#FoodieFriday: Slow-cooker Mongolian Beef #CrockPot #SlowCooker

As I've mentioned before, we recently moved and received all of our household goods.

Let me tell you, going through everything you own is not as fun as it sounds, and it sounds pretty awful.

In order for us to have some semblance of healthy eating (e.g. not ordering pizza because we forgot to food), I've rekindled my love-affair with my crock pot.

I was so excited when I unearthed it from the boxy jungle (and to finally try some of the awesomeness on my Crock Pot Pinterest board) that I actually had trouble coming up with what I wanted to do first. I should also add that I nixed any stews or soups right off the bat--we'd just come from a week of them (I've had a nasty cold so I was eating chicken soup like it was going out of style, and hubs was eating sandwiches to avoid the soup), so I took pity on him.

This time.

Anyway, we get most of our damage-checking done on the weekends, so, last week, I did some uncharacteristic meal planning to make sure that after wrapping and re-wrapping yet more items, we'd have a hot meal waiting.

The meal I chose was Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef from I Am That Lady. I guess it's a knockoff of P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef, but easier because it's in the slow cooker, but I haven't had it so I can't tell you how accurate the comparison is.

We loved it, though--we served it with brown rice, steamed broccoli, and sliced green onions.

I did a 2.5lb chuck roast (you could probably do a bigger roast but use more of the sauce ingredients to make sure it's seasoned) then trimmed it to within an inch of its life of excess fat. I know some people are weird about it, but I went all out--there was a big vein of it running through the middle and I cut it right out. Didn't have an effect on the dryness; the roast was nice and juicy and tender.

Low sodium soy sauce is a must here--it'll probably be a salt lick otherwise. And I used fresh (frozen, actually) ginger and fresh garlic. Neither were overpowering and gave a nice flavor to the meal

Also, I did the thickening at the end, but I had to use at least a few more tablespoons of corn starch. It just didn't want to thicken for me, but it could be altitude. But, with a little patience, we got it where we wanted it.

With the 2-2.5lb roast, it makes about 6 servings, so we ate it for 3 days; plenty for two people who aren't fond of a week's worth of leftovers and crave something different after day three.

It's always nice when trying a recipe for the first time works out so well!

xoxo Sarah