Mongolian Beef

Well this isn't about decorating but what isn't a home without a little home cookin.
I really like to cook, although I have days that I don't. BUT I would rather leave eating out to date nights and cook the rest of the week. On average I cook Breakfast 6 times a week and lunch every single day. I also cook dinner between 4-5 times per week.
Needless to say I run out of ideas for dinner from time to time...okay all the time and so I have been taking inspirations from some of my favorite restaurants and have been trying to recreate the meal. I found this tasty little recipe online. I have searched and searched but can't find the site where I originally found it (so I am sorry to whomever is out there that I can't link back to your recipe)
Anyway. It was AWESOME!
It is the recipe for Pei Wei or PF Changs Mongolian Beef. YuMMy!

As a sidenote, I served this over brown rice and used Tamari Soy Sauce instead of regular Soy Sauce. It has a milder not so salty taste that I prefer.

2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon ginger, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 lb flank steak
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 large green onions

Preparation:
Make the sauce by heating 2 tsp of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over med/low heat. Don't get the oil too hot. Add ginger and garlic to the pan and quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches. Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then raise the heat to about medium and boil the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Remove it from the heat.

Slice the flank steak against the grain into 1/8" thick sugar packet size slices. Tilt the blade of your knife at about a forty five degree angle to the top of the steak so that you get wider cuts. Dip the steak pieces into the cornstarch to apply a very thin dusting to both sides of each piece of beef. Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.
As the beef sits, heat up one cup of oil in a wok (you may also use a skillet for this step as long as the beef will be mostly covered with oil). Heat the oil over medium heat until it's nice and hot, but not smoking. Add the beef to the oil and sauté for just two minutes, or until the beef just begins to darken on the edges. You don't need a thorough cooking here since the beef is going to go back on the heat later. Stir the meat around a little so that it cooks evenly.
After a couple minutes, use a large slotted spoon to take the meat out and onto paper towels, then pour the oil out of the wok or skillet. Put the pan back over the heat, dump the meat back into it and simmer for one minute. Add the sauce, cook for one minute while stirring, then add all the green onions. Cook for one more minute, then remove the beef and onions with tongs or a slotted spoon to a serving plate

Enjoy, it is tasty!

Fabric and Chair Reveal

I love surprises. Ask my husband, whenever my birthday or Christmas or an anniversary is coming up, I start going crazy wanting to know what fun things I am going to get. Weeks before I will start to pester and annoy him until he either caves and lets me know what I am getting OR he lets me know he will take it back if I don't stop bothering him.
Well as I like to see my fun things before the right date I wanted to show off my unfinished chair and the fabric I chose to cover it.

Do you love it? I do. It wasn't really that hard to do. When I stripped the chair I labeled all of the parts that I took off and it was a good idea I did because it was three weeks until I got to pick it up and put the pieces all back together. ( See what it looked like before here )
I really have enjoyed this project so far, I have to go and purchase a few things like the special pegs that hold the back panel of fabric on to the chair so that you don't have staples showing. I kind of ruined the one that I took off when I stripped the chair.
I also need to get the nerve to tackle the cushion. I am NOT a seamstress, In-fact I sort of have anxiety when I whip out my sewing machine wondering if I will be ruining the fabric today or making it into something nifty.
I also need to pick up a new seam ripper. Might I suggest keeping a few handy if you are the one tackling a re-upholstery project. Those seams are tight. I broke my one and only seam ripper about 3/4 the way through. I was on a roll though so I just used some scissors and a much slower pace to finish the job.
It took around 3 hours to put all of the panels back on and surprisingly there is only one part that I wish I could go back and re-do. Of course it is on the very first panel that I put on so I would have to undo EVERYTHING to get to it and really it doesn't bother me that badly and once the cushion is on no one will ever be able to see it, so what is the point.

When I get around to putting the 2nd chair back together I will be much better at cataloging what I did so that if you ever feel like this is something that you would like to tackle you will be able to without doing it blind. ( I was really bad at doing this on the first chair because my SD card was full and well I was to lazy to go and upload all the pics before I started putting it all back together)

Jordan and I have also decided to do a few extra things to the living room that will make a HUGE difference. This will be one of the things that I am DYING to tell you about but I will have to keep my tongue cause I want to do a whole tutorial on it later.
This is also a project that Jordan will be helping me with as well as I get nervous about angle cuts on a miter saw. K I will end this before I say to much.

Living Planet Aquarium Giveaway over at Utah County Mom

A dear friend of mine has started a wonderful blog where she catalogs things that can be made, seen or done in UT county..or close by UT county.
She has a TON of great ideas and she is extremely crafty and frugal :)
She is currently hosting her first giveaway so hop on over to Utah County Mom to give her and her blog some love :)