Ginger Beef Stir-fry

I've been experimenting lots with my wok lately. We've had Chicken General Tao, Honey Garlic chicken, Lemon Herb salmon, Orange Ginger chicken, all with veggies and basmati rice, jasmine rice, or egg noodles. They were all great sauces but the one thing I wanted to try and make was Ginger Beef from scratch. Looked up a great recipe from www.allrecipes.com and for the first time picked up some ginger root at the market. As usual, I like to put my own spin on recipes so I changed mine up a tiny bit. I sliced up my steak and marinated it in a VH Honey Garlic sauce, didn't have any cornstarch and instead of peanuts and sesame seeds I used slivered almonds and flax seed. You can add any veggies you want to your own liking. The sauce was very good and had lots of flavour. Here is the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ginger-Beef-Stir-Fry/Detail.aspx


Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1/4 cup plum sauce
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 pound boneless beef sirloin steak, cut into thin 2-inch strips
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 medium sweet red pepper, julienned
• 1 1/2 cups fresh broccoli florets
• 2 medium carrots, thinly sliced
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons salted peanuts, chopped
• Hot cooked rice
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

Directions

1. In a small bowl, whisk cornstarch and cold water until smooth. Stir in the plum sauce, ginger, soy sauce and pepper flakes; set aside. In a large skillet or wok, stir-fry beef in oil until no longer pink; remove and keep warm.
2. In the same pan, stir-fry the red pepper, broccoli, carrots, onions and garlic until tender. Return beef to the pan. Whisk the plum sauce mixture; stir into skillet. Cook and stir until slightly thickened. Stir in peanuts. Serve over rice if desired. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.