"Skillet Beef and Asparagus"

Overall, today was a good day in the Crafty Mountaineer household. I cleaned off the kitchen counters (finally) and did a little crafting (to be posted later). Ryan and I had a great time at the WVU game- the epic win made our left-side-only sunburns totally worth it. I managed to do a little physics on my own before I decided I was looking at too many numbers. Mason, our darling puppy, discovered that he loves asparagus. And we had a pretty damn good dinner.
This recipe came from one of Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade magazines. Sorry, don't remember which one.
Skillet Beef and Asparagus
4 servings
Prep: 10 min, Cook: 8 min

2/3 cup beef stock (I used 2/3 cup water and 3/4 tsp of beef buillion)
1/3 cup orange juice
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper (I used red pepper flakes)
1/4 cup veggie oil
1 lb. sirloin steak, thinly sliced (I used a steak we had purchased on special- I don't think it was sirloin)
1/2 lb. fresh asparagus, cut in 1 in. pieces (we used more)
1/2 cup thinly sliced carrots (we used more)
1 tbsp. thinly sliced garlic (about 2 cloves)
4 thin orange slices, halved

In a small bowl, whisk together the first 6 ingredients (up to the veggie oil). Whisk well, then set aside.
Add the veggie oil to a skillet (we used a wok) and add beef. Cook beef 3 minutes, stirring constantly, or until desired doneness. Remove the beef from the skillet and set aside, leaving the rest of the veggie oil in the skillet.
Add the asparagus, carrots, and garlic and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. The veggies should be crisp-cooked; ie, they should have a slight crunch when you bite into them.
Whisk the sauce again and add to the skillet with veggies. Cook for one minute.
Add the beef and the orange slices and cook for one minute.
Serve over rice.

Unfortunately (and fortunately), hubband and I inhaled the meal too quickly for me to get a good picture of it- it's that delicious. We had to stop ourselves so that we could have leftovers for lunch tomorrow!
The dish can be altered pretty easily, depending on what you have on-hand. For vegetarians, eliminate the meat all together and just add your favorites veggies (or tofu, although I have no clue how to cook that). Beef can be substituted with chicken (although I imagine it cooks faster) or pork- just made sure to cook those all the way through, instead of to desired doneness. We'll definitely be experimenting with the dish here!

I also realized that this dish is super awesome because the majority of the ingredients I already had on hand. We only needed to specifically purchase the asparagus and the orange, which brought down the cost of the dish significantly. So, honestly, for everything that we had to purchase (I'll throw in the steak for fun), the dish cost about $6 at the grocery store for two people ($3 for steak, $2.50 for asparagus, and less than $1 for the orange). I imagine using pork or chicken would really bring the price down.

Bon apetit!