As a homeowner and husband, I’ve recently been forced to learn how to use a kitchen. Not that I have a problem with that. Cooking has always been something I’ve been interested in, but never bothered to pursue at any length. Prior to the last couple weeks, most of my food preparation skills points had been allotted to toast and Kraft Dinner. Also chocolate strawberry banana pancakes, that one time.
Now I’m branching out little by little, and I’m starting to learn things about making foods that are not associated mostly with single men. Nothing super facny so far, mostly just learning to not ruin the premade stuff that has a more complicated heating process than “microwave = win.” So yeah. Most of my accomplishments can be summed up now by “put stuff into boiling water and wait.”
But! Last week I did something a little more elaborate. And by that, I mean I put stuff in boiled water and pan-fried some beef. Aaah yeah. Here’s a picture of what I did.
I’m very proud of this dish. Not only because I found it edible, but because The Wife also really enjoyed it. So mission accomplished there. I guess I’m pretty happy that rice is so easy to cook too. I can’t think of any examples, but I seem to recall hearing many people over my life claim that rice is hard to get right. But I did it. On my first try. It’s as easy as reading the back of the box!
The beef, I went a little crazy on. I popped it up on the frying pan and tossed a little water and butter in there to give it a little smoothness. I’m sure there’s a term for this, but I have no idea what it is. I actually made this meal two days in a row, too. The second time around I dribbled a bit of soya sauce into the pan as well, in hopes that the beef would absorb the flavour, and then liberally sprinkled some ginger on top to add one final punch. Then I chopped up a few carrots and tossed them in so that the dish would contain some trace of vegetable.
When all was said and done, I globbed on a bunch of sweet & sour sauce, and mixed that baby up. You may think that I put too many flavours into this bad boy, but that’s not the case. Aside from the ginger, each flavour had its place and I can only describe the result as “tasty.” It certainly wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but it was far and away the best thing I’ve ever prepared on my own.