Recipe: Beef stir-fry with Orange and Ginger

Here is another new recipe I tried today. I am definitely WAY over my goal of trying 2 new recipes per month! I really enjoyed this dish, and the best part is that it is fast and easy and requires minimal ingredients. I got a new cookbook last fall that is full of great meals for quick, weeknight dinners, aptly titled "Best Ever 30-Minute Dinners". I will definitely be trying more meals from this book in the future!


Beef Strips with Orange and Ginger

1lb lean beef rump, steak, fillet steak, or sirloin, cut into thin strips
grated rind and juice of 1 orange
1 Tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp. cornflour
1in piece of fresh ginger root, finely chopped
1 Tbsp sunflower oil
1 large carrot, cut into thin strips
2 scallions (green onions), thinly sliced

Place the beef strips in a bowl and sprinkle over the orange rind and juice. Marinate for 10 minutes or up to 30 minutes if possible.

Drain the liquid from the meat and set aside. Mix the meat with the soy sauce, cornflour and ginger, making sure the meat is evenly covered.

Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan and add the beef. Stir-fry for 1 minute until lightly colored. Add the carrot strips and stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes. Stir in the scallions and reserved liquid. Cook until sauce thickens, stirring. Serve hot with noodles or rice.

Pasta from scratch

One of the many fun new things I received for Christmas was a Kitchen Aid pasta roller set. I've been coveting this kit for quite a while, but had been putting the purchase on hold due to its relatively hefty price tag... there always seemed to be something else more important to purchase. But here it is... finally... and I couldn't wait to dive in and try my first batch of homemade pasta!

Kitchen Aid pasta roller set with flat roller,
and fettucini & spaghetti cutters

The kit comes with a few various recipes for making the pasta dough. As much as I wanted to try making spinach or whole wheat pasta, I figured I would start with the most basic recipe just to get the hang of the whole process before adding more complicated steps/ingredients. Turns out the process is quite easy and before I knew it, I had a nice little ball of pasta dough ready to feed into the first roller.

Ball of basic pasta dough

The dough gets divided up into 4 pieces, flattened slightly by hand, and then slowly fed through the flat roller on the lowest number setting which provides the widest roller. After kneading the dough through a few times, the roller width gets slowly decreased to make the pasta thinner and thinner until the desired thickness is reached, at which point it gets fed through the cutter of choice. Or if you are making lasagne noodles or ravioli (which I am really anxious to try!) then no cutting is required.

Cutting my pasta sheet into fettucini

And here they are... the final pasta "nests"! The pasta was dried before forming into nests. It can either be cooked immediately, refrigerated, or placed in plastic bags and frozen for up to 4 months. I froze most of what I made but save some for fresh pasta with homemade sausage sauce for dinner that night. It was delicious... less chewy than the store bought stuff, and much lighter in texture. Can't wait to try making more again soon!

Finished "nests" of fettucini