Tag Archives: one pan

Thai Peanut Stir Fry with Skirt Steak

When we made the pork and peach spring rolls we also made a delicious peanut sauce to dip the spring rolls in. I intentionally made a lot of the sauce because it is that good and I knew I would want to use it in another dish. Alas, here is what I came up with!  The peanut sauce was made in advance and stored for about 2-3 days before I made this.

I started off with some onion, which I sauteed in some toasted sesame oil. I kept the onion pieces pretty big as you can see- I guess they were technically quarters. Typically I add my aromatics (garlic, ginger, etc) once the onions cook for a few minutes, however, this step was not needed here because the peanut sauce already includes these ingredients.

Next, I added some carrots.

And then some spinach.

Time for the peanut sauce! I thinned it out using some chicken broth.

I blanched some broccoli and then added it to the mix.

For my protein I used skirt steak. I went to Whole Foods for lunch and they were giving out samples of their skirt steaks, which were also on sale. One bite and I was sold. It worked really well in this dish too!

I seasoned it with a little salt and pepper and grilled it. When it was ready I sliced it up and threw it in with the veggies and sauce. This dish really came together nicely- I give a lot of credit to the peanut sauce. As I mentioned it packed a ton of flavor, so for this dish it was really just a matter of putting it all together.

I wanted a more broth like sauce, so I thinned it out to my liking, but you can easily adjust this depending on your taste.  I ate it as is, but I am sure it would be great over rice or some thin rice noodles. It was also great leftover.

And this was going on while I was cooking! So starving!

All in all, I thought this came out great. See our post about the spring rolls for the link to the peanut sauce recipe!

– Eileen

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Breakfast for Dinner: No-crust quiche

What to do with a surplus of ham? Make quiche!  Shake things up a bit and serve breakfast for dinner some time! It worked out really well for us one night and I actually had this savory meal for leftovers the next night too. We opted for a crust-less version of quiche to cut the carbs, but if this is not something you care to do, it can easily be made the same way by preparing it in a ready or home-made pie crust. This dish is easy to prepare and you can throw in just about anything you have laying around.

This particular quiche was made with broccoli, ham, red onion and cheddar cheese. Greg began by putting the broccoli, ham, and red onion into a pie dish, which he first sprayed with some non-stick spray. He topped this with a few pats of butter.

Next he whipped up some eggs, cream and cheese.

Which he then poured over the veggies and ham.

This baked in the oven for a total of 40 minutes or so, until it was a little brown on the top and cooked through.

It was great! I really enjoyed this dish and it was relatively simple and easy to make. It tasted great with hot sauce too. For leftovers, I ate it over a salad and that worked nicely too. Nothing fancy schmancy here- just some good ‘ole basic ingredients. Simple, but good.

Recipe for no-crust quiche

Steak Chili

I love making chili in the winter time and there are so many different styles to try. I asked Greg to make chili for us one weekend and he decided to make chili with steak (beef chuck roast) instead of traditional ground meat.  He began by trimming the meat and cutting down the 3 1/2 pound roast into cubes. Coincidentally, this occurred during Maryland’s nail biter against Virgina Tech and provided him with a good outlet for all that anxious energy. Maryland won by the way!

We used the dutch oven again for the chili, like we did with the Cincinnati Style Chili we made several weeks ago. For this chili version,  start off by browning the meat on the stove top and drain the excess liquid.

It does not have to be cooked all the way through at this point, because it will go in the oven for another 3+ hours.  However, once you get a nice brown coating, add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

At this point it is pretty chunky, but it will cook down over the next few hours and each part will be rather indistinguishable.

Before three plus hours in the oven (above) and after (below).

It thickened up quite a bit and all of the bug chunks of meat cooked down and became much smaller with an almost shredded like consistency.Similarly, most of the other ingredients (tomatoes, onions, peppers) also cooked down and created a thick sauce like texture.

We topped it with some shredded cheddar cheese, raw yellow onion, and avocado. YUM!

Chili is so good for leftovers too! Hope you like it!

Recipe for Steak Chili

Pesto Shrimp Bake

Recently, we hosted a dinner party in which we featured one of our best talents: cooking shrimp perfectly- of course!  Last summer, or fall actually, when the garden was reaching some of it’s last days, Greg whipped up some pesto and we froze several jars of it for occasions such as this. We did not want to be busy cooking when our guests arrived, so it was the perfect thing to use since it was already made.

First, check out the table scape complete with real dining room chairs! wahoo, we’re adults now!

For an appetizer we used our new cheese board to display four cheeses: parmesano reggiano, pecorino romano, some really sharp cheddar, and parano (my recent fave).

We also served a salad that if anything was Greek-esque: romaine, cucumber, tomato, feta and pine nuts.

Now on to the main event. Like I said we used some pre-made homemade pesto. When making pesto ahead of time, it is suggested that you add the cheese when you are ready to use it, versus adding the cheese before you freeze it.

The pesto as it dethawed:

and with a generous heap of cheese:

This thickens it up quite a bit and adds a ton of flavor.

The raw shrimp were peeled and placed in a casserole baking dish. The pesto went over top of the shrimp…

…and was thoroughly mixed in

Next, a layer of freshly grated cheese atop the scrimps.

Pine nuts! Whenever we make the trip to Pittsburgh, we always stock up on pine nuts. They are worth the price, but especially at the price Penn Mac sells them for! YUM.

This went into the oven and baked while we sampled the cheese and ate salad.

We topped it with fresh tomato once it was done baking and the shrimp were cooked through.

We had the romantic mood lighting going- sorry for the flashy picture!

We served it along side of some pasta… along side, not on top!

This was a key point Greg wanted me to stress. The dish is meant to stand alone and is not intended to be a pasta sauce per se, although it went quite well with the pasta.

This is the best picture I have of it– extreme closeup, ahh!

With the scent of basil in the air, this dish made me even more ready for summer! It was a crowd pleaser too, which is always good.

Recipe for Pesto Shrimp Bake

Recipe for our Simple Basil Pesto

Peanut Chicken and Broccoli

I have become slightly obsessed with peanut butter lately! So when we were wondering what to do with some leftover chicken the other night it only made sense to have it with said new obsession. We stir fried some broccoli and chicken in an Asian inspired peanut sauce. We topped it over some jasmine rice and garnished it with some (more!) chopped peanuts and green onion, mmm. We made it rather spicy by adding a diced jalapeno, but the spice level you desire is completely up to you.

Unfortunately, we did not take many pictures of the cooking process. Here is a shot of the peanut sauce, which is comprised of 2 types of oil, vinegar, soy sauce, peanut butter, and some chicken broth.

We added broccoli- actually cooking it in the sauce and some already cooked chicken.

This was an easy recipe that took very little time. It was a great way to utilize the leftover chicken to make an awesome new dish. I highly recommend this one!

Recipe for Peanut Chicken and Broccoli

Oven Roasted Brisket

I guess Greg was inspired by our most recent trip to Urban BBQ when he decided what to make for dinner the other night… Brisket! Unfortunately though smoking this baby was out of the question considering it was under 20 degrees outside and we don’t technically own a smoker.  So, oven roasting it was.

Massive amounts of seasoning were added to the meat a suggested by Paula Dean. We don’t have a roasting pan so Greg used a basic Pyrex baking dish and it worked just fine.

I believe this picture was taken after an hour or so of baking. You can see that Greg added beef stock to the pan. It went back in the oven for another couple of hours.

This is what it looked like when it was finished. It shrunk down quite a  bit as you can see.

Greg and I went different directions with how we ended up eating it. He had his on an onion roll with some BBQ sauce.

a lil blurry...

Instead of a sandwich I opted for having the meat by itself with some of the natural gravy/pan juices.

yum!

Recipe for Oven Roasted Brisket

Mediterranean Tilapia

Tonight we made our version of Mediterranean Tilapia and it is a really easy recipe and tastes great. I call it ‘mediterranean’ only because we used feta cheese and pine nuts but really you can put pretty much anything you want into the topping and it should go well with the subtle flavor of the tilapia.

For the topping Greg started off by wilting the spinach and adding some green onions, toasted pine nuts and feta.

For the tilapia he “breaded” it with some parmesan, put the topping on each fillet, and baked for about 10-15 minutes.

We served it with some cauliflower that was roasted with Indian spices.

Recipe for Mediterranean Tilapia