Oriental Beef and Noodles

16 ounces broccoli stir-fry vegetables
2 pounds beef stew meat
12 ounces sesame ginger stir-fry sauce
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper, optional
3 ounces ramen noodles, broken

Place frozen vegetables in a 3 1/2 - 4 quart slow cooker. Top with meat, In a medium bowl, combine stir-fry sauce, water, and red pepper. Pour over meat and vegetables in cooker.

Cover and cook on low heat setting for 9-10 hours or on high heat setting for 4 1/2-5 hours. Discard spice packet from noodles [or save it for another use]. Stir noodles into meat mixture in slow cooker. Cover and let stand 10 minutes. Stir before serving.


For the life of me I could not find the sesame ginger stir-fry sauce. So I used Kikkoman's plain stir-fry sauce. Delicious. I would happily endorse Kikkoman's products. I've used the soy sauce, and the sweet and sour sauce, and now the stir-fry sauce. Very excellent. I like more sauce so I used two bottles that makes 24 ounces. No red pepper, and I serve it with rice instead of using the noodles.

It was excellent.

I believe though that I would cook the meat and add the vegetables in the last hour of cooking. If you use low heat turn it on high when adding the defrosted veggies. - there was nothing left of the broccoli by the time we were ready to eat.

Enchiladas / Hamburgers

I have been ill so I did not post yesterday. The Mickie Stew was very good. I have not had it for quite some time and it was as good as I remembered. He liked it.

Last night we had Beef Enchiladas. They were delicious, and between us we ate the whole pan. Not bad for a sick person I must say. But, I've been looking forward to these for the whole week.

Tonight we are having hamburgers. [He's cooking]

Enchilada Sauce:

2 cups chicken broth
4 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin [the original only called for 1 tsp.]
2 teaspoons garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 pinch cinnamon
1/3 teaspoon sugar
5 tablespoons cold water [I added 3 more of chicken broth to create a pouring consistency]
5 tablespoons white flour

Combine all ingredients, except flour and water. Boil for 3 minutes, whisking often. Combine flour and water [and chicken broth]. Very slowly pour into sauce while whisking. [the original just didn't look like it would pour right, so I thinned it a little to make it pour slowly.] Cook 1 minutes, whisking constantly. Take off heat.

For the meat I simply used a meat mixture using Mexican herb blend herbs. You could probably use taco meat. 2 pounds.

To soften the corn tortillas you either dip them into the hot sauce; but it's thick and you will have to drain some off of the tortilla. Or you an dip them in and out of hot oil until the are soft but not fried.

Put a thin layer of enchilada sauce in the bottom of the saucepan. Fill and roll corn tortillas and place seam side down in pan. Once all meat mixture is used and enchiladas are made, pour sauce over the top, then cover with cheese. Bake at 400 degrees until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly.


Hamburgers [His way]

His hamburgers are really simple. They are small though and you may want to use more meat. This however is just about right for the two of us.

1 pound hamburger
seasoned salt

Sprinkle hamburger with seasoned salt [he uses a lot]. Form into 4 patties, and fry in skillet as normal.