Why Order Out when You Can Easily Cook It In Your Own Kitchen - Fabulous Chinese Pepper Steak

(Chinese) Pepper Steak

We have been out of town on vacation and I didn't have a chance to do much grocery shopping. When faced with what to make for dinner, I thought, let's order out.  My husband loves Chinese food, so I thought okay, that's what we'll do.  Then I thought, I'm tired of eating out...in fact, I even took my crock pot to our time share because I hate to eat out all the time. Why order out, when you can make the same food in a short period of time in your own kitchen.  I did a fast run to the grocery store for some flank steak and some peppers, and in less than an hour had the most delicious Pepper Steak ready to be placed on the table.  You can do it too, at half the cost of takeout!  Give it a try. The secret is in the prep work!

I was in a little bit of a hurry so this is not in my usual format, so bear with me...but it's all here and so easy to do. The complete recipe is at the bottom of the post. I had already done some of the prep work when I started to take pictures - sorry about that :(

Here are some of the things you will need.  I used a bag of Success Rice 

as well, because I was lazy and in a hurry...

Peel and slice the onions into rings; set aside. 

Wash and cut the peppers into rings; set aside. I added the orange pepper into the recipe 

because I felt it could use another pepper. You can use any color peppers that you want to, 

but I think the recipe needs 4 peppers.

Take 9 tablespoons of the soy sauce and put it into a large plastic container for the marinade. Crush 4 cloves of the garlic, and add to the soy sauce. Add 1 tablespoon of the rice wine vinegar, 3 tablespoon of sherry, and 3 tablespoons of the brown sugar, ginger, and cornstarch.  Mix well.  Add the meat, and stir to coat thoroughly.  Let marinade about 1 hour or so.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, place the remaining 9 tablespoons of soy sauce, the remaining tablespoon of rice wine vinegar, remaining 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, 

remaining 3 tablespoons of sherry, and the remaining 3 whole cloves of garlic and set aside.

In a very large sauté pan or wok, heat about 2 teaspoons of the sesame oil 

I just gave it a few turns around the pan - you don't want to much or it can be overpowering

with about 2-3 tablespoons of the vegetable oil.  

You don't even need to coat the whole pan - just enough to get the onions started.

Add the onions and cook until they start to soften. 

Sprinkle with the teaspoon of granulated sugar, 

and a little garlic salt to taste.

Continue cooking until they begin to caramelize and turn a nice rich brown. 

Remove to a plate and set aside.

 In the same pan, add all the peppers, 

sprinkle with a little garlic salt if desired, 

and sauté until they are softened and browned slightly on the exterior sides.

 Remove from the heat, and set aside.

Place about half of the meat into the same pan and 

stir fry quickly until they are nicely browned, 

this will take about 4-5 minutes, 

remove from the heat. 

Continue cooking the remaining meat until it is the same way. 

Remove the garlic from the soy sauce mix.

Cook your rice.

Add the rest of the meat back to the pan, 

then add the peppers and onions back into the pan. 

Add any of the remaining marinade mix, 

and the soy sauce mixture that you set aside earlier.  

Cook for a few minutes to reheat everything and stir well to get everything coated with the sauce.  

The rice is almost ready.  I toss it with about 2 tablespoons of

unsalted butter before serving.

Toss in the peanuts, (I add them because I

love Chicken and peanuts and thought, "Why Not?"

It was a great addition! You don't like peanuts, leave them out.

 and stir once again to coat the peanuts.  

Confucius say "Better than any Chinese Restaurant 

Pepper Steak and you can actually see the meat."

 Serve over white rice. 

Yummy, I am salivating already....

By the way, don't judge the serving size by my plate, the

others heaped it all over the dish - gastric bypass has a way 

of slowing you down...

Delish!

Pepper Steak (Pepper and Onion Stir Fry)

Elise Feiner

2 – 2 ½ pound flank steak – have the butcher cut it into thin strips for stir fry or cut it yourself, against the grain into small thin pieces

2 large sweet onions, peeled and cut into circles

1 green pepper, cut into rings, seeds removed

1 red pepper, cut into rings, seeds removed

1 yellow pepper, cut into rings, seeds removed

1 orange pepper, cut into rings, seeds removed

7 large cloves of garlic, divided

18 tablespoons of soy sauce, divided

2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, divided

6 tablespoons sherry, divided

6 tablespoons (brownulated if possible) brown sugar, divided

2-3 teaspoons ground ginger

¼ cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

Garlic salt to taste

Sesame Oil – about 2 teaspoons

Vegetable oil – about 2-3 tablespoons

¼ - ½ cup dry roasted peanuts, optional

Peel and slice the onions into rings; set aside. Wash and cut the peppers into rings; set aside. I added the orange pepper into the recipe because I felt it could use another pepper. You can use any color peppers that you want to, but I think the recipe needs 4 peppers.

Take 9 tablespoons of the soy sauce and put it into a large plastic container for the marinade. Crush 4 cloves of the garlic, and add to the soy sauce. Add 1 tablespoon of the rice wine vinegar, 3 tablespoon of sherry, and 3 tablespoons of the brown sugar, ginger, and cornstarch.  Mix well.  Add the meat, and stir to coat thoroughly.  Let marinade about 1 hour or so.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, place the remaining 9 tablespoons of soy sauce, remaining tablespoon of rice wine vinegar, remaining 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, remaining 3 tablespoons of sherry, and the remaining 3 whole cloves of garlic and set aside.

In a very large sauté pan or wok, heat about 2 teaspoons of the sesame oil with about 2-3 tablespoons of the vegetable oil.  Add the onions and cook until they start to soften. Sprinkle with the teaspoon of granulated sugar, and a little garlic salt to taste.

Continue cooking until they begin to caramelize and turn a nice rich brown. Remove to a plate and set aside.  In the same pan, add all the peppers, sprinkle with a little garlic salt if desired, and sauté until they are softened and browned slightly on the exterior sides. Remove from the heat, and set aside.

Place about half of the meat into the same pan and stir fry quickly until they are nicely browned, this will take about 4-5 minutes, remove from the heat. Continue cooking the remaining meat until it is the same way.  Add the rest of the meat, then add the peppers and onions back into the pan.  Remove the whole cloves of garlic from the marinade mix. Add any of the remaining marinade mix, and the soy sauce mixture that you set aside earlier.  Cook for a few minutes to reheat everything, and stir well to get everything coated with the sauce.  Toss in the peanuts, and stir once again to coat the peanuts.  Serve over white rice. 

Serves 3-4

Note: As with most of my recipes, I recommend doing all your prep work in advance.  It makes it so much easy to put the dish together when everything is cut and prepped and right at your fingertips. This is a very quick meal to make once all the prep work is done.

The soy sauce is quite salty, so you may want to use just a little garlic salt, but I think the peppers and onions always need a little salt when sautéing.  I put just a tiny bit of unsalted butter when preparing my rice for this dish and add nothing else to the rice so it picks up the soy sauce, and helps decrease the saltiness of the soy sauce.  You can also use low sodium soy sauce if you prefer.

Disaster Pot Pie

I decided to clean out my refrigerator yesterday, and there was the remains on the beer can chicken, and a package of pie crusts...I thought I would throw together a quick chicken pot pie.

This is what I learned, never cook when you are tired, pay attention when you are cooking, wear your glasses, especially if you are a MAB (middle-aged broad) and never leave the kitchen for a minute.

Everything started out well, until I decided to take someone else's advice (I read somewhere on the internet that you should brush the pie crust bottom with egg white and bake for 2-3 minutes before putting a filling in it (of course, they neglected to say put pie weights in it first, and I was tired from this weeks pierogie party (more on that coming) and not paying attention. I put it in the oven, and I don't even know what made me check it, almost immediately and there it was , shrinking away!!!!! I immediately pulled it out of the oven and tried to push it back up the sides of the pie plate. I knew it was still usable, but I thought if I had another crust in the freezer, I would use that instead.

The sauce was finished and I had taken out the bowl I was going to use to combine everything and put it in the sink. I ran down to the freezer to find another pie crust, but alas, there was none. Ran back up to the kitchen and said, "The heck with it, (that's not exactly what I said) and decided to go with it. I start to pour the sauce mixture into the white mixing bowl and something sounds wrong...I mean really wrong!!!

Apparently, in my two minute absence, my housekeeper must have come into the kitchen and used the sink for something, and the bowl had water in it. Without my glasses on, and because I wasn't paying attention (I had just put the damn bowl there in the first place, lol) I just poured the sauce in. So, now, I was down about 1 1/2 cups of sauce, but the show must go on. I finished the filling, poured it in the shell and baked it.

You know what, it looked pretty good, and tasted pretty good too, lol...so the moral is, you never know. Go with the flow, I just had a piece of it for lunch again today and it was delicious, a little drier than I would have liked, but what are you going to do???

The reason I say have an extra box of pie crusts on hand, is that I think if I had all the liquid that was supposed to be in the recipe, (I used a deep 10 inch pie-plate) you could probably, easily get two (9-inch) pot pies out of the filling.

Chicken Pot PieElise Feiner

3-4 cups cooked chicken cubed
½ bag (16 ounce) baby carrots
1 small can (8 ounce) green peas, drained
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 stick butter
1 medium onion, chopped
3-4 small potatoes, peeled and cubed
2/3 cup Wondra flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon McCormicks Season All Seasoned Salt
1 (32 ounce) box or can College Inn chicken broth
1 1/3 cups milk
2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts (have 2 extra in reserve)
1 egg, separated

Preheat oven to 400° F. In a saucepan, combine carrots, celery, and potatoes. Add water to cover and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and set aside. Place the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, cook onions until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, celery salt, garlic salt, and seasoned salt. Slowly stir in chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside. If the sauce doesn’t seem thick enough, take an additional tablespoon of Wondra and thin it in a little cold water, so it is watery (I use a little kitchen cup to do this) and rapidly whisk it in to the sauce. Put the sauce in a large bowl. Add the vegetables, and the chicken, mix well. Add in the peas, and stir gently to combine. Brush the bottom pie crust with the beaten egg white. Place the mixture in bottom pie crust. Cover with top crust, seal and crimp the edges. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape. Brush with the egg yolk that has been beaten with a little water. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 55 minutes (check after 20 minutes, if getting too brown, cover with a piece of aluminum foil) or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Here is what you will need for this recipe:


As usual, let's get all the prep work done ahead, so we can just assemble esily when the time comes. Remember, as you use something, if yo won't need it again, put it away, makes clean-up nice and easy!

Spray your pie pan with PAM


Separate the egg white


and egg yolk (use a separator, use an eggshell,
use your fingers, whatever is easiest for you)


Beat the egg white


until frothy


Beat the egg yolk
Add about 1/2 an egg shell full
of water to the yolk


and beat again


Cube your chicken (you can also buy a
cooked chicken in the
grocery to use to make the pot pie)
if you haven't done that already, if I
am not being lazy, I sometimes do it before
I put away the leftovers so I can make
chicken salad


Peel the potatoes


Cut in half


turn 90 degrees and cut in half again


cut into cubes



cut off the tops of the celery


and bottoms


wash the celery


cut into thin slices (don't dice it small)


Put the carrots in a dish


Cut in half or thirds
by the way, if you only have
large carrots, that's fine too,
peel them, quarter them and then slice them


Peel the onion,



cut in half

Cut in thin slices


Turn 90 degrees and slice again


Cut into a small dice,


set aside


Place the carrots in a pot
add the celery


and the potatoes


Fill the pot with water


to cover the vegetables


Cover and bring to a boil )
Obviously I removed the cover to show you :)


boil for 15 minutes (don't forget to
set your timer once it comes to a boil)
When the timer goes off, strain and set aside


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.


Measure out your Wondra Flour, (I love Wondra
to thicken and make sauces, it's so fine)
set aside


Place the butter in a large skillet


Melt the butter
add the onions


saute until translucent
add the salt


seasoned salt


garlic salt


pepper


celery salt


stir well


add the flour

stir quickly to blend into
onion mixture


add the broth to the onion/flour mix


whisk quickly to incorporate the flour mixture or you will get lumps

add the milk


whisk well again

Bring to a boil to thicken, and turn off the heat


If you think it needs to be a little
thicken add a little Wondra (about a tablespoon, mixed
in cold water (I use a kitchen cup)

Whisk in quickly, the heat will thicken it, but continue to whisk
so you don't get lumps

Taste the sauce and reseason with salt
and/or pepper
if desired

Place one of the pie crusts into the pie place


Brush with the egg white
We are not, I repeat, not going to bake the crust
when you make it

Pour the sauce into a mixing bowl
(note the water in the bottom of the bowl,
am I dumb or what!!!
I will wear my glasses,
I will wear my glasses 100 x's)

Do not pour your sauce into the water, lol


Add in the chicken


and the vegetables


Blend well


Open the peas


Drain the liquid


Add the peas (I used half a can because
I didn't have a small can)
No need to cook or heat them, they will
cook in the oven as the pie bakes


Blend gently


Place mixture into the pie
shell that you didn't ruin :)

Put the top crust on


Now, if I hadn't ruined the bottom crust
I would have crimped the crust
so I will show you from another pie I did
how it should look

(just pinch between your finger
you can look at the Cuban Pie Recipe
to see it more clearly)



Make some slits (with a small, sharp, knife) in the crust


Brush on the egg yolk


Place some tin foil on the shelf
below because pot pies are notorious
for overflowing (easy clean-up :)


Bake in 400 degree oven for 40-55 minutes
(Check after 20 minutes and cover with
foil if getting too brown)
until golden brown and filling is boiling


Let it sit about 10-15 minutes before cutting


Enjoy...it really was good, if it had
had all the sauce, it would have been fabulous!!!