Meal Prep Monday 1/21/19

PB Beef Stir Fry

makes 8 servings

Rice : Cook 1.5 cups brown rice according to directions on package.  

Broccoli : Spread 2 lbs fresh broccoli on a baking sheet.  Coat with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic powder, and roast at 400 for 12 minutes.  

Marinade : Mix 1/2 c chicken stock, 1/4 c soy sauce, 2 tbsp minced garlic, 1 tbsp dijon mustard, 1/2 tsp wasabi paste, and 1 tbsp ginger powder.  

Beef : Toss 3 packages of stir fry beef with the marinade, let sit while you heat olive oil in a large skillet.  When oil is hot, add beef and marinade.  Stir in a heaping 1/4 cup of peanut butter.  Stir frequently, remove beef and liquid from the skillet to a large bowl when the beef is done. 

Cabbage : Chop a small head of cabbage, and cook in the beef drippings after beer and marinade have been removed.  Once cabbage is cooked, add it to the bowl with the beef and mix well.  

I had about 1 serving of beef and cabbage left, but the rice and broccoli came out to 8 servings each. 

Peanut Butter Chicken Pasta

2 b/s chicken breasts

garlic powder

ginger powder

turmeric powder

1/2 c vegetable stock

1-2 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 c crunchy peanut butter

1 carrot

2 big handfuls arugula

Chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces and dump them into a skillet on medium heat.  Liberally sprinkle with the seasonings (If I was less lazy, I would have used fresh minced garlic and ginger). Add the vegetable stock and soy sauce to the skillet.  Stir occasionally as the chicken cooks, so that it will cook evenly through.  When the chicken is about down, add the peanut butter.  Mix well. Turn down the heat so that the chicken doesn't over-cook.  Chop the carrot into bite sized pieces and add that as well.  The pan should stay hot just long enough to soften the carrots.  Add the arugula a minute or two before serving; it tastes better if it doesn't wilt too much.  Serve over the grain of your choice.  I chose pasta of course, but I'm sure it would be just as tasty over rice or quinoa or farro or whatever. 

 boiling peanut butter deliciousness

arugula

Peanut Butter Beef & Broccoli, yet again

I've made this several times before, it's different every time.  (Like just about everything else I make!)  The other versions can be found on the "Meat" page of this blog.

Put a pot of water on to boil for pasta.  Chop 1/4 onion and begin browning it in some olive oil.  Chop 3 cloves of garlic and roughly a tbsp of fresh ginger and add them.  Add some garlic powder, ginger powder, and about 1/2 c of veggie stock. Chop up a pound or so of steak and add it to the pot along with some more veggie stock, a bit of beer, and some soy sauce.  Cover and let cook for awhile.  When the pasta water boils, add some salt, olive oil, and a large handful of linguini, broken in half.  Steam a bunch of baby broccoli, then chop it into bite-sized pieces.  When the beef is cooked, add about 1/3 c of crunchy peanut butter.  Sitr well, let cook until it has thickened enough not to be watery when mixed with the pasta and broccoli.  Combine everything in a large bowl and toss til evenly mixed.

This dish turned out to be just the right stickiness to make it possible to eat the pasta with chopsticks.  Hooray!

Loaded S'more Dip

I had all the ingredients for s'mores...but no fire to roast marshmallows over.  I don't really like marshmallows, and so the thought of eating a s'more made in the microwave was ridiculously unappealing.  I thought about trying to toast the marshmallows in my toaster oven, but that sounded potentially very messy.  So the ingredients just sat for awhile.  

Then I came across this recipe for S'more Crack Dip

Problem Solved. 

Loaded S'more Dip

5 oz large marshmallows

5.8 oz dark chocolate 

3 tbsp milk

2 tbsp heavy cream

1 tsp cinnamon

1 large spoonful of crunchy peanut butter

As usual, all amounts are approximate due to my inability to measure things.

The chocolate is exact...it was 4 bars of Hershey's Special Dark, 1.45 oz each.

Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan on medium heat and stir til melty and delicious.

Dip graham cracker pieces into the molten goodness and eat up.  

Try not to burn yourself...

PB & Butterscotch Chip Cookies

1/2 stick butter

1/4 c vegetable oil

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c white sugar

1 egg

3/4 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

4-5 tbsp crunchy peanut butter

1/2 c wheat flour

1 c white flour

1/3 c butterscotch chips

Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.

PB Beef & Broccoli

I haven't actually tasted this yet...I made it after dinner because I felt like playing in the kitchen.  I could taste a spoonful now, but I'm really not hungry.  I'll try it for dinner tomorrow.  

Ingredients

thin steak (I used .7 lb)

3 c chopped broccoli

2 carrots

2 cloves garlic

sm. chunk of ginger

2 huge spoonfuls of crunch peanut butter

soy sauce

Directions

Brown the garlic and ginger with olive oil in a large skillet.  Chop the meat into bite-sized pieces and add them to the skillet.  Grate the carrot and add it and the broccoli.  Sprinkle with soy sauce.  Add PB.  

Stir well.  

I prefer fresh broccoli, but the selection was not good this week so I had to dig in my freezer for the 

freezer-burned variety for tonight's episode of playing in the kitchen.  

I thought I could chop the meat while the ginger/garlic was browning, but the pan was hotter than I thought it was.  They certainly got brown...or burnt. 

And then I thought it would be a good idea to grate the carrot directly over the skillet.  There are now little bits of carrot all over my kitchen.  And me.  Why must it be so messy?!

I'll toss this with some angel hair pasta tomorrow night. 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Truffles

I just realized that I didn't write down any of the amounts I used for this recipe, because at the time I thought I would be posting it to the blog within a day or two.  It has been at least 5 days now...but hopefully I can remember!

Melt 1/2 c crunchy peanut butter with 1/2 c heavy cream.  

*The heavy cream is the only amount I'm having trouble remembering correctly...it may have been 1/4 cup...

Stir stir stir.

Add the chocolate.

Stir stir stir some more.

Scoop the mess into a bowl and refrigerate. 

(2 hours should be sufficient, I let mine sit over night)

It was pretty hard when I took it out of the fridge.  It took some muscle to scoop chunks out with a melon baller, and I had to use my fingers to work it into shapes that looked remotely like balls.  It was way too much work to try to get them perfectly round, so I just tried to get them into something bite-sized.

Melt some chocolate, dunk & coat the truffles, let them set in the fridge. 

Stir-Fry the second: Peanut Butter Beef II

I just had to try the same thing again...with just a few modifications of course!  

I liked it better this time, much less watery, much more peanut-buttery!

Here's the first try in case you're interested.

And here's today's:

The Vegetables 

(cleaned and chopped into bite-sized pieces)

-3 small carrots

-1 1/2 c (approx) fresh green beans

-8-10 stalks fresh asparagus: cleaned

-4 fresh radishes

-1/4 c mushrooms

cook in a big skillet with some olive oil, minced garlic, and salt

The Meat

2 slices of thin-sliced beef, chopped into bite-sized strips

cook in a skillet with some bacon grease and chopped rosemary

when cooked, add 2 large spoonfuls of crunchy peanut butter (DO NOT drain the water that appears in the skillet during the cooking process!)

once the PB has been added, stir continuously until the PB is evenly distributed

The Pasta

whole wheat angel hair pasta, broken in half before boiling 

The Meal

layer in a bowl: pasta, vegetables, meat

Eat Up and Enjoy!

Stir-Fry the first: Peanut Butter Beef

I had some thin-sliced skillet steak to cook for dinner, and normally I turn it into "beef tenders," but I decided I needed something new to try.  I knew that kind of beef is good for stir-frying...and I've never tried stir-frying before, so I decided it was time to try.

Sauce
5 tsp corn starch
1 can beef broth
4 tbsp (approx...) crunchy peanut butter
1 tbsp brown sugar

Stir-Fry stuff
2 carrots, sliced
2 sticks celery, bite-size chunks
3 radishes, sliced
1/4 c onion, bite-sized chunks
1 c green beans

.75 lb thin-sliced beef, bite sized strips
1 tsp minced garlic
rosemary

I cooked all the veggies in some olive oil, stirring frequently, while cooking the sliced beef with some rosemary in another pan.  Once the veggies were about done, I added the sauce, then added the beef once it was cooked.  Stirred all the stuff together and let it boil for awhile to thicken.

delicious.  because deliciousness is a requirement in my kitchen.

I suppose I should add the link for the recipe I based mine off of...

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/peanut-beef-stir-fry/detail.aspx

Chocolate PB&J Cupcake

Decadence or Disaster (in the making)?

I decided it was time to try making something cake-y.  But not an actual cake, they take too long to bake. (ok, maybe they only take 30-35 minutes.  but...I'm impatient.)

I found this recipe online.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-cupcakes/

Here is my hand-written version.

And here it is post-modifications.

I didn't have any milk...yay heavy cream.

And here are some pictures of the adventure.

clearly, it is not a good idea to attempt to use a 1/2 c measure in a small box of cocoa powder.  it creates explosions

and I have no idea how much cocoa powder ended up in the bowl...probably more than was called for

the cocoa powder is refusing to mix in...grrrrr....

getting there...but there's not much room left for the flour...

oh good, the flour did fit after all

cupcakes step one

1 big spoonful each of crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam

microwave for 45 sec, then stir well...with a knife

spoon a dollop of pb&j on top of each cupcake

here's the leftover cupcake mix/pbj that didn't fit in my muffin tin

into the oven!

oh, yay.  overflowing cupcakes.  I guess I'll have to clean my oven at some point...

By the way...at one point I noticed that the thermometer said 300 instead of 350.  Hooray for un-cooperative ovens!

Can I blame the oven for this disaster?

this looks kind of successful, much more so than the cupcakes

which are a disaster

I had to use a knife to cut this out of the muffin tin

cake pieces and cupcake pieces.  what a disaster.

cutting the cupcakes out was so. much. fun.

At least they taste good!  Yes, yes they do.

Now I get to go scrub cemented chocolate stuff off of my pans. Joy.