By Christmas morning. The children descended at six-fifteen AM with the coordinated chaos of a SWAT team, except instead of weapons they had wild eyes and uncombed hair and the singular purpose of reaching the presents before anyone could make them eat breakfast first. I said, "Eat breakfast first." They did not eat breakfast first. They opened presents. Kevin filmed. I held my coffee and watched.
Noah got an advanced robotics kit — the real kind, with a micro-controller and sensors and a manual that reads like a college engineering textbook. He opened it and went silent, the Noah silent, the silent that means he's processing something so big that words would reduce it. Emma got a new art set with real colored pencils (not the school kind, the good kind) and a book about famous women, and she immediately began reading out loud to anyone within earshot. Jack got a compost tumbler. A real, honest-to-God, three-chamber compost tumbler, assembled by Kevin and me at two AM Christmas Eve in the garage with a headlamp and a growing suspicion that we'd married the wrong people for our respective interests in soil management.
Jack looked at the compost tumbler the way other children look at bikes. He circled it. He touched it. He opened each chamber and examined the ventilation holes. He said, "This is the best present I've ever gotten." He said it with a reverence that made Kevin and I look at each other with the specific expression of parents who have just confirmed that their child is wonderful and very, very weird.
Christmas dinner was a reprise of Thanksgiving but smaller — just our family, no extended clan. I made a roast beef instead of turkey because Christmas in the Weber tradition is roast beef, and I am a Weber no matter what name is on my mailbox. Prime rib roast, rubbed with garlic and herbs, slow-roasted to medium-rare, sliced thick. Mashed potatoes, gravy from the drippings, roasted carrots, and the last jar of canned green beans from August. The green beans were the finale — the final jar of 2017's canning. When I opened it, I thought about the steam and the heat and Mom's hands and the forty quarts, and I served the beans and they tasted like August in December, which is the whole point of canning. You save summer. You eat it in winter. You carry one season into the next.
After a Christmas like that—the slow-roasted prime rib, the last jar of August’s green beans, the kid who loves a compost tumbler more than a bicycle—you’d think I’d be done with beef for a while. But the week after Christmas is its own kind of season, the one where the fridge is half-empty and nobody wants to stand at the stove for more than fifteen minutes. This sheet pan beef and broccoli is what I make when I still want that warm, beefy, everyone-at-the-table feeling but I’ve used up all my patience and my good roasting pan is still soaking.
15-Minute Sheet Pan Beef and Broccoli
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds flank steak, thinly sliced against the grain
- 4 cups broccoli florets
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Sesame seeds, for garnish
- Cooked rice, for serving
Instructions
- Preheat the broiler. Set your oven to high broil and position a rack about 6 inches from the heat. Line a large sheet pan with foil and lightly grease it.
- Make the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, cornstarch, and red pepper flakes until smooth.
- Toss the beef. In a large bowl, combine the sliced flank steak with half of the sauce and the olive oil. Toss to coat evenly and spread in a single layer on one side of the sheet pan.
- Add the broccoli. Arrange the broccoli florets on the other side of the sheet pan. Drizzle with a little of the remaining sauce.
- Broil. Place the sheet pan under the broiler and cook for 4–5 minutes. Remove, flip the beef, toss the broccoli, and broil for another 3–4 minutes until the beef is caramelized at the edges and the broccoli is tender-crisp with charred tips.
- Finish and serve. Drizzle the remaining sauce over everything, toss gently, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve immediately over hot rice.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 385 | Protein: 36g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 20g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 890mg