Asian Inspired Cucumber Salad

We are a family of salad lovers. I know I've said it before, but I'm truly blessed with children who are not picky and always willing to give something new a try. They also adore their "greens" and a meal at our house would not be complete without a salad or vegetable along with dinner. Sure they all have their favorites, but even some of the less liked vegetables get eaten. They are all in agreement though when it comes to cucumbers; every single one of my kids loves them. They enjoy them when tucked into their lunchboxes with a little bit of light ranch dressing, but also love cucumbers with abundance when included in any kind of salad. 

My husband brought home two gorgeous looking English cucumbers a couple of days ago and after snacking on one, I still had one leftover to make a salad. I was looking for an Asian inspired recipe since I was preparing a Thai meal that evening. Checking the inventory of my fridge I also found carrots, radishes and red onion and figured all of them would fit perfectly into a salad. I found a basic recipe on Savory Sweet Life and decided to give it a go. This salad comes together quickly, it's the cutting of the carrots and radishes into matchsticks which will take you the longest. Once all the vegetables are cut, they are combined with the dressing. The vinaigrette is a simple mixture of rice vinegar, sugar (which I reduced from the original), chili garlic sauce and salt. The dressing is added to the vegetables and then everything is refrigerated for a couple of hours. I added two teaspoons of the chili garlic sauce and found it a sufficient heat level, but feel free to add more or less to taste.

This salad turned out great. The kids and us adults really enjoyed this great mix of sweet and sour along with the crunch of the vegetables. This is definitely a keeper and lends itself to so many different meals. I especially loved this salad since it is very light and with no oil in the vinaigrette it is also not too shabby on your waistline and boy, don't we all know that the bathing suit season is approaching!

Asian Inspired Cucumber Salad

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 English cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced (a mandolin works great)

1 large carrot, peeled and matchstick-julienned

4 radishes, matchstick-julienned

1/4 red onion, thinly sliced

1/2 cup rice vinegar

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation:

In a microwavable bowl add rice vinegar, sugar, chili garlic sauce, and salt. Heat the bowl in the microwave for 45 seconds. Stir the vinaigrette until the sugar is completely dissolved. In a medium size bowl add the sliced cucumbers, carrots, radishes, and red onion. Pour vinaigrette over the cucumber mixture and toss. Cool in the refrigerator for 1 hour before serving.

Slightly adapted from: Savory Sweet Life 

Sirloin Steak Stir-Fry

This week has been hectic. I'm expecting guests starting Friday and will be having house guests for the next several weeks. I'm more than excited about this especially since they are some of my favorite people in the whole world. So, besides getting ready to make our home as comfortable as possible for our visitors, we've had early releases, parent teacher conferences, and the start of soccer season for our youngest. In case you are wondering where I'm going with this, it is that dinners need to be quick during busy times while also being fairly nutritious and the family has to approve of them as always.

This is how I found the recipe for this Stir-Fry. Most of the components can be prepared ahead of time, and putting everything together literally takes only 20 minutes, or until your rice is cooked. This is another Cuisine at Home dish that has won everyone in our home over. It is also an extremely versatile dish. I'm thinking that pretty much any vegetable would work in this. I could see this meal prepared  with broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms etc. There are so many options to customize it to your families taste. This recipe makes 6 servings but my kids were fighting over every last scrap in the pan, so there was nothing left over.

The recipe starts by making the sauce. Store bought hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, honey and pineapple juice along with ginger, garlic and salt get mixed together and reduced to about half the amount on the stove. This is something that could easily be done ahead of time and all you would have to do is re-heat it when ready to serve. The sirloin steak gets sliced thinly, then placed in a bowl for a quick toss with some brown sugar,  canola oil and a little kick from red pepper flakes. The vegetables are: shelled edamame, red pepper and scallions, but like I mentioned above, use whatever suits your taste. The vegetables are another component that can easily be cut up ahead of time and refrigerated to alleviate dinner time rush. The marinated steak gets a quick sear in a hot pan for a few minutes, the vegetables are added and quickly sauteed without overcooking them because you still want a bit of crunch. Final touches include a tablespoon of sesame oil and sesame seeds. The stir fry is served over rice and the sauce is drizzled over the top to everyone's liking, this way you can add as much or as little of the sauce as you desire.

A fantastic, quick, healthy dish! I was hoping for leftovers, but my kids obviously had different plans for sure. This is certainly a meal that fits a busy lifestyle and since I will be fairly busy in the next few weeks stay tuned for more "on the fly" dinner ideas. It is certainly not necessary to go the take out route when you can fix a meal this delicious in just about the same time it would take you to order it. This recipe got the thumbs up all the way around and I hope you'll give it a try as well!

Sirloin Steak Stir-Fry

(adapted from Cuisine at Home)

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 (8 ounce) jar hoisin sauce
1 cup rice vinegar
1 (6 ounce) can pineapple juice
1/2 cup honey
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 pounds sirloin steak, trimmed and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2  red bell peppers, thinly sliced
1/2 cup scallions, thinly sliced
1 cup frozen shelled edamame, thawed
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
Toasted sesame seeds
Cooked rice

Preparation:

Combine hoisin, vinegar, pineapple juice, honey, garlic, ginger, and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat and reduce to 1 1/2 cups, about 15 minutes.

Toss together sirloin, sugar, canola oil, and pepper flakes in a bowl to coat sirloin. Heat a large nonstick skillet over high heat, then stir-fry beef until browned, about 3 minutes.

Add bell pepper, scallion, and edamame; stir-fry a couple of minutes. Take off the heat and stir in the sesame oil.

Serve stir-fry with rice and prepared sauce on the side, then garnish with sesame seeds.

Asian Slaw

I like cabbage - I always have, even as a little girl. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I grew up in Germany and I was always exposed to Sauerkraut from a young age. Or, maybe it was because my mom always had red and white cabbage in her garden and with that, there was never a lack of cabbage dishes especially in the winter months. Whatever the reason though I still love it to this day and I'm glad the rest of my family shares my love.

One of my favorite side dishes for a BBQ meal is Coleslaw. Unfortunately creamy coleslaw isn't always the perfect accompaniment. A couple of weeks ago it was one of those occasions. We had decided on a Korean BBQ for dinner. Deliciously marinated chicken, short ribs and flank steak along with rice which was the obvious choice but I wasn't sure what else to serve. I had made an Asian Cucumber Salad before that was well received but a quick look in the fridge and I saw that I was out of red onions and cucumbers. After further investigation of my vegetable drawer I decided on making an Asian Slaw.

A lot of recipes online for Asian Slaw called for Nappa Cabbage and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with Nappa Cabbage (in fact we really like it) it wasn't what I was going for. After looking at several recipes I took a little bit of this and little bit of that out of all of them and came up with my own version containing a bag of coleslaw mix along with bell peppers, serrano chillies, green onions, cilantro and a fantastic dressing which turned this into a show stopper worthy of any Asian meal.

We really enjoyed this slaw, so if this inspired you as well then give it a try at your next BBQ or Potluck.

Asian Slaw

~serves 6~

(Print this Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1/2 cup rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 lime, juiced

1 1/2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1/4 cup peanut butter

1 bag coleslaw mix with carrots

1 red bell pepper, julienne fine

2 serrano chiles, minced fine

3 green onions, cut on the bias, all of white part and half of the green

2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped

Sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:

In a small bowl, or food processor combine ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, honey, oil, and peanut butter.  In a large bowl combine all the other ingredients and the toss with dressing. Sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired.