Thursday, April 25, 2013

Korean-Style Beef Bowl from Pampered Chef

I'm a big fan of stir fry style foods, mostly because they tend to be healthy, quick, and relatively easy to put together.  Cook up some meat, add some veggies, throw on a tasty sauce, put it all over some steamed rice, and often in less than 45 minutes (less if you plan ahead and cut everything up the day before). I usually end up doing some type of stir fry dinner once a week on average, and it usually tends to be chicken. But sometimes I mix it up.

Last year, I acquired a copy of the Pampered Chef 29 Minutes to Dinner recipe book, and have since bought the second and third volumes, and there's a pretty excellent recipe for a Korean-style beef bowl.  I gave it a whirl a while back.


I deviated a little bit from the recipe to accommodate the available ingredients, but that's one of the nice things about a stir fry dish - you can adjust to your likes and whatever happens to be in the fridge at the time.


Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Chocolate Stout Cake from Smitten Kitchen

I'd had my eye on a couple recipes for a chocolate stout cake for a while.  I wanted to make something like this for St. Patrick's Day, but the timing has never been right.  But this year, we ended up celebrating my cousin's birthday on St. Patrick's Day, so I whipped up this decadent treat for the occasion.


After perusing the different recipes I'd uncovered over the past couple years, I settled on the version from Smitten Kitchen.  From the reactions of everyone involved in tasting this cake, I think it's a keeper.

My husband particularly liked the ganache.