Stir Fried Shrimp

I'm on a quest to be more organized and less reactive with our food needs.  I've got a half a beef coming from a local rancher, so I'm busy cleaning out the freezer.  I'm thinking a lot about how I can do a better job of supplying a good dinner and lunch every day with local meats and local fruits and vegetables.  I'm reading every label.  Husband is a little worried with the changes, but there really aren't that many.  Although I know where my shrimp came from now, I bought them anyway. 

I'm thinking about Annettes guest blogger, Jess, over at SustainableEats, who wants to eat more local food and make more conscious decisions but has trouble. 

http://www.sustainableeats.com/2010/04/15/guest-post-jess-aspires-to-conscious-eating/

And he is right.  You just have to pick a direction and start, knowing that you'll certainly be less than perfect. 

This is another original recipe.  I started making it with a package of stir fry sauce mix powder stuff, but banned that from my life some while back.  Powder is not food.  My regular stir fry sauce is good for this.  Or use your favorite Asian stir fry sauce.  Add more vegetables if you like.  Use the left overs for lunches or additional meals.  




LeAnn's original stir fry sauce
1/4 t. fresh minced ginger
3 T soy sauce
1 c. water or broth
1 1/2 t. hoisen sauce
1 1/2 t. corn starch
1/2 Asian sweet chili sauce, optional

Fried Rice with Shrimp
1 lb frozen shrimp, thawed, shelled and deviened
2 T. oil
1 t. minced garlic
3 c. cooked rice
original stir fry sauce above or your own
1 cup. frozen peas

Put oil in a large flat skillet.  Add garlic and shrimp.  Cook on Medium hight until shrimp are turning pink.  Add remaining ingredients.  Cook an additional few minutes, until peas are hot and sauce thickens.

We'll eat this for dinner and the rest for lunch the next day.

Remember to eat real food and make consious choices. 

Beef and Brocolli

I absolutely love Ginger.  It has like a mood altering sort of anti-depressant sort of thing for me.  Here is a link to the best ginger dressing that I have ever tasted.   

http://dinnerattheosbornes.blogspot.com/2009/11/ginger.html

Peel ginger by scrapping it with the back of a spoon.  Use a carrot grater to mince it.  Seal it tightly in a freezer save bag and freeze it.  Take it out next time you want to use it and repeat until you are down to nubs, then buy another.

Wait a second.  Let me stand and sniff a little bit. 

Okay, so I've been working on a ginger stir fry sauce of my own for most of a year.  I have it tasting just about right for us.  Husband loves it.  The problem is that I want it to thicken up.  The amount of cornstarch stated in this recipe thickens into a lovely smooth sauce for some "Asian" recipes, but it is too thin for some foods.  The amount of liquid already present, the types of foods used, all affect the thickening of this sauce.  Still tastes really good. 

There are so many purchased sauces available and most taste good.  But they are expensive and what's really in them?  

This sauce suits our taste and I'm satisfied that I understand the ingredients.  I measure out the ingredients in a measuring jar and have it waiting for me. 

Stir Fry Sauce
1/4 t. fresh minced ginger
3 T. soy sauce
1/4 c. white wine
1 c. water or beef broth
1 1/2 t. hoisen sauce
1 1/2 t. corn starch
1/2 t. Asian sweet chili sauce, optional

Broccoli & Beef with Rice

Prepare all parts before starting to cook 

2 good sirloin steaks, purchased on sale then cut up.

1/2 half red pepper cleaned and finely diced

2 stalks celery cleaned and finely diced. 

In a cast iron skillet, 2 T. canola oil.  Add the red pepper and celery.  Saute until a bit soft.  Add meat and cook, turning the meat to cook on all sides. 

Add the florrets of two large heads of broccoli, cut and cleaned. 

Continue to cook until meat is cooked through and brocolli is just tender.  Add the sauce and bring to a boil.  If the sauce reaches a satisfacory thickeness, serve with a pot of rice. 

If you'd like it a little thicker, use a large spoon to drain off a few T. or a 1/4 cup of the liquid into a small bowl.  Add another 1/4 t. cornstarch and stir to combine.  Add it to the sauce and bring it back to a boil to thicken. 

Remember that sauce improves the quality of life.

Cooking to feel good/ Chicken Stir Fry

Hard day today.  Nothing bad happened.  I'm just making some changes in my life right now and I come home tired and a little overwhelmed.  So I could finish wrapping Christmas presents.  I could working on Christmas decorations (still not even started).  But no, I'm going to cook to feel good.  Something about cooking straightens me out, gives me perspective, makes me happy.  So here gos

The sauce
3T. Soy Sauce
2 T. Rice Vinegar
2 T. Hoisen Sauce
1 T. Honey
2 T. White Wine
2 gloves Garlic. 
1/2 t. fresh grated ginger

Take the time now to smell it.  Yummy.
The chicken

About a 1 1/4 pounds boneless chicken breasts.  These are tenders, but regular ones that have been cut into slices would be fine.  I could use a utencil, but no, I pick each one up with my fingers and hold it.  Soft and pretty.  What a lovely thing, and yes, I'm weird.  But I'm starting to feel better already. 

1/2 of the sauce into the chicken.  Turn the chicken in the sauce with your fingers to coat.  You could use tongs if you want.  Let it set at least 15 minutes.  Longer if you have it.  Turn the chicken in the sauce from time to time and remember to enjoy yourself.

The vegetables..

This is chopped onion, brocolli, snap peas, carrots and shredded red cabbage.  But use any combination of vegetables you like.  I use stir fry as an opportunity to clear out the vegetable bin.

Add a Tablespoon of my favorite sweet chili sauce to the remaining sauce. 

A Tablespoon of canola or peanut oil in the pan and heat it to medium high.  Start laying the chicken pieces in the oil.  But this time use the tongs.  If you've ever put cool stuff in hot oil, you know why.  Cook the chicken, turning them, for 5 - 10 minutes depending on the size of pieces until just cooked.  Remove them to a bowl. 

Add another T. oil and the vegetables.

Starting to feel pretty good.
Add the reserved sauce and cook until vegetables are just slightly crisp.  Go ahead and pick one up with your fingers and put it in your mouth. 

The husband calls down to me "something smells pretty good!"

Now you need some rice.  Some people have trouble cooking rice in a pan.  You don't need a rice cooker.

2 cups water and 1 t. salt in the pan and bring it to a full rolling boil.  That means when you stir, you can't stir it down. 

1 cup of rice and spring for the good stuff in a 5 lb sack.

Add the rice to the boiling water and stir it just enough so that all the rice is wet.

Slam on the lid and immediately turn down the heat to low. 

Now don't peak, don't touch it, stay away from it.  Cook on low for 15 minutes.  Lift the lid and fluff the rice with a spoon.  Add a Tablespoon of butter and close the lid again until you are ready to eat.

 I promise you perfect rice every time if you do this.

Husband comes in with a happy look on his face, sniffing the air.  Seems like something was wrong before, but I can't remember what.

Fresh Elk - Ginger Stir Fry

My step son shot an elk.  Now, I wasn't there.  I've been around guns and shooting all my life, but I'm where things get cooked, not where things get shot.  I reached over the side of the truck to touch its pelt, its snout, its ear.  I saw and was fascinated by the inside of its mouth.  Then a bunch of it found its way into my frig. 

Elk is a lean and tender meat.  It is not well marbeled, slices very easily.  I decided it was about to be an

Asian elk and quickly sliced about 1 1/2 lbs into bite sliced pieces.  I put 1/4 t minced fresh ginger, 3 T. of soy sauce and 1 T. dry white wine in a deep bowl, put the elk in the marinade and put it in the frig for 30 minutes.

In another small bowl, I put 1/2 cup beef broth., 1 1/2 t. hoisin suace. 1/4 t. sugar, 1 t. corn starch. I refrigerated the bowl for 30 minutes.  In the meantime, I cooked a pot of rice and started a huge pile of sliced veggied from the veggie drawer of my frig.  I put 1 T. canola oil into my pan and put my meat into the hot pan to cook.

As the meat cooked, I drained any extra liquid from the meat into my sauce.  When it was fully cooked, I transfered the meat to a plate with a slotted spoon.  I added an additional T of oil to my pan and added the veggies.  I stir fried them until tender, added back the meat and the sauce and cooked until the sauce was thickened. 
I served it over rice.  People have been talking about it ever since. 

More elk to come.

Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

Every Chinese restaurant has a beef and broccoli dish. I think that is very interesting, because I've read that broccoli isn't really used in traditional Chinese cooking. My husband likes it, so it shows up frequently in my cooking. This is an original recipe. I've made many versions until we reached one that tastes best to us. Like everything I make, I try to use fresh ingredients and not take all day. So I get flavor by using some commercial sauces.

My regular grocery store has one or two sale meats every week. I buy the sale meat in large quantity, then freeze portions we'll use in zip lock bags. The trick is to have what I want defrosted at the time I want to cook. It stresses me out to need a meal in 30 minutes and have a freezer full of food frozen solid. I have to have a plan. One thing I do is to slice a couple zip lock bags of sirlion on grocery day and freeze them knowing I'll use them for stir fry. The others stay as steak. As I've mentioned, my husband is a carnivore. The point is planning. Knowing what I'm making the next few days and having the ingredients ready. That means freezer management and good grocery lists.

Cantonese Beef and Broccoli
3 T. Soy Sauce
3T. White Wine
1/4 t. Lemon Pepper Seasoning
1 red bell pepper diced finely
1 T. Cider Vinegar
1T. Sugar
3 T. Commercial stir fry sauce - Cantonese Style (or one you like)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/4 lb sirloin steak, cut into very thin strips
2 T. Vegetable oil
1 T. cornstarch
3 cups broccoli floweretts
cooked white rice
Combine soy sauce, wine, vinegar, sugar, stir fry sauce, and garlic in a mixing bowl. Add meat, stirring to coat. Let stand 15 minutes or more. With a slotted spoon, remove meat to a plate and set aside the marinade. Heat oil in nonstick skillet over high heat. Add meat, stir and cook several minutes until browned lightly. Add broccoli. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 5 mintes. Add cornstarch to reserved marinade and add to skillet. Simmer an additional 2 minutes. Serve over white rice.