I cheated a little bit with supper tonight but I swear, I didn't mean to do it.

If you've been reading along with the nonsense I spew here, then you've seen how I intended to cook new recipes only from my two Sam The Cooking Guy cookbooks. I slipped tonight. I was lurking on Imgur and came across this recipe: Super Easy Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef. The wild thing is that I actually was thawing out a package of stew meat in my refrigerator this morning but I didn't know what I was going to make with it.

Serves 4-6
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 4 hours 10 minutes
 2-½ lb. flank steak

• ¼ Cup cornstarch (I used regular flour instead.)
• 2 tbs. olive oil 
• 1 tbs. garlic, minced 
• 1 tbs. ginger, grated 
• ¼ tsp. chili flake (I used chili powder.)
• ¾ Cup soy sauce (Thought I had some, but had to substitute Hosin sauce...LOVED IT! This has such a great deep, warm smell to it.)
• ¾ Cup water 
• ¾ Cup brown sugar, packed 
• 1 Cup carrot, grated (I got a dish of these at the local grocery store because they have grated carrots on the salad bar.)
• green onions for garnish (Nope, don't like these.)

Instructions: Cut flank steak into thin strips, cutting across the grain. Put steak into a ziploc bag with the cornstarch and shake to coat. Add the olive oil, garlic, ginger, chili flake, soy sauce, water, and brown sugar to the slow cooker. Stir to combine, add the flank steak. Stir again until completely coated with sauce. Cover with lid and cook on high for 2-3 hours, on low 4-5 hours, or until meat is cooked through and tender. About 30 minutes before done stir in the grated carrots. Can serve over rice, garnished with sesame seeds (I meant to add the sesame seeds at the end before serving, but I forgot.) and green onions.

I read the comments on the Imgur post and realized a lot of people were irritated with olive oil and brown sugar in a Chinese dish. However, since I've never cooked Chinese from scratch, I don't have an opinion myself. All I know is that this was really good and I enjoyed it quite a bit. In fact, I have enough for leftovers for lunch now.