Om Nom Nom

Stir fry is yummy! Stir fry is easy! Stir fry is fun! And when you make homemade Chinese food you don’t leave the table wondering what your stomach will do next. Sure it’s a little tough to get those odd shaped pieces of deep fried “chicken” smothered in delicious, sweet sauce that tastes nothing of sesame and doesn’t have a sesame seed in sight. However, your food will be just as yummy, I promise. Plus it gives you the perfect excuse to buy a wok and use it. And then all of your friends will be impressed because you own a wok…you must really know how to cook if you own a wok. I do not own a wok because I am already tight on storage space and I have plenty of perfectly good frying pans. If I did own a wok, I would be really excited and make stir fry all the time because as I said before, stir fry is yummy, easy, and fun.

Notice: This recipe is a guideline. Put whatever you want in stir fry. Put whatever is in your fridge. Use whatever sauce you want. Add meat. Add all kinds of meat. Add shrimp. Cook your veggies to a pulp if that makes you happy (just don’t tell me about that part because it would make me very unhappy.)

Servings: 2-3

Ingredients:

Sauce:

• 1/2 Cup Teriyaki Sauce
• 1 Clove Grated Garlic (on the small side of the grater)
• 1 Tsp Grated Ginger
• 1 Tbl Brown Sugar
• 1 Tsp Red Pepper flakes
• 1/4 Cup Water (or chicken, vegetable, beef stock)

Stir Fry:

• Udon Noodles
• 1/3 Bell Pepper, Cut into 1/2 inch chunks
• 1/4 Cup Diced Onion
• Baby Corn, Halved or in Thirds
• Handful of Sugar Snap Peas
• Bean Sprouts, Fresh if Possible
• Carrot, Julienne cut
• 1/2 of a Block of Super Firm Tofu, Cut into 1/2 inch cube

Method:

• Mix together sauce ingredients. Mix 1/4 cup in a bowl with the Tofu to marinate. Add more if you like.
• Put water on to boil for Noodles. Meanwhile cut the vegetables and heat up your stir fry pan.
• When the water is boiling, you can blanch the snap peas (about 1.5 minutes), and remove them before cooking the noodles.
  I used fresh baby corn, which I also blanched for 5 minutes at this step. However, fresh baby corn wasn’t really and improvement over canned since it wasn’t really that fresh and I would not recommend bothering with it and just buy canned.
• Put on the noodles and begin to stir fry the veggies in vegetable oil, starting with the carrot, onion, and peppers.
• When the noodles are done (mine took 7 minutes) drain them. Keep them on the side of chewy since they will continue to cook in the sauce.
• Add Tofu to the stir fry. When it seems warmed through add the noodles, baby corn, snap peas, bean sprouts and sauce.
  I like fresh bean sprouts a lot better than canned. They add a nice crunch and taste a lot better.
• Once everything is warmed through and is covered in sauce (about 3 minutes) you are ready to serve. Find some chop sticks and enjoy.

Mmmm…Tofu. 

My favorite Teriyaki sauce and Noodles:

I like Soy Vay because I can pronounce all the ingredients on it. Plus it contains sesame seeds, unlike Chinese takout Sesame Chicken. Oh and it is Kosher…so you can give it to all of your Jewish friends!

Also, I know I know…Udon noodles are JAPANESE and I just made a Chinese stir fry. But I like them. They are thick and easy to pick up with chopsticks.

Now I am going to take this moment to post some pictures from a previous cooking experiment. About a month ago, Nate, Evelyn, and I made some sushi. It was yummy…aside from the fact that we put a little too much wasabi inside.

SUSHI! Our sushi featured carrot, cucumber, and avocado. With pickled ginger on the side. When making sushi I learned:
1. Vinegared  rice is very yummy.
2. Never ever ever put the Wasabi inside your sushi. Always leave it on the side. 

Make sushi! Make stir fry! Eat with chop sticks! It is fun!

I came home from work today and Nate had made pizza dough. But rather than our classic pizza (thin crust, pesto, mozzarella, feta, olives) he intended it for a Deep Dish Creation. So after a quick run to Wegmans to get olives and more cheese (during which I managed to get $60 in groceries and forgot the olives…so I had to do a U-turn back to the store).

We followed this recipe for the crust, with the exception of Semolina Flour which was replaced with normal flour:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/chicago-style-deep-dish-pizzas-recipe/index.html

I highly recommend it the crust was light, fluffy, and delicious. For toppings we divided the following over two deep dishes:

• 1.5 packages of Mozzarella Cheese, grated
•  1 cup grated Asiago Cheese (or Parmesan)
• 1/2 cup of pesto
• 1 cup chopped olives (mixture of Black and Katamala)

My pizza also featured:

• 1/4 cup thinly sliced green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup diced fresh tomato, without seeds and the moisture squeezed out
• Pepperoni 

I had read previously that cast iron is an excellent vessel for the creation of deep dish pizza, and I would agree with this statement. I layered cheese, pesto, peppers, cheese, olives, pepperoni, cheese, tomatoes, Asiago. 

We took an interesting method for making Nate’s pizza, since I only have one caste iron pan. We prepared it on parchment paper and slid it onto a pizza stone, with the side of a spring form pan shaping the pizza.

This method worked quite well and had amazing results.

That is not to say that my pizza did not turn out perfect in the cast iron.

Nate declared this to be the best pizza he has ever eaten. I would not argue with that statement.

Last weekend, a friend introduced me to Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts are a member of the cabbage family, and I’m not sure why they get such a bad reputation. They are delicious…like little mini cabbages.

Originally, my friend made a delicious dish where he roasted them in the oven with herbs and bacon. However, I decided to incorporate the unused sprouts into a pasta dish. Since summer is the season of lemonade, and I just so happened to have a lemon in my fridge I ended up with a lemony pasta.

Servings: 3 Medium Servings, 2 Hungry Servings
Preparation: 30 Minutes
Skill Level: Easy

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