Paleo Mongolian Beef ‘n’ Broccoli

Well HELLOOOOOO blogosphere!  Long time, no speak!  Firstly, I would like to apologize for my absence.  I’ve been writing/studying for midterms.  In fact, today, I was supposed to be writing to you as one who has gloriously (though likely not triumphantly) survived her last midterm period EVER.   However, because my program is my program and nothing ever seems to go right at my school, I was literally half in my pants this morning getting ready to run to my last midterm, when I got a message from my friend telling me that I didn’t need to go in.  The thing that every student dreams of had happened.  The actors who are our fake patients for our practical exams went on strike this morning, so the exam couldn’t take place.  It was cancelled.

Now…me being me, I actually got super frustrated.  I had spent weeks studying for this exam.  I woke up EARLY this morning to take this exam.  (And those of you who know me well, know that I don’t do early well).  I have been telling myself for two months that I just had to survive until Halloween and then the worst of my semester would be over (if you ignore the 6 final exams and thesis proposal due date within the span of 9 days that I have looming in December *cough*).  I usually spend my Halloweens eating junk and watching scary movies (accompanied by Benadryl, of course).  I was going to celebrate that AND being done with midterms on Wednesday night (because I have to work tonight and get up early for class tomorrow.  But still!)

All of that went out the window this morning, to be replaced by horrid limbo.  The exam is going to be re-scheduled for some unknown evening or weekend in the future, which a) means that I’ll have to study all over again (even if it will be more of a refresher) and b) I’m busy for the next three weekends and, again, me being me, it will be re-scheduled for one of them.  Just you watch.  Grrrrrr….

But…I can’t control any of that, SO I changed back into my sweats and have been editing the photos I re-took last weekend for my newly-developed recipe for Paleo Mongolian Beef ‘n’ Broccoli.  Believe it or not, I’ve been working on this post for 3 weeks at this point; mostly because of the midterm hell that I’ve been embroiled in for the past 4 weeks, but also because I really didn’t like the bowl I used for my first round of photos.  The colour was all wrong.  Blue bowl, with green broccoli, a dark tea towel in the background, and bamboo chopsticks?!?!?!  What the he1l was I thinking?! I blame sleep deprivation.

In fact, as I was taking the first set of photos, I was standing there thinking, ‘Man! I really wish I had another bowl for this shot.  Oo oo!  A cow bowl would be awesome!”

And then the next day (my awesome Sunday) happened…I was supposed to be studying ALL weekend for the Peds midterm I had the following Tuesday.  So…naturally I spent lots o’ time on Instagram and Facebook, went out on Friday night for the first time all semester, and I woke up on the Saturday, and immediately began procrastibaking.  I didn’t go TOO overboard; just made me some Lemon Poppyseed Cranberry muffins, Coc-ioca, and Granola.  Oh!  And I roasted me a Buttercup squash.  I MAY have also gone to the gym for a couple of hours on the Sunday, and on the way home…I went prop shopping!!!  It was totally an accident!

You see, several weeks before that awesome Sunday, I was walking home from the gym, when I noticed that someone had left some really nice marble bathroom tiles on their lawn.  All up for grabs.  Unfortunately, it was the ONE DAY I didn’t bring my giant hiking bag with me to the gym.  As there was NO WAY I was getting those tiles in my tiny gym bag, I left them there and was kicking myself all the way home about it.  What I should have done, was grab them, take them back to the gym (which was a block away), and then bring them home later when I had my giant bag with me.  Alas, hindsight is 20:20.  Not surprisingly, they were gone the next day when I walked by the same spot.

And ever since, the idea and desire for a marble background for my foodographs was bouncing around in the back of my mind.  AND, while I was procrastinating on Instagram (and a couple of my favourite food blogs) over the midterm period, I was inspired by the beautiful tarte tatins that people were making with all the Fall fruit!  SO on top of wanting to work marble into my backgrounds, I decided that I also wanted to, at some point in the near future (aka Christmas) take on the task of making puff pastry such that I, and all other similar culinary lepers, can eat.  This meant I HAD to get a pastry marble.

SO!  On that awesome Sunday where I spent a couple of hours at the gym when I should have been studying, I also decided to walk home in the rain (rather than get home faster and dry-er to get back to studying sooner).  Along the way, I decided to walk into a kitchen store to see if they had a nice enough marble pastry board that I could also use as a background.  The first store only had dinky little marble cheese boards (and they were a sad grey colour with uninspired veining in them. Completely unfoodographable!).  Dejected, I carried on home.

As I was walking however, I had an epiphany (clearly they don’t just come to me when I’m in the shower)!  I realized that since my Mama has re-done her kitchen to have more marble than she could ever need, the beautiful marble she used all my life to roll pastry on will have fallen into disuse.  SO!  I texted my Mama (and Dad since he would be the one doing all the leg work) to see if she wouldn’t mind parting with it, and to see if my Dad would be willing to ship it to me.  And they agreed to do it!  My parents rock!  No pun intended. #butreallypunintended

Anywho…as I was sorting out the logistics for the marble shipment with the ‘rents, I happened upon a kitchen-ish store which is right around the corner from me.  In FULL procrastination mode at this point, I went in and they had all these awesome bowls which were also happily on SALE!!!  One of them even has a cow on it! (Kismet anyone?).  And it came in a set!  Three bowls, each with a different barnyard animal on it; a chicken, a pig, and a cow.  And no, they’re not for kids…I think…

Miraculously, I managed NOT to buy the whole store.  By the time I got home with my cow bowl, however, I had firmly decided that I REALLY didn’t like the first set of photos that I took of the Mongolian Beef ‘n’ Broccoli, and therefore would have to re-take them!

That was 3 weeks ago.  Little did I understand that the Peds midterm I wrote was just the tip of my perilous descent to the 5th ring of hell that is midterms in my program.  I legit spent 5 days locked in my apartment studying for one exam last week.  I went out once to buy groceries and that was it!  Being the gym rat that I am, I got to a point where I was so starved for physical activity that I walked around my apartment for 3 hours while I studied!!!  So, once THAT midterm was over and I finished studying for the midterm that I was SUPPOSED to have this morning, I returned to the blog post I started writing three weeks ago; this post.

PHEW…now wasn’t THAT a circuitous and confusing story!  Sadly, that is just an average day in my daily life.  My life is crazy.  I’m well aware of it, aaaannnnd I’m guessing that you guys are now too!

So…on to the good stuff.  The thing you’ve been waiting (potentially 3 weeks) for…Paleo Mongolian Beef ‘n’ Broccoli!!!!

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Now…for some tips and tricks!  There aren’t many since this a SUPER easy recipe to make but there are a couple:

• As I mentioned above, I adapted this recipe to be Paleo, but if you’re not that fussed about following a Paleo lifestyle or have a hard time finding coconut sugar/don’t want to pay for fancy, albeit healthier, Paleo sweetener, you can use 4-5 tbsp of regular brown sugar instead.
• Ditto for coconut aminos!  If you can eat soy, by all means use the same amount of soy sauce (1/2 cup), and cut the two pinches of salt out of the sauce mix.  Coconut aminos are really expensive and hard to find (the only places I’ve been able to find it are ‘the place that has almost everything‘ at the St. Lawrence market in TO and ‘Aliments Merci‘ at Marché Jean-Talon in MTL.  Otherwise, there is always Amazon,.  Though, and I never thought I would say this, but it’s actually cheaper to buy coconut aminos in store than Amazon!).  All of this is to say that if you can do the soy thing, have at it!
• As I’ve also mentioned in my Tomeato recipe, since buckwheat is a seed, buckwheat noodles are fabulously Paleo as long as you get ones that are 100% buckwheat, or, in the case of Soba King noodles, a delicious combination of Buckwheat and Sweet Potato.  They’re also so freakin tasty and mean that us noodle/pasta lovers don’t have to give up the best food group when we go Paleo!  Like the coconut aminos and coconut sugar, however, Soba King noodles are also hard to find and WAY more expensive than rice (or regular) noodles.  If you’re in TO, your best bet is to go to ‘the store that has everything’ at the St. Lawrence market, or, again, ‘Aliments Merci‘ at Marché Jean-Talon in MTL.  If you can do rice noodles though, you could save yourself the headache and the money, and get regular rice noodles for this recipe, and otherwise prepare the recipe the same way.
• Also, if you plan on making this so that you can have leftovers, I would actually recommend only making enough soba noodles for what you’re going to eat immediately, and then putting the rest of the meaty-veggie mix in a tupperware.  Like most pastas (except thicker rice noodles actually) these soba noodles don’t withstand re-heating very well.  It’s still edible, but usually tastier to just make the noodles as you need them and re-heat the meaty-veggie mix in a separate pot or microwave.

Ok!  That is that folks!  I hope you enjoy!  Don’t be afraid to contact me if you have any questions or feedback!  You can also comment below!

Ciao for now!