfast for dinner again. But this time, I kept the focus on the veggies and less on the fried. Couldn’t resist throwing in a couple pieces of bacon though.

While this basically just an omelet thrown into a lightly fried tortilla, my boyfriend made a simple cooking suggestion that really perfected the overall texture of this meal.

Instead of mixing the sauteed veggies into the eggs, I cooked the veggies around the edge of the pan with eggs in the middle. This helped the veggies to stay a little crisp, which was really nice.

Meatless Monday – Stir-fry

It’s not just Meatless Monday. It’s also Blue Monday. The holidays are officially over and it’s back to the grind. It was a bit of a rough day, but now that I’m home and I’ve had a good meal, everything feels pretty peaceful. It’s just another day.

In keeping with my new year’s resolutions, I made a Meatless Monday dinner: vegetable stir-fry and chow mein.

Carrots, onions, garlic, mushrooms, lettuce, broccoli, red and green bell peppers, bean sprouts, cabbage, and snap peas. Now that’s an assortment of veggies.

I sauteed them in 2 1/2 tbsp of canola oil for about 5 minutes at medium high heat. Then I mixed in General Tso stir-fry sauce and continued to heat for another 3 minutes.

As the vegetables cooked, I boiled water for the chow mein noodles.

And just like that everything was cooked! I filled two deep bowls with the chow mein and then topped each with the vegetables. It was the perfect amount of food for 2. And the sauce was delicious! A little spicy but just barely. 🙂

Veggie Night

Vegetables galore! That’s right, this is a meatless, carbless post. Almost.

Tonight’s Menu:

-Bacon-cream cheese stuffed mushrooms
-Sauteed bell peppers
-Boiled baby potatoes
-Roasted broccoli

So Pinterest came to the rescue again with this stuffed mushroom recipe although I altered it quite a bit. You can read the original recipe here.

Here is my altered version:

Ingredients:
10 white mushrooms
4 oz cream cheese
4 strips of cooked bacon, finely chopped
1/2 of a small shallot, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cup Parmasen cheese
Salt and pepper

Instructions:
1. Wash mushrooms, gently remove stems, finely chop, and put to the side.
2. Cook bacon using my amazing cooking technique.
3. Saute shallot, garlic, and mushroom stems in the drained bacon fat and a little olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Mix cheeses, bacon, sauteed vegetables on a pan just long enough to melt together.
5. Brush mushrooms cap with olive oil and bake at 400 degrees F for 4-5 minutes with the gills down.
5. Flip the mushrooms over, stuff each with a little cheese mixture and cook at 400 degrees F for another 5-10 minutes.
6. Optional: add a French’s fried onion or two onto each mushroom 2 minutes before taking out of the oven. 🙂

The aroma of the shallots and garlic was incredible. The taste was rich and devine. I will absolutely make these again!

Sauteed Bell Peppers

Instructions

1. Saute finely chopped onions, thinly sliced bell peppers
2. Season with cumin, salt pepper, garlic powder, a few squeezes of fresh lemon

Boiled baby potatoes

Instructions:

1. Boil until soft
2. Serve with lemon cream sauce

Roasted Broccoli

So I wouldn’t call the broccoli a fail because it was edible, but I wasn’t impressed with the recipe. So no recipe here.

I love veggies nights!