Creamy Mushrooms and Honey Garlic Steak Cubes

Hello Dear Followers,

You ever have those moments in life that you are set with a plan about how things are going to go and it turns out entirely different? This was what our dish or dishes were tonight.

We had set out to make Creamy Garlic Mushrooms ( which we did.. that was our dish). Then Daniela thought, well the mushrooms are a side dish, they aren’t a meal, so we added a Honey Garlic Steak Bites.

TOTALLY TWO DIFFERENT dishes. But both equally delicious. We then decided we needed something else, like a rice or maybe a pasta to go with mushrooms and steak. We discussed this for five minutes as the water boiled, we filled the pot when we thought we were making pasta, then took water out when we thought we were making rice. We made rice.

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The night began so calmly, which was weird for both us because usually we’re very high strung when we’re making the dish we’ve planned to make, a lot of anxiety being thrown everywhere in the kitchen between the both of us. We’re working on this, we swear!

We also came to the conclusion, we cannot by any means have a third person in the kitchen with both of us while we’re trying to cook, it throws everything off. It doesn’t matter where you are in the kitchen with us.

Tonight we had Anna’s husband home while we were cooking, he wasn’t in the kitchen with us, but he was a third person. We honestly don’t know what it is. The kids don’t count here because they are part of the groove we have created.

The night picked up once we realized we were falling behind and ended with Daniela breaking one of Anna’s dishes, so all in all it was a typical night at Tuesday Night Suppers!

Here are the recipes we made:

Honey Garlic Bites

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs of sirloin steak, fat trimmed, diced into cubes. ( You can also pre-cut cube steaks that are normally used in stews too, to avoid having to do the cutting yourself)

1/2 cup of low-sodium soy sauce

3 tablespoons of honey

3 garlic cloves (minced – 1 tbsp)

2 tbsp of olive oil or vegetable oil

Green onions or sesame seeds as a garnish.

Instructions:

Place the steak cubes in a resealable bag or bowl covered.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, honey and garlic. Pour over steak and seal bag or cover bowl. Let the steak marinate in the refrigerator for about 1-2 hours. (Honestly, we did 45 minutes, it was fine).

Heat one tablespoon in a heavy non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.

Remove half the steak from the marinade, transfer to skillet (spaced apart) and let sear until golden brown, about one minute then flip to opposite side.

Let the steak cook to your specifications. (Internal safe temps 145 degrees). Transfer to a plate and repeat with remaining steak.

(We didn’t follow this direction, we put all the steak in the skillet at once… again it’s fine.)

Serve warm with green garnish.

Tip: Serve this over white rice, it becomes much like a stir fry. We actually realized this would have been great if it was made in a Wok. It was truly an Asian dish.

Recipe by: Cookingclassy.com

Creamy Garlic Mushrooms with Bacon

Ingredients:

8 ounces of bacon cut into strips

2 tablespoons of butter

26 ounces of brown mushrooms ( We recommend getting two packages, because mushrooms shrink so much.) Also, wash them thoroughly.

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1/4 cup of dry white wine (or chicken broth/stock – we used the cooking wine we had from last week. Worked just fine.)

6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped.

1 1/2 cups of heavy cream (thickened cream or evaporated milk)

1 tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley

1 teaspoon of fresh chopped thyme

Salt and pepper to season

1/2 cup of fresh shredded or grated mozzarella

1/4 cup of fresh shredded or grated parmesan cheese

Instructions:

Fry the bacon first in an oven safe skillet over medium heat until crispy. Once ready transfer it to paper towel lined plate to soak up excess oil. Set aside.

In the same pan used for the bacon, melt the butter. Add the mushrooms and drizzle oil and mix through, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Fry for 2-3 minutes to light lightly brown mushrooms release their juices. ( Use your judgement here about the mushrooms, we left them frying for longer than 2-3 minutes.)

Pour in the wine (or broth) and let it reduce for two minutes, while occasionally stirring. Preheat the broiler or oven grill to 350 degrees at this point in the process.

Add in the garlic and stir it through for a minute until fragrant. Pour in the cream and herbs. Reduce the heat to low, gently simmer until tender (about 4-5 minutes) and sauce is slightly thickened… use your own discretion.) Season with salt and pepper.

Add the bacon back in and give everything a good mix and combine all of the flavors together. Top the mushrooms with the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese.

Broil until the cheese is melted and bubbly and the mushrooms are done to your liking. (About 3 to 5 minutes).

Serve warm.

Tip: We served this with rice as well, but honestly this might have been good with a penne pasta or maybe an egg noodle. It was delicious!

Despite the differences in taste between the mushrooms and the steak cubes, the sauce from the mushrooms worked well with the steak.

Tip: If you plan to make the steak cubes with the mushrooms, don’t follow the recipe we provided above, simply sear the steak cubes in some olive oil in a skillet with some salt and pepper and serve with the mushroom sauce. We didn’t do this, but you definitely should!

Recipe by: CafeDelites.com

Until Next week!

Asian Lettuce Wraps

Hello Dear Followers,

We have to start off by saying that tonight’s dish caused a bit of anxiety for both Anna and I. It started at the grocery store and trying to find the ingredients to make our dish possible.

For Daniela, the anxiousness came because she wasn’t familiar with the grocery store she was in on top of not quickly finding the right ingredients.

We made Asian Lettuce Wraps. We’re sure you’re probably thinking, that’s too easy to cause that much anxiety, but you would really be surprised.

We missed two ingredients in this dish, but to our surprise, it was pretty good. It had a flavorful rich taste. We accompanied the lettuce wraps with rice, which was perfect.

Here is the recipe:

For the sauce: you’ll need one cup of water, 1/2 cup of soy sauce, 1/4 cup of sesame oil, six cloves of garlic (minced), one tablespoon of fresh ginger (minced) , 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of sriracha ( we couldn’t find this ingredient and it still came out pretty good), 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar, 1/3 cup of scallions, sliced.

For the wraps: The recipe calls for tofu ( this is a vegetarian dish, but we substituted it with ground beef.) Fry the ground beef separately until it is light brown put some salt and pepper for taste and once it’s ready set it aside. One tablespoon of sesame oil, 1 medium yellow onion, diced, 2 1/2 cups of shiitake mushrooms, chopped (any mushrooms will do… we just wanted to follow it exactly), 1 tablespoon of garlic, minced, 8 oz of water chestnuts (1 can sliced, drained and finely chopped. One-third cup of scallions, sliced and one head of iceberg lettuce.

To make the sauce, combine the water, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, sriracha, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar, and scallions and stir. Set 1/2 cup of the sauce aside.

If you choose to go the tofu route, crumble the tofu in the marinade, cover and refrigerate for one hour.

In a medium wok or skillet over medium heat, add the sesame oil and the onion and cook for three minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook for about five minutes, or until the mushrooms are tender.

Again, if you are using the tofu, add it to the pan and cook until the majority of the marinade cooks off. Add the water chestnuts and scallions. Pour in the reserved sauce. Toss to coat and cook until the just heated through. Transfer the tofu mixture to a medium bowl.

If you are going the ground beef route, you would do exactly as we mentioned above with the marinade.

Slice the core off the head of lettuce and separate into individual leaves. This recipe is from Buzzfeed Tasty. The recipe calls for rice noodles, that you can fry with canola oil in a separate frying pan, we couldn’t find it, but it was mainly used as a garnish.

What we realized with tonight’s dish is that all of that work and a bit of chaos can still put out a great dish. We also realized that in a year since we started this, we’re getting a lot better at the choices we’re making for the dishes we’re cooking.

Until next week!