Bengal Bowls with Bacon Wrapped Asparagus

 INGREDIENTS

Coconut Rice

2 cups jasmine rice

4 cups coconut milk

pinch of kosher salt

Sweet & Spicy Beef

2 lbs Beef Sirloin, Cut into Chunks

1 cup Pineapple Juice

1 cup Soy Sauce

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

1/4 cup Trader Joe's Pineapple Spread

1 Tbsp Lime Juice

1 Tbsp Garlic, Minced

1 Tbsp Black Pepper

1 Tbsp Ginger

1/2 Tbsp Sesame Oil

2 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

1/2 tsp Ground Cayenne

1 Tbsp Corn Starch

Veggies

1.5 lbs Baby Red Potatoes, Cut into Fourths

1 large Zucchini, diced

1 large Yellow Squash, diced

1 large sweet onion, diced

2 bell peppers, diced

Safari Asparagus

1 lb Thick Cut Bacon

Asparagus to your heart's content

DIRECTIONS

Coconut Rice

Throw rice, coconut milk and salt into rice maker, and press start. Please, just buy the rice maker.

Safari Asparagus

Preheat oven to 400ºF, or set up your grill to high, or your Traeger to 350ºF. 

Prepare asparagus spears- I like to snap each individual spear, but you can line them up, snap one, and then cut the rest at the snap line. You do you. The Safari Skewers at Disneyland use thick asparagus spears, and skewer them. I do not have the patience to mess with skewers- I am scared I will skewer my hand again. So I bought thin asparagus, and wrapped a piece of bacon around a bunch of four to five.

I then laid the bacon wrapped asparagus, bacon ends down on a cooling wrap placed inside a baking sheet. Then popped it into the oven until the bacon was cooked to my preference, crispy-chewy, which took about 25 minutes because I kept checking on it.

Sweet & Spicy Beef

Omitting the corn starch, mix all the ingredients together, and pour about half over the steak to marinate for 1 hour. You can do this in a ziploc bag, a bowl, whatever makes your heart happy. Just make sure the steak is covered, and let it chill in the refrigerator. 

Veggies

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Prepare baking sheet with a glug of high heat oil, like vegetable or canola oil. Do not ruin your pans and sanity with olive oil. It will scorch and will not taste good.

Placed diced vegetables on the baking sheet. You do not want to overcrowd the veggies, so it may take two baking sheets. 

Toss the veggies in the glug of oil, and season liberally with kosher salt. For the love of all that is holy do not use table salt- it's gross. I am a huge fan of Diamond Crystal Kosher, but will use Morton Coarse Kosher, just don't do table salt.

Then roast in the oven, if you had to use two sheets, rotate between racks placed on the top third, and bottom third of the oven.

The veggies will be done when the potatoes are fork tender. At this time, crank up the oven to broil and let the veggies really brown under the broiler. My onions and peppers had cooked much faster than my squash and potatoes, so at this time I put the Sweet & Spicy Beef on the bottom rack while I broiled the squash & potatoes.

Sweet & Spicy Beef (continued)

Prepare baking sheet with a generous helping of cooking spray.

Remove steak from marinade and place prepared baking sheet. Bake until the steak is cooked to your preference. My family wanted a hair over medium rare, and it took about 10ish minutes.

With the marinade you set aside, and probably some from the steak. Pour into a sauce pot and bring to a boil over medium-high. Let boil for 4-5 minutes, it should get a little thick on its own. At this time, remove like 1/4 cup of the mixture and whisk together with the corn starch to make a slurry. Reduce heat and whisk the slurry into the sauce, and let the magic happen.

Assembly

(Coconut Rice + Veggies + Sweet & Spicy Beef) Drizzle Sauce Over Top = YUM

Top it with the Safari Asparagus. And enjoy!

**I realize not everyone has two ovens, and a seemingly unlimited supply of baking sheets. Cook the veggies on the stove, but do not overcrowd the pan. We are not steaming our food, we want to give our food color and flavor.