Seared Bean Sprouts w/ Beef and Sesame Orange Sauce {the Food Matters project}

I'm pretty sure this winter will go down as one of the strangest, weather-wise, in Northwestern Indiana.  We didn't have very much snow.  A couple of good days, but that's about it.  Not a single snow day for the kiddos.  We've had lots of rain.  Recently some crazy wind and storms...fortunately tornadoes have passed us by, but completely ravaged some Indiana towns to the South.  I kid you not, we even had a couple of days when it threatened to hit 70.  Degrees.  Fahrenheit.  Strange.  

I believe it was this past Thursday when it hit 68°.  Yeah.  That was March 1st.  The next day it rained and it rained and it rained.  And I made a big bean-sprouty meal for dinner.  To celebrate the rain.

Okay, not really.  I do love rain.  But I'm not the kind of girl that celebrates with bean sprouts.

I just happened to be planning this meal in honor of today's The Food Matters Project choice: Seared Bean Sprouts w/ Beef & Sesame Orange Sauce chosen by Dominica of Food Wine Love.

In addition to the bean sprouts and beef, I decided to add a good heaping handful of both julienned carrots and snow peas.  I was feeling the need to add extra veggies.  Plus, I almost tripled the beef to keep up with the full pound of bean sprouts in the dish.  Overall, I thought this dish was decent...but not memorable.  The "sauce" was more of a watery pool at the bottom of the bowl, so I scooped everything out of the wok and whisked in a little slurry...just to add a little body to the sauce.  Surprisingly, what I thought actually "made" this meal?  The toasted sesame seeds.  They added a deep, nutty finish.  Dimension.

I wound up eating it over rice, though I think soba noodles would have been a good accompaniment, as well. And honestly, the kids...all three of them...didn't care for it.  Hubs thought it was okay, like myself.  I can honestly say this is the first non-memorable Bitty-inspired dish I've ever made.  It was bound to happen one day...

So. Two days ago- rain.  Today- snow.  Two days from now- predicted 54 and sunny.  Strange days, I say.

This post is part of the Food Matters project: hosted by Dominica of Wine Food Love this week (where you can see the original Mark Bittman recipe).