An Ode to Dad: Stir Fried Beef and Haricot Verts

Today was a bit of a return to my roots.  My dad used to cook dinner for my mom and I every night and one of the dishes that I remember from back in the day was beef and snap peas.  So I decided to make my version with just a few minor changes.

The first step was marinating the meat.  I took about 3/4 lb of top sirloin steak and sliced it into small strips of about 1 in by 1/2 in.  I placed the pieces in a bowl with a some oyster sauce, sweet chili sauce and soy sauce and added a touch of honey, yellow mustard, sesame oil, salt and pepper.  I sat them in the fridge covered for about 2 hours.

Then, I took about 1 lb of haricot verts, snapped the ends off of them, and split the long pieces into about 3 inch pieces.  I boiled them for about 4 minutes, then set them aside.

To finish, I sweat about 1/2 a yellow onion, 3 cloves of roughly chopped garlic and a dried red pepper for a few minutes over medium low heat then added the meat/marinade mixture and turned up to medium high, added the haricot verts and finished cooking it all for about 4-5 minutes.

It was delicious, just as I remembered.  thanks, Dad!

Cheatham Family Chili

This is yet another Cheatham family recipe, this time for Chili. One of Emily's dad's brothers, Roy, lived in Cincinnati for a while and this recipe filtered through the family. Its fairly simple, costs about $10-$15 and takes about an hour and a half to prepare and feeds 4-6.

First step is to finely dice one medium large white onion. Sweat the onion along with a dried chili in a few tbsp of vegetable oil on medium low in a large saucepan for about 5 minutes until they start to turn clear. Add 1 lb of ground meat (we use turkey, but beef or probably any other meat would work fine) and turn heat to medium high and brown with some salt and pepper.

Once completely browned, drain most of the grease and add one large 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes cut in the can into smaller pieces (the higher quality the better but works fine even with regular), one can of dark red kidney beans (drained), about 10 oz tomato sauce, 4 tbsp of chili powder, one more dried chili and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer.

Cover pot for 35 minutes, then uncover. Heat salted water and cook 3/4 lb of elbow pasta. At about the hour mark, turn off the heat and serve chili over pasta in bowls with crumbled Ritz crackers and grated sharp cheddar on top (not pictured).


Enjoy!