Wanna Green Bean: Stir Fry on the Fly

1 February 2008

Stir Fry on the Fly

My friend and I have spent over half a year renovating a house to live in. Its an old house, over 100 years old. The plaster was falling down and everything was painted bright blue and ugly pink/brown/orange. It wasn’t even awesomely kitchy in tacky 1970 colors, it was just downright ugly.

I would post the pictures directly here but the Realtor is a friend of mine, and she seemed doubtful when my roommate said he’d take it. We plan on having her over once its done completely and hope she doesn’t have a heart attack at 23. So if you’re my house selling friend, don’t look yet! Everyone else click on through.

The plaster from all walls except for one closet was torn down (now that was fun), and this is what the kitchen looked like (and thats after cleaning it up a bit). The kitchen along with the rest of the house has improved greatly. The kitchen is so big I almost don’t know what to do with myself.

Except cook.

The only problem is that we hadn’t done any real grocery shopping since well, I don’t even remember. All we had were little bits and pieces that had made it through packing, storage, and then floating around the house for a while. I realized though, that we did have enough for a quick stir fry like meal.

Stir Fry on the Fly

Start by thawing about 1/2 to 1 pound of chicken (whatever kind of chicken you may have) or if you’re vegetarian – tofu, meat substitute or whatever you’ve got.

When you are done using the microwave for thawing (or if you don’t have to thaw the meat at all) cook some boxed rice according to the package’s microwave instruction (this is gourmet cooking we’re doing here).

If you have enough cookware, feel free to cook the rice on the stove. I couldn’t find my saucepan, but I could find a large microwave safe bowl, so that’s how I made it.

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and lightly shake on some soy sauce.

Heat up a large skillet with a little bit of oil in it (or skip the oil if you don’t have any).

Cook the chicken until cooked through and tasty and golden (or not if you prefer that sort of thing).

Add the frozen vegetables. Yes add them frozen, we’re lazy here people. Use however many vegetables you want. I used a box of Asian teriyaki vegetables, and 1/3 a bag of green beans. Add about 1/4-1/2 a cup of water to help steam the veggies.

Normally this is where I would cover the food to let the steam help thaw out and cook the veggies, but I have no idea where the lid is. I was just happy to find this pan. So if you have a lid, stick it on. Stir occasionally to break up the veggies as they thaw.

When the veggies have separated, its time to add some sauce.

We had some bottled sweet and sour sauce and some soy sauce, so I poured some on. I contemplated using some oriental sesame chicken marinade we had on hand too, but there was already teriyaki sauce in some of the frozen vegetables.

There was still alot of water left in the pan so I decided to thicken it, But then I realized we didn’t have any cornstarch. So I used a few spoonfuls of flour instead, and it actually didn’t turn out too badly.

Spoon out some of the cooking water into a bowl and then whisk in the thickening agent with a fork. Make sure its as smooth as possible before adding it back to the food, otherwise there will be lumps.

Take the rice out of the microwave and laugh at the smiley face the seasonings made as it was cooking, and contemplate selling it on ebay along with mary on toast.