Beef Stir Fry

My cooking style tends toward the Mediterranean but we all need to branch out. So tonight was Asian night. Recently, I was at the grocery store and bought a steak. It was on sale, beautifully marbled and I had nothing to do with it but I bought it anyway and put it in the freezer.

Now it's coming out - to make steak stir fry.

Apparently stir fry is hard to mess up, because I had no idea what I was doing but the results were delicious. I started here but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the sauce?!? The directions are horribly unclear but I had already bought ingredients planning to cook this recipe...so I winged it.

Ingredients

2 cups water
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 cup soy sauce (you can use reduced sodium if you want)
6 oz steak (I don't actually know what cut I used)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
garlic
Sesame oil (optional)
2 cups frozen pepper strips
10 baby carrots

Slice steak into strips, cutting across the grain. Boil water and mix in corn starch thoroughly, add soy sauce and allow the sauce to reduce while cooking the rest of the ingredients. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large frying pan. Sear the steak with garlic and sesame oil and remove it from the pan. Cook frozen peppers in the pan with additional garlic and sesame oil, about 3 minutes before they are fully cooked add the carrots and return the steak back to the pan. The sauce should now be reduced (not thick, but thicker than is started out); add it to the pan with the steak and vegetables. Serve with white rice.

You'll notice my sauce diverges from my starting recipe, I tried making what I thought they wanted me to do and it was a disaster and I had to start over. This sauce had a great taste! I might try it again with some beef bouillon to see if it improves but I was pretty happy with the results. I served mine with the steamable frozen rice which makes for a quick evening meal.

Goat cheese + bacon = love

I found out something rather shocking recently - not everyone loves goat cheese! Who knew? I made these goat cheese bacon appetizers for a party and I was really surprised to have leftovers! I had to use serious self restraint to not eat all of them before my party guests arrived.

You can find the recipe here. Unlike most recipes from thekitchn, it's not needlessly complicated and though it requires a few more dishes than I usually like, in a party food, that is acceptable. I made a batch and a half because goat cheese came in a 6 oz package, that might be why I had some leftovers. I also served them with some herbed crackers and crostini.

You'll notice mine aren't "pops." While I thought it was a super cute touch, I could not find the little sticks at my local grocery store, I'm sure you'd need to be a larger "suburban" grocery store or maybe a craft shop to find them. Anyway, I did not feel like nor have the time to go all over town looking for sticks.