At Home With Theresa

I grew up in the Philippines where breakfast, lunch, and dinner consisted of multiple dishes prepared by the household cook/s. Meats, veggies, fruits, sweets, and always, rice. Meat or fish is the main dish, then there would be 1-3 sides of veggies, some fruits and desserts. Usually vegetables were “ginisa” (sautéed) with garlic, onions, and tomatoes. They were always delicious specially with fried main dishes.

Nowadays, with no live in help, a full time job and a kid with a lot of extra curricular activities, I only get to serve one side and one main, usually with some salad or some sort of cooked veggies. Most of the time I would make an all in one dish, meat and vegetables together in the main dish.

This is one of my favorite, although slicing the green beans at an angle is work, it’s worth it as it tastes yummy! You could use ground or cubed beef or pork, even chicken, add cubes of fried tofu, chayote, whatever you feel like. It adapts to whatever you have on hand easily although I always have the green beans, meat, and the noodles. Take the amounts stated in the recipe only as a guideline, add more or less to adjust to your taste.

This is my version for today’s recipe. I added tofu because I had some on hand.

Ingredients:

1 pound green beans, ends removed and sliced at an angle

1 block extra firm tofu, cubed

2 tablespoons oil

1 pound ground beef

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

4-6 cups water

1/2 package of dried rice noodles, soaked in water

1-2 tablespoons Beef bouillon, adjust to taste

1-2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon fish sauce, optional

Procedure:

Rinse and slice the green beans. You’ll have to do this one by one as i never did a good job with even 2 at a time. Place in a large bowl with water and set aside.

Heat the oil in a fry pan and fry the tofu until browned on both sides. Set aside.

Heat a dutch oven over medium high heat and add the ground beef. Let it cook and brown, breaking up big pieces with a spatula.

Move the meat to one side of the pan and add garlic to the empty side. Brown lightly then add onions. Cook until onions are softened and lightly browned. Add tomatoes and cook a few more minutes until tomatoes are soft. Stir in the ground beef and mix well.

Add the fried tofu, 4 cups of water (adding more later as necessary), drained noodles, bouillon powder, soy sauce and fish sauce, if using. Make sure noodles are submerged. Simmer for about 10 – 15 minutes, until noodles are cooked. Add water if necessary.

Add the sliced green beans and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Serve hot.