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Beef Stir Fry

Howdy! How’s your week going so far? My work load has stabilized so it’s at the point where I have enough but I am not completely frazzled, and for once in my life, I am actually enjoying that. I have been taking advantage of my flexible schedule to squeeze grocery shopping and running in mid-day, and overall I have been just enjoying work and feeling good. That’s more than I can say for the two weeks prior, however, when the below beef stir fry was made.

There were a few weeks where things were absolutely go-go-go from 7 am to 10 pm. I secretly love being on the move mentally like that, but it killed my appetite and made me stop caring about food. What’s a blogger to do when cereal will suffice for dinner, but there is food that needs to be made? Make food for the man of the house, that’s what!

My mom always really hooks me up when I visit, filling my car with coolers and bags and all sorts of goodies. I found some stir fry beef, peppers, and onions in my haul, and I decided to make my husband a healthy beef stir fry that was quick to make, not interrupting my workflow and productivity.

I love dishes like this because they can be made with whatever you have. Here’s what our stir fry entailed:

 

Ingredients

1 package of stir fry beef

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

1/2 cup red wine (I used a 2006 Fitch Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon from the Alexander Valley, where I am going in just over a month, yipeeeee!)

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

4 cups chopped bell peppers and onions

stir fry beef

yellow bell pepper

The stir fry was just a matter of chopping veggies and sautéing them with the meat in a bit of olive oil. I did want to do something flavorful, so that’s where I put on my thinking cap.

peppers and onions

Beef and red wine love each other, do they not? And I love this Fitch Mountain Cab. I spared about a cup for hubby’s dinner. Winking smile

Fitch Mountain

Once the beef was cooked almost all the way, I added the garlic, tomato paste, and wine and let it all simmer. Does that make it no longer a stir fry? I don’t know if that changes the name, all I know is that it smelled a-mazing. And he loved it for dinner and lunch the next day, so my job was done.

beef stir fry

How do you adjust your eating habits when your schedule gets crazy?

Tags: beef, dinner, Food, healthy, vegetables

Summer produce really hits its peak at the end of August and in early September here in Massachusetts. It takes us quite awhile to warm up, but when we do, there is no shortage of colorful, flavorful, local beauty. It’s comforting, when everything becomes so much about autumn, that our summer gets to linger a little in the form of vegetables, warm days, and meals outside.

As I mentioned in my Saturday post, we both had a rough work week. I won’t get into it, but it was more than your average bad week, and it brought a lot of uncertainty, one of my least favorite things.

What do I do in those tough times? I cook and take pictures of food, of course!

I found these glorious, spicy local peppers and knew that I needed them, not just to eat, but to photograph. I arranged and re-arranged them and took more than a few shots before chopping them for a Spicy Cod with Heirloom Tomatoes.

spicy peppers

This summer I have fallen in love with these sweet little gems, Sun Gold tomatoes. They are truly sunshine in a little bite, and I had a hard time not eating them all on the way home.

sungold tomatoes

Other ingredients in this simpler is better summer dish included cilantro, lime, and fresh ginger.

cilantro and lime

And of course about 2.5 pounds of beautiful cod.

cod

Making this dish was simple; I did not want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen on a perfect evening after a long day, so I simply chopped a bunch of the peppers and added them, along with tomatoes, to the cod, which I sliced in thin fillets. I drizzled the fish with a beautiful olive oil I picked up at Trader Joe’s, a spicy but fruity, aromatic oil that only cost about $6. A sprinkle of sea salt, and I put the fish into the oven at 400 until it was nice and flaky, about 12 minutes. Definitely keep an eye on it, as you don’t want it to dry out.

Spicy Cod with Heirloom Tomatoes

When I plated the fish, I made sure to include lots of peppers and bursting tomatoes, as well as adding a squeeze of fresh lime juice, grated ginger, and cilantro.

Spicy Cod with Heirloom Tomatoes

Perfect, summery, simple. And I should mention, inspired by Michelle’s recent fish with tomatoes and cilantro.

How are you enjoying the simple pleasures of the last lingering bits of summer?

Tags: dinner, fish, Food, produce, recipe, summer, vegetables

I have a confession. I really like Sandra Lee. Don’t stop reading, please! I know she is the love-to-hate of the Food Network, and I once thought I found her annoying. That is until I learned about how much charity work she does after growing up in pretty intense poverty. And then one day a couple of months ago, I was on JetBlue watching Food Network when I watched her show and found inspiration for a few great recipes that were fairly healthy, involved fresh ingredients, but that were not perfectly, completely, spend your whole evening in the kitchen homemade. Feeling pressure sometimes to do it all, I appreciate her 70/30 store bought/fresh combo every once in awhile

And when I found out her influence on her boyfriend, NY Governor Cuomo, helped to seal Marriage Equality deal for the state, I loved her even more. I am now officially a fan.

In that particular episode I was inspired by a recipe for sugar snap peas with red pepper, and Thursday night I used that inspiration to make a quick, healthy, and completely flavorful dinner.

sugarsnap peas

I started by cutting the little end pieces off of the peas and pulling off those pesky strings.

vegetables

Then I chopped up a small jar of roasted red peppers and got the ingredients for my sauce together. It was a spicy, salty, sweet mix of tamari soy, habanero hot sauce from Trader Joe’s (according to them 11 on scale of 1-10 in hot), honey, and sesame oil.

stir fry sauce

I quickly chopped two chicken breasts left over from the tortellini salad, and I tossed everything in a pan to get cooking.

stir fry

Once the chicken was fully cooked, I tossed all of the ingredients and let them simmer in the shallow sauce for a few minutes. It thickened nicely and smelled of the nutty sesame oil in the pan.

Holy spicy! I can take the heat, but I may have overdone it with the habanero sauce. . . nah not really. I may have made the hubby sweat, but I love a dish that can make my mouth burn. It was perfect, the honey being a great balance to the hot.

I’ll be looking for more easy dishes like this as life keeps getting crazier, and a lot of my inspiration just might come from Sandra Lee.

Do you have a food tv show, book, or magazine that’s been inspiring your cooking style lately?

Tags: easy recipe, healthy, recipe, stir fry, vegetables

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