Beef with Broccoli

When I was younger if I was at a mall type Chinese restaurants I always ordered beef with broccoli.  I love broccoli at Chinese restaurants, its still crisp and the broccoli soaks up the sauce perfectly.  For some reason, I've gotten away from ordering it and have new favorite items.  I really wanted that perfect broccoli with sauce at home.  I looked up a lot of recipes before I decided to just wing it on my own.  The orange flavor was a great addition.

Orange Beef with Broccoli

1 lb beef tenderloin
oil for pan
3 TBS low sodium soy sauce
1/3 c. low sugar orange marmalade (or more)
1/3 c. water
Head of broccoli

1.  Heat oil in a pan on high and add beef tenderloin cut into 1 inch pieces. Brown steak quickly (1-2 minutes).
2.  Turn down heat to low.  Mix marmalade and water and add to pan along with soy sauce.  Add broccoli florets.
3.  Cover pan and allow to simmer until broccoli is tender (5-10 minutes).
4. Serve alone or over rice.

Daring Cooks Challenge #1: Soba Noodles and Tempura

Finally!!  The reason we started this blog...  OUR FIRST DARING COOKS CHALLENGE!!  I was so excited on the day of the announcement of the monthly challenge, I think I checked the website about 10 times before it was posted!  I was excited that this first challenge seemed like something that wouldn't be too difficult.  The most difficult part was going to get over my slight fear of a big pot of oil on the stove.  (Thanks Mom and Dad for the fire extinguisher for Christmas.  We didn't even need it!)  You'd think I wouldn't be scared of the oil since we deep fry our turkey, but that is outside and I make sure to stay inside!

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com

Here are the recipes if you'd like to try them!

First, we cooked the noodles so that they could cool.  The noodles have to be rinsed with cold water after they are boiled.  The Soba noodles are served cold as a noodle salad.

Meanwhile, D mixed together the ingredients below to make a dipping sauce for the noodles and the tempura.

Then we cut up all the veggies so they could go back in the fridge to chill.  The sweet potatoes had to be blanched quickly to slightly cook them.

To keep the tempura batter cold we sat the bowl with the batter in a large bowl filled with ice water.

Mix the tempura batter together, it should be somewhat lumpy.

Once the oil was heated to about 340 deg.  The veggies came out and got tossed in some flour, tempura batter, and then into the oil.

We made snap peas, onions, sweet potatoes, and cauliflower.

Here is a finished plate with Soba noodles, dipping sauce, and tempura.

I even really liked the tempura left over.  Both of us agreed the tempura was good, but doubt we will spend the time to make it again.  It is definitely something we wouldn't have tried had we not been faced with the challenge.  Thank you Lisa at Blueberry Girl!!!