Friday, March 12, 2010

Clean Out the Fridge Suey




I've heard that good food takes a long time to prepare. Well, so does mediocre food! It wasn't bad, really - but it wasn't "have a second helping" great - which can be good if you're a weight watcher!
I shopped last week with the best of intentions - stocked up on vegetables and had every hope of using them throughout the week. It seems that my intentions exceeded the available time, and I ran out of week before I ran out of veggies. So, it was "sell 'em or smell 'em" - or in my case, "use 'em or lose 'em"!
What were my choices? Tonight -  either soup or a stir fry.  I opted for the stir fry so as to use the lean ground beef I took out of the freezer this morning as the meat in my dish.

Among my veggies starting to grow tired in the crisper were baby bok choy. They were so cute, I had to buy them - without the slightest idea of how to prepare them. They should be good in a stir fry. The bag of cole slaw mix with a best before date two days ago.  Still looked fine. This would do. The large mushrooms, the broccoli crown, some baby carrots, a couple stalks of celery - all good for a stir fry. Oh - and that 1/2 pound of asparagus that I didn't use earlier in the week - that would add a touch of sophistication.
Wash, wash, wash, chop chop, chop.....all the prep for a stir fry certainly takes time!

I precooked the ground beef with a large chopped onion and 4 cloves of crushed garlic along with pepper and Mrs. Dash for seasoning. I precooked it and then drained it and measured how much I had so that I would be able to calculate the WeightWatcher point value of my dish. I reserved 3 cups of the ground beef for my stir fry. (The remaining 3 cups will become spaghetti sauce tomorrow.)

Time to sir fry the vegetables. Some vegetable spray into my non stick pan - and then the carrots (quartered lengthwise), celery and the stalk of the broccoli - all chopped into bit sized pieces. A splash of vegetable stock to help them cook - then the asparagus (cut into thirds), and the package of cole slaw mix.
Once wilted, I added the broccoli. After a few minutes - the baby bok choy and the sliced mushrooms went into the pan.
It really did look very pretty - all bright and colourful!

As seasonings, I used 3 tablespoons of Soy Sauce and some Victorian Epicure Stir Fry Seasoning . I added more vegetable stock and allowed it to steam.

The final addition was the ground beef - back into the mix to warm up. And then it was ready to eat - served on rice.



I would have preferred more spiciness to it - it was a little too bland. My DH added ketchup (he thinks if it's ground beef, adding ketchup is a given). I added soy sauce - but it would have been better if I had put some hot pepper flakes into the mix as I was cooking it - or something with a little kick!

However - I did reduce the vegetable inventory - which was, to quote Martha Stewart, "a good thing". (Does she still say that?)

4 comments:

  1. You should do a exposé on the process of preparing your house for Passover -- it would be interesting for readers.

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  2. Funny you should mention it - as I was cleaning out the fridge and preparing dinner, that very thought came to me. I'll see if I can make the idea of cleaning one's home and kitchen interesting enough!

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  3. Costco has/had this really wonderful wok sauce that I used to get. I don't use it anymore because of the sodium but it gave any stir fry the most incredible flavour. Sorry you didn't get a big wow from it but at least you know how to adjust it now.

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  4. There's something for you on our blog

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