Hi.  My name is Mark and this is my cooking blog.

I get asked a lot for my recipes, so I decided to start this cooking blog.  What you’ll find here will be my recipes and my variations on others’ recipes, my cooking tips and who knows what else. 

I should say up front that I’m lactose intolerant (check out my lactose intolerance site www.nowhey.org) and I also try to live a low-carb lifestyle.  So the recipes you’ll find here will generally be devoid of milk and milk products and try, wherever possible, to be low in carbs.

I hope you enjoy the site and the recipes.

Mark

This my recipe for beef sukiyaki.  I make it in the crock pot.  Most sukiyaki is made very quickly on the stove top or at the table, but this version came about because I tried a stove top version but used cross rib steak for the beef and it was just too tough.  To salvage the leftovers I put the whole thing into the crock pot and let it simmer all day.  The beef was very tender and now I just make it this way.  You can certainly make this recipe on the stove top, just substitute very tender beef and simmer everything in the broth for about 30 minutes.

 Ingredients (serves 4-6)
4 cups of beef broth – made with Better Than Bullion
3/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup splenda or sugar
1/2 cup mirin (cooking sake)
1 cup of sliced button mushrooms
6 thin slices of fresh ginger
8 large leaves of Napa cabbage, sliced into 1-2 inch pieces
4 green onion stalks, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup of snow peas (trim hard and stem ends off)
1 oz mung bean “cellophane” noodles, cut into 6 inch pieces
7 ozs firm tofu, cut into 3/4″ (approx) cubes
1.5 lbs beef – cross rib steak or similar – sliced into very thin strips – see notes

Combine the broth, soy sauce, mirin, splenda (or sugar) in the crock pot.  Stir well.  Add the ginger, cabbage, mushrooms, half (2 stalks) of the green onion, tofu, and the beef.  Cover and cook on medium for 8-10 hours.

About an hour before you are ready to serve, add the remaining green onion, the snow peas and the noodles to the pot.  There is no need to pre-boil or soak the noodles.

Serve and enjoy!

To slice the beef very thin, put the steak in the freezer until it just starts to firm up.  (Or if you are thawing it from the freezer, catch it before it completely thaws.)  Then slice while partially frozen.

Because this is made in the crock pot, you can use almost any cut of beef and it will come out very tender.