I found this recipe for Mongolian Beef ages ago and made it once.  It was super complicated and seemed like it took forever.  But the sauce was divine!  I have used it over and over with veggie stir fry over brown rice and it’s sweet and amazing.  So I’m sharing it today.

Start by making your brown rice.  This particular day, I used leftovers and just heated it up in the toaster over in tin foil while I was cooking the rest of dinner.  Cut up gobs of veggies…I probably had 16 cups and had to stir fry them in two batches.  About half of them went into the fridge and I used them for breakfast the next morning.  So for this recipe, I’d guess 8 cups of veggies would feed 5 people.  I chose what I had in the house – onions, mushrooms, peppers, carrots, cabbage, sugar snap peas, broccoli, zucchini and yellow squash.  Any combo of veggies would work fine.

I don’t use a lot of Tupperware, but these things I can’t live without!!  They keep veggies fresh.  There are ridges at the bottom to keep the water off your vegetables.  They also have these little valves that you can let more or less humidity in, depending on what vegetables are in there.  I swear these things save me so much money because my stuff doesn’t go bad so quickly!  My friend sells Tupperware and you could purchase them from her at www.cookingwithconfidence.org

Another thing I should probably do a whole post on is composting.  I’ve been lazy this winter, but as spring nears, I’m getting back into the swing of sending all my kitchen scraps out to the compost pile.  They break down over time and make the most nourishing free fertilizer for my Back to Eden garden.  I just use an ice cream bucket and fill it up with fruit and veggie scraps, egg shells and coffee grounds.  It makes it simpler when you’re doing a dinner like this with an huge amount of veggies.  Once it’s full, one of my kids will run it out and throw it on the compost pile.  Super easy!

Before I stir fry the veggies, I make the sauce.  Add the olive oil to the pan, along with minced garlic and ginger.  I microplane both.  If you’d like to see how I do my ginger, I describe it here.  Heat those ingredients until they are warm and fragrant, but not browned.

Add in the soy sauce, dark brown sugar, and water.  (I was doubling the recipe, so that’s why my measurements in the picture are different).  The original recipe called for dark brown sugar and I think it makes a difference by giving it a depth of flavor that wouldn’t be there if you used regular brown sugar.

Bring it to a boil and let it go until it’s the desired consistency

I normally boil mine for 5-8 minutes to get it kind of thick, like this.

Then stir fry your veggies.  Add olive oil to the pan and toss the veggies on medium high until they are browned a bit and cooked but still a bit crisp.

And that’s all!  I don’t combine the veggies and sauce since it’s not great for my diabetic hubby.  So we serve it on the side and each drizzle on the amount we want.  I hope this recipe becomes one of your favorites, too!

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