Monstrous Mongolian Beef

I missed a fairly large event that happened in my life withing the last year. I reread my last post and realized I skipped right over the fact that I got engaged! Ms. Grown-up Life will be marrying Mr. Occasionally Updated on November 8, 2014.

Wedding plans keep me occupied, but not busy yet. We have a  year... however, 6 months of an engagement already down, I have a fair bit planned out. It is kind of frustrating, honestly, because I have the dress, venue, date, officiant, photographer, bridal party, hotel... and we are a year and a week out still. What can I do at this point? Well, I will soon be sending out my save the dates (which will be early, but I want to do something!)... Long story long, I am getting married, and I forgot to list it among the things that happened to me last year. Oops :/


The review for today is WW Mongolian Beef

Originally, the recipe I had pinned was a PF Chang's knock off recipe and it looked amazing, but it stupidly had put a calorie count on the site, and at 800 cals per serving, my pre-wedding body didn't think it was the best decision. Instead, I went with this WW recipe. Don't get me wrong, most WW recipes are pretty good. This is not the first one featured on this blog... however, this one was really not very good.

The flavor was fine. It tasted like any typical Asian inspired beef dish. The onions were soggy and tame, and the heat from the pepper flakes were almost non-existent (even though the recipe claimed it would be too hot. And I am not a person who likes spicy food, typically).

The texture is what really got me. When I think Mongolian Beef, I think almost spicy BBQ in texture. It should be dark, and rich in color... and you don't have to deep fry anything to get that. That should be in the sauce... this was... well... gray. It was what I imagine in Gruel would be colored in a Dickens novel. It was gray, gelatinous, goop.

I follow these recipes to a T, so I can properly recreate them, and there are quite a few things that could be done differently to improve this recipe. I would nix the corn starch and focus on grilling that meat as dry as possible... get a glaze going with the drippings, and wait to add the onions til last.

I will be back with more... looks like I'll be doing a Diabetes friendly Pumpkin Pie soon. I'll let you know how it goes!