Recipe 1: Char Siu Beef

My New Year's resolution for 2010 is to cook one new recipe a week, all year. This means no falling back on old favorites, no easy (and random) stir-frys - all new stuff, baby. There will be some weeks where I can't cook anything at all (i.e. vacations, etc) so I'm going with averages and will be satisfied with 52 new recipes this year.

I'll pull my recipes from family, friends, cookbooks, and blogs. I may make some minor changes but the plan is to stick mainly to the written plan. This will be tough when I'm in Kabul but I plan on making it work. I'll link to recipes I find online and copy down (and cite) recipes found off-line.

The first recipe for 2010 is Slow Cooker Char Siu beef. A Chinese BBQ dish, the recipe was lifted from CookingLight.com but originally found on the Crockpot365 blog. I served it on brown rice with steamed edamame on the side. It was a little sweet for me - I'd probably add some Sriracha near the last hour or two of cooking next time. Overall though, it was pretty tasty and I got the husband's seal of approval. For those looking to make it, I mostly following the Crockpot365 recipe linked to above but threw in some ginger (just a couple shakes of the powdered kind) and a drizzle of sesame oil. I didn't marinate and used frozen meat - I think it turned out fine. The Cooking Light version calls for a separately cooked sauce but we just took a few spoonfuls of the cooking liquid and thought it was great. Very easy to throw together with pantry staples and a delicious winter meal.