P.F. Chan's Mongolian Beef

My family LOVES P.F. Chang's so I can't wait to see if they like this recipe or not.

P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef
serves 4, prep 45 min, cook 10 min, adapted from KSN TV



2 lbs flank or skirt steak

1/4 cup corn starch

2 tsp vegetable or peanut oil

1 tsp fresh ginger, minced

1 tbsp garlic, minced

1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce

1/2 cup water
1/2-3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup vegetable or peanut oil
8 oz button mushrooms, quartered if large
1 bunch green onions, green part only, cut in half




Trim all fat and silver skin from meat. Lay steaks out horizontally on the cutting board. The grain in running vertically. Make several vertical cuts to slice the slab into manageable sized pieces. Then cut the meat opposite the grain (horizontal) into two bite-sized pieces. Cut with your blade at a 45° angles to get wide diagonal slices.

Dust steak pieces lightly in cornstarch and set aside while preparing the sauce.
In a small sauce pan heat oil over medium high heat. Add ginger and garlic.Add soy sauce and water to the ginger and garlic before it browns. Add brown sugar and whisk until dissolved. Bring sauce to a boil and simmer about 10 minutes or until slightly reduced and thickened. Remove from the heat and reserve.

In a large skillet or wok heat 1 cup oil over medium high heat.Working in batches, add the steak a few at a time to the hot oil. Cook about 1 minute without touching the
meat then flip each piece and cook 1 minute more. Remove meat while still rare inside, and continue with next batch. Once all meat is browned, pour off oil and wipe out skillet.

Heat skillet over high heat and add mushrooms.Cook without stirring a couple of minutes or until mushrooms are slightly softened and browned. Reserve.

Add steak to the hot pan and cook about 1 minute. Add sauce to the pan and simmer and toss meat and sauce about 1 minute. Add mushrooms and green onions. Toss with steak and sauce and heat 1 minute.
Use tongs to remove meat and veggies to a serving dish, leaving excess sauce in the pan. Serve over rice.

Be sure to use a very light dusting of cornstarch when you bread the steak pieces. If there is too much cornstarch you will get a Swiss steak texture instead of a good sear.

This looks like a lot of steps, and it is, but it is really not hard and not even that lengthy of a process. You basically cut and bread the meat, make the sauce, fry the meat, cook the mushrooms, then toss it all in the sauce and serve.

I'm sharing this yummy recipe over at a few of my favorite blogs!!

October 2011 Meal Planner

Sooooo I've worked all morning putting together this cute calendar for this months meal plan and wouldn't you know I can't get it to post right. O well maybe next month. Hope you enjoy this months meals!!
October 2011
1st-P.F. Chang’s Mongolian Beef          
2nd-Loaded Baked Potato Soup  

3rd-Taco Salad                                 
4th-Crockpot Smokey Honey Barbecued Chicken sandwiches

5th -Creamy Chicken Enchiladas 

6th-Leftovers

7th-Calzone Rings

8th-Chicken Salad sandwiches

9th-Rolled Up Chicken Dinner

10th-Cowboy Stew

11th-Stuffed Bell Peppers
12th-Double Dave’s (Eating out)

13th-Ham and Cheese Sliders

14th-Leftovers

15th-Grilled Hamburgers with Baked beans

16th-Homemade Chicken and Dumplings

17th-Crockpot Shredded beef tacos
18th-Navajo Tacos

19th-Crockpot Meal Green Chili Burros

20th-Breakfast for Dinner

21st-Crockpot Black bean soup

22nd-Fajita’s

23rd- Restaurant Style Carne Asada Soft Tacos with Guacamole and Corn

24th-Grilled chicken and bacon spinach salad

25th-Crockpot Orange Chicken

26th-Leftovers

27th-Sub sandwiches

28th-Grilled Cubed steak rollups

29th-Chili Beans with Corn bread and  Mac-n-cheese

30th-Grilled Pizza

31st-Crock-pot Ravioli Casserole

I will be adding all of the recipes soon

-Kristina-

FALL IS HERE

Today is officially the first day of FALL....... I LOVE this time of year, however my family is usually summer people. We love the long days, barbequing outside with Friends and Family, camping, fishing and hanging out at the lake. But I must say, I have NEVER been so ready to see some cooler weather. With tempeatures here in Texas reaching heighs of 112 F, the drought and the wildfires close to my home.

Here is a picture from my boys school, you can see the massive wildfires just miles from our home. Pretty darn scary!!

The next day on our way home from a friends house we saw this huge plane flying really low. My husband and I thought it was fixing to crash but come to find out it was helping to put out another wildfire that had started in the back of a neighboorhood right down the road from us.

This was the scariest thing I've ever seen we had wildfires buring on both sides of us just a few miles away. We are SO SO blessed that they were able put the fires out before making its way to our home. Thanks to all of the Firefighters that put their lives on the line to help save others. My heart goes out to the families that lost their homes due to the wildfires in the Texas Hill Country and Magnolia area. Here are a few pictures I found on the internet of those wildfires.

God Bless

-Kristina

Wow where did the time go

I'm such a bad blogger it's been forever since I've posted a blog. My life is crazy with an 11 almost 12 year old, 8 almost 9 year old twins, a husband, a new puppy and a full time job (but wouldn't have it any other way).... I have made myself a promise that I will post at least one blog a week, since I really love blogging (I know it's hard to tell) but I Do!!!... I find so much joy in sitting down and showing others what I've created and hope to inspire others to create as well. I love it when we have family and friends over and they ask where did you get that and I can say "I made that", such a great feeling.

I recently have found joy in blog hopping and finding recipes of all sorts easy ones, hard ones, crockpot ones and healthy ones. I will be sharing all of the wonderful recipes that I find, and even some of my Grandmothers with you. I've also started working on organizing my life a little. I have found that if I sit down at the end of each month and put together a calendar of meals for the month coming up that my life is a little less hectic, not to mention we are saving money by not eating out (eating out is so convenient, especially when you have no idea what you are going to cook). What I have started doing is going grocery shopping every Sunday for the week coming up. I have noticed that by doing so I spend a lot less at the grocery store and only buy what I need for that week. This one little change has made a huge difference, I'm not as stressed out, I don't spend as much at the grocery store and I'm always prepared plus my kids love to look at it to see what's for dinner. It's been a blessing around our home. I will post the calendar and recipes at the beginning of each month. Hope you enjoy!!

That's all for now.

-Kristina

Homecoming in ~ Texas

Well, it’s that time of year again, Football season In TEXAS and Homecomings. Football in Texas is a BIG deal and especially in a small town and then you have Homecoming Mums. The Homecoming Mum is an integral part of Texas Homecoming traditions. And so you non-Texans may be asking, "What's a Homecoming Mum?"

My own explanation was lacking, so I found this article:

Homecoming Mums: The Tradition

Chrysanthemums have long been the quintessential Fall flower, so it's not surprising that they quickly became associated with the quintessential Fall sport - football. In the earliest pictures of college football games, you can pick out the mum corsages worn by the young women in the stands.

Since everything grows big in Texas, it's also not surprising that the Lone Star State is credited with developing the more elaborate corsages known as homecoming mums.

So now that you Non-Texans know a little bit about a Homecoming mum, I thought that I would share pictures of my daughter’s homecoming mum that I made her. My daughter is now in intermediate school and they all wear homecoming mums to support the high school Football team. So of course I had to make her one. Since she is only in intermediate school I made it smaller then I would of if she was in high school.

I love the memories that I now have from my Homecoming experiences and hope that she will too!

XOXO,

The Traviling Junkies

Here's what I've been up to Lately

So what have you been up to ~ here’s what I’ve been up to:

I have been really busy lately making Hair bows from orders I’ve received off of my website (Thank YOU GOD :) ) I thought I would share some pictures of some I just finished for a little girls soccer team in California. I love the way that they turned out.



So what do you think!!


I will have a tutorial up soon of a new fall project I just completed.


XOXO,
The Traveling Junkies

I’m In LOVE … I just LOVE LOVE Burlap..

It’s the hottest thing right now since toilet paper.. .. I have seen so many wonderful projects floating all over the internet using Burlap but when I saw this tutorial over at http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/ I KNEW I had to make one. I love her blog she has some of the coolest projects!!! Check her out....

Fall is my favorite time of year, the cool weather (it is greatly appreciated after a long hot summer here in Texas) the leaves changing colors and all of the fall decorations. It’s that time to start decorating for fall :) My friends laugh at me because I’ve already got all of my fall decorations hung up and it’s only September (whatever). I decided to make my table runner using fall colors. Wal-mart carries some really neat fabric that is precut into strips with several different patterns in each set. I’m not a sewer at all I wish I was but the simple fact is I’M NOT so if I can do this anyone can. It’s very easy (ooo how I Love easy).

Hopefully I will have more fall projects to share with ya’ll soon. In between my twins playing football my daughter cheerleading my website and o yeah my full time job…..


For this project you will need:
Burlap (of course)
Sewing machine
Several different fabrics of your choice
Scissors
Trim

First-

Measure your burlap to the length you want it and then cut it leaving about 1" to allow for a seam. I find it easier to iron my seam down before I sew it. Once you have ironed your seam you are now ready to sew it down.

Now take your fabric and cut them into about 4" strips . Depending on the length you chose depends on how many strips you will need. I made mine big enough to go the whole length of my table, some people just like it to go in the middle of the table it's totally up to you. So for mine I did 8 rows of ruffles. Once you have cut all of your strips you will need to sew a seam down each side.

Now on to making ruffles! There are several ways to make ruffles if you are lucky you have a ruffle maker that attaches to your sewing machine but if you are like me you have to make them yourself. Here is how I make them. I sew a very loose stitch right down the middle of each strip of fabric, DO NOT BACK STITCH.... make sure to leave plenty of thread on the end once you have sewed down the middle. Take the top thread and pull it, you will see it start to make a ruffle (yea). I did not get a picture of me making a ruffle but I did find this picture on google (I hope they don't mind I borrowed it)

(this will kind of give you an idea at what your strips of fabric should look like)

Once you have all of your ruffles made you now need to pin them onto your burlap and then sew them down.

Now take your trim and sew it around the border of your table runner and you are all done!!!!

I told you it was easy!!!!!!!! Here is my finished table runner......

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Have a blessed day!

XOXO

The Traveling Junkies

I will be sharing this tutorial at these awesome Blogs.