Beef and Asparagus Stir Fry

You know I love to cook with beef! Today, I'm sharing one of my favorite healthy beef recipes with all of you: Chinese Takeout Style Beef and Asparagus Stir Fry!

Hey! I'm getting a little better at photo editing! Ha.

One thing that I really miss about living in a larger city or town is access to a variety of restaurant food, especially ethnic cuisine. I'll admit that I have a guilty pleasure for Chinese food. I love it. When I lived in Jackson, there was a Chinese restaurant that actually had a drive-through! I didn't know a ton of people when I lived there, so the drive-through was the perfect option for me. Quick service, and I didn't have to awkwardly sit alone in the restaurant and eat by myself. When I lived in Bozeman, the mall that I worked in had the standard Chinese fast food restaurant in the food court that I frequented more often than I probably should have.

Havre does have an assortment of fast food taco joints, so I guess that counts as Mexican, and they have two Chinese buffet restaurants. I'll hit up the buffet once in a while when I'm in town for errands, but I'm not likely to drive an hour just for Chinese takeout, guilty pleasure or not. So, how to please those cravings for Chinese takeout at home? Learn to cook it!

As a follow up to yesterday's Thankful Thursday post where I told you all how thankful I am to be able to eat my own home-raised beef, I thought I'd share with you an easy at-home recipe for Chinese food. This stuff tastes just like the real deal, guys. And, it's a little healthier than the gut-bomb that Chinese takeout can sometimes be. Best of all, you can customize the recipe to use whatever ingredients you have on hand. I used beef (of course!) and some fresh, seasonal veggies. I wrote in detail about the recipe first, then the actual recipe itself is listed all together at the bottom of the post. Let's get started!

First, gather your ingredients. You'll need four cups of vegetables and one pound of beef. For the veggies, you can use whatever you like in a stir fry. I used asparagus as my star because it's in season and we have a big community asparagus patch down the road, so it's also free for the picking. :) I paired the asparagus with some slivered red bell pepper for color, and about 1/4 cup of slivered onion for extra flavor. I recommend checking your garden or local market for whatever veggies are fresh right now. You can also just look in your fridge at what you need to use up, or use a bag of frozen stir fry veggies for an extra convenience factor. 

Before starting any of the actual cooking, I like to prep the sauce. Pour the soy sauce into a glass one-cup measuring cup, then add the rest of your ingredients, brown sugar through garlic, to the soy sauce. No need to pour into another bowl- then you have one more thing to wash. Plus, it's easier to pour out of a measuring cup anyway when you go to pour your sauce on your stir fry later on. So, measure all of the sauce ingredients into the measuring cup, stir with a whisk, and set aside.

Clean your produce and cut your veggies down to bite-size pieces. For the asparagus, that meant each piece was between 1-2 inches long, depending on the thickness of the stalk. You want the pieces to be close to the same size so that they cook evenly. As you're chopping and prepping, preheat a skillet or wok to medium-high and swirl some oil in the pan. I used a mix of chili oil and olive oil. Then drop in your veggies and saute for a few minutes until they are crisp-tender. Remove from skillet into a bowl and set aside. You don't want to completely cook them at this point because they'll get more skillet time later and there's nothing worse than sad, soggy overcooked vegetables, especially asparagus.

You gotta love fresh veggies! There is nothing like home-grown asparagus for freshness and flavor.

Now, let's talk about the beef. I used a round steak which I cut in half length-wise, then cut into strips about 1/4 inch thick , cutting against the grain. You could use about any type of steak--sirloin or flank steak would work well, too, and both are lean cuts. You can also pick up pre-cut stir fry or stew beef at the meat counter of your local store. Again, you want your beef pieces to be close to the same size so they cook evenly, and you want them to be close to bite-size so you don't have to bring a knife into the picture later when you're eating. Let's say you don't want to use beef-- you could use any meat you like in this stir fry, but I personally feel the soy-sauce based sauce lends itself best to beef. (If you want my recipe for Orange-Basil Chicken, I'll gladly share that one sometime, too!)

Anyway, after you've sauteed and then removed your veggies from the skillet, you can add just a bit more oil to the pan and then drop your beef pieces in. Cook until they are browned through and fully cooked. You may have to drain some excess liquid. 

Once the beef is cooked through, add the veggies back to the pan and give everything another minute or two to stir fry all together. Now, remember your sauce you made? Give it another brisk stir with the whisk and then pour it over everything in the pan. Stir it all up so that everything gets coated with the sauce, then let it sit for a few minutes. You want it to come to a simmer because that really helps the sauce thicken and gel together. Once you get to that point, turn off the skillet and give everything another big stir so that the delicious sauce coats into every nook and cranny of food. 

All those tasty veggies and beef playing together so nicely in the skillet! Can't wait to eat it!

Now you're ready to eat! Spoon your stir fry over rice or noodles and top with cashews, peanuts, or toasted sesame seeds, and enjoy! 

 Chinese Takeout Style Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry
All You Need:
4 cups of cleaned, chopped vegetables of your choice
1 lb beef, trimmed and cut into bite size pieces
1/3 cup lite, reduced sodium soy sauce
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 Tablespoon corn starch
1 Tablespoon water
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional.
Minced garlic, to taste. (I typically use about 2-3 cloves)

All You Do:

1. Prepare sauce using soy sauce through garlic, stirring with a whisk. Set aside.

2. Preheat a large skillet or wok to medium-high and swirl some oil in pan. Add veggies and stir fry to crisp-tender. Remove from skillet and set aside.

3. Swirl a bit more oil into pan and then saute beef pieces until browned and cooked through. Add veggies back to pan, stir frying for about one minute. Pour sauce into pan. Stir fry to coat and bring to simmer to allow sauce to thicken. Remove from heat and let sit for a few minutes before serving. Serve with rice or noodles and top with cashews, peanuts or sesame seeds.

Chinese Takeout Style Beef and Asparagus Stir Fry.
YUM!

This recipe is a little healthier than a typical Chinese takeout recipe. It uses fewer oils. The sauce is packed with flavor, which means you don't need as much of it, too. Really loading up on the veggies, such as high-in-iron and folic acid asparagus, and Vitamin-C packed red bell peppers, give it more of a nutritional punch, too. Add in the lean beef and rice, you've got close to all the food groups covered! Let me know what you think of this recipe if you give it a try! What are some of your favorite beef recipes?

Thankful Thursday ~ Abundance of Beef

Yesterday we received our beef from the butcher. We have a bit of a problem with freezer space. There's still a lot of meat left over from previous years' animals, so it took some problem solving to make room for this year's cut order. As I organized various cuts, trying to make the most room I could, it felt a bit like playing a strange version of Tetris..."I can fit two packages of Sirloin on top of the T-Bones, and fit six bags of ground beef around the perimeter...hooray! I formed a new row!" 

Organizing last year's remaining beef in the freezer.

Then I thought about how it really was a pretty good problem to have. We get to eat our own beef that we raised ourselves on our farm. As my husband so eloquently stated last night, "I know about every bite of grass and feed that animal has eaten and every (poo) it's taken since it was born." He probably watched its birth, too. The only part of the cycle from birth to death to food on our table we miss out on is the actual slaughter and butcher process. For that, we have to outsource.

When I was growing up, my farm experience was pretty limited and our meat came from the meat counter at the grocery store. I can remember watching as my dad approached the meat counter and ordered a few cuts we'd use throughout the next week or so. I knew that beef came from cows, yes, but for me, it came from that meat counter at Fairway. We trusted that the store sourced their meat from reputable places. For most Americans, this is how meat is purchased. In some cases, people struggle to make the connection from living animal to food on their plate and have no idea how that cycle works. I feel pretty lucky and thankful to be integrated into that process, and to get to enjoy the tasty fruits (or meats?) of our labor.

Steak salad I made for lunch yesterday, including spinach from our garden.

My friend Stennie, who has been to our farm for extended visits a few times, has a really nice essay published on the topic of eating animals: Whose Muscle is On My Plate. She goes into the meat-raising and eating cycle in detail as she's experienced it in some of her work. Very interesting ideas, and ties in quite well, I think, with being thankful for one's food source and the methods used to raise and slaughter that food.

The longer I live here, the more I learn about how to prepare and cook with various cuts of beef. We certainly don't eat beef exclusively, but we do eat it more than I probably would if I were not living on a ranch. Jeff and I even had beef served at our wedding. Prime Rib, to be exact. Since I was definitely a newbie to beef cuts at the time, I remember asking during the wedding dinner exactly where on the animal a prime rib cut would come from. This produced lively discussion among my new in-laws, with Jeff and Tom and the rest of us, in our wedding day finery, gesturing and demonstrating on their own bodies where a prime rib would be located.

Because beef cuts are a common topic at our family dinners, my Mother in Law got me this awesome beef-cuts platter a few years ago for Christmas!

Since joining Team Beef Montana a little over a year ago, I now know even more about the health benefits of incorporating beef into a balanced diet. Beef has zinc, iron and protein, among other helpful nutrients, to help fuel your run and your recovery. It's an efficient source of protein, too, meaning that you don't need much to pack a big nutritional punch. And, a recent article in the Washington Post highlighted a study done right here in Montana, that showed that eating a cheeseburger after intense exercise can be just as good as refueling with other options. Check out the article to read more:  Need To Recover After A Workout? Eat A Cheeseburger.  I guess all those post-track meet stops taking the team to fast food weren't such a bad idea after all!

Image from www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com

Yesterday, I actually did get in a short three mile run and then followed it up with a delicious cheeseburger at dinner. There's not much better than a hamburger or cheeseburger fresh off the grill!

Team Beef sent me some cool stickers, right!?

With beef on my mind this week, it was pretty easy to be thankful for the abundance of it that we do have and to be thankful that we are part of the process of bringing quality beef to our own table as well as to those of consumers. Now, I'm off to get my workout in and you know what's for dinner tonight? Beef and asparagus stir fry! 

What are you thankful for this week?  Do you have any favorite beef recipes? What foods fuel your life?