Garlic...it's not just for warding off Vampires!

Apparently, there are those who think that garlic will ward off Vampires. In this house, we know better. But we have all sorts of super secret intel on vampires around here, well, just once particular group of sparkly vampires... but I digress.

Garlic. It's what's for dinner most nights. The weeone loves it as much as I do, so we use it a lot and in almost everything. I will say it hasn't made it's way into cakes or muffins, but I fear it's just a matter of time. Will someone come have an intervention with me if I post about garlic cookies or a garlic chocolate cake? K. Thanks.

I had some flank steak and the weeone said Friday night is a good night for Chinese (it's like she's my kid or something). So our Garlic Beef Two Ways was born.

I started out with about a 1 pound flank steak. I sliced it against the grain in about 1/2 inch strips and trimmed so they were no more than about 2 1/2 or 3 inches long.

Then onto the sauce. I sliced green onions....

...while the weeone combined soy sauce, a bit of sugar, dark sesame oil, and tons of minced garlic. The green onions were added to the sauce and then poured over the cut flank steak. We prepped this early so we put it in a storage container and stashed it in the fridge for a while.

When tummies started rumbling, the weeone took to cooking some rice (she's now rice proficient) and separating red leaf lettuce for me.

Meanwhile, I heated some oil in a cast iron skillet. I don't have a wok. I used to, but when you live in a 1940's cottage, space is valuable and I found I didn't use the wok often enough to warrant storing it. I'm sure a Chinese food chef would argue it's necessary, but, well...I don't lose arguements often, so I'll just do it my way, thanks!

In went the beef and sauce, and I stirfried it for about 4-5 minutes. I decided to throw in some shredded carrots near the end just because I had them and orange is a pretty color. I know. I'm easily distracted by shiny objects. I can't help it.

The finished product? Well the weeone is lettuce-free - a bed of rice with garlic beef...and the big clothespin-like cheater chopsticks. ;D

My way? Red leaf lettuce topped with a bit of rice then the beef mixture. Colorful, tasty, perfect.

Garlic Beef - 2 Ways

Serves 4

3/4 pound flank steak

1/2 cup green onions, sliced

2 1/2 Tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce

1 1/4 Tbsp sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp minced garlic

1 1/2 tsp dark sesame oil

Canola Oil for stirfrying

4 cups cooked white rice

16 leaves Red Leaf lettuce

Cut the flank steak across the grain, at 1/2 inch intervals. Combine the steak slices with the green onions, soy sauce, sugar, garlic, and sesame oil. In a cast iron skillet or wok, heat a tablespoon of canola oil. Stirfry steak mixture 2-4 minutes or until meat is cooked through. Add 1/4 cup rice, 3 slices of steak plus sauce to a leaf of lettuce and roll up to serve.

Serving Size - 4 filled leaves

Cal: 498, Fat: 14.8 (sat. 2.7g, mono 6.8g, poly 3.3g), Protein: 25.2g, Carb 62.2g, Fiber: 3.2g, Chol: 28mg, Iron: 8.7mg, Sodium: 581mg, Calc: 88mg