Oh Me So Hungry, Me So Hungry

When in doubt this recipe is our go to for an easy to put together satisfying meal. It has an asian flair. My wife said let's try Cinnamon Beef with Lo Mein Noodles. I kinda look at her with a bit of disgust. Ugh really? Well turns out, its really awesome and when I can't think of anything new to cook, this has quickly become a fall back meal for the family. Its like beef stew only feels a lot lighter. The cinnamon taste is subtle but marries very well with the stew meat. I try to get grassfed beef for this particular dish. No particular reason why other than that is how we first tried and why mess with a good thing. Its very simple to prepare and if the stew meat is trimmed and not fatty, its a low calorie dish as well.

Ingredients:
2lbs Beef Stew
2 tsp canola oil
5 cups water
1 1/2 cups Sake
3/4 cup Low Sodium Soy Sauce (I use Kikkoman) sometimes referred to as Lite
1/4 cup sugar
10 green onions (8 chopped into approx 1 inch pieces, 2 chopped thin)
2 cinnamon sticks
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon minced ginger (I use the tubed stuff as a timesaver)
1 10-12 oz package of baby spinach leaves
8 oz. uncooked lo mein noodles (wider is better, but not the end)

Heat 1 teaspoon of canola oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. Add beef but don't overcrowd, we want to brown the meat and get a nice crust on it. Remove from pan once browned on all sides. While meat is browning, combine Water, Sake, Soy Sauce and Sugar in a bowl. Whisk to combine. Return beef to pan and add water mixture, green onions, garlic, cinnamon and ginger. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to so liquid just simmers. Cook for 1 1/2 - 2hrs. While the beef is cooking, cook the low mein noodles according to instructions. When beef is tender, stir in spinach. Add noodles to your serving dishes and spoon beef mixture over the cooked noodles. Should yield 8 or so servings. About 1 cup beef and half a cup noodles. Calories are around 400. 10g of fat (3g saturated).