Saturday, June 8, 2013

The Bok choy stir fry meal

Today was my first venture into working with bok choy. The result was pretty decent. Good even.


         I followed my brother Jonathan's advice along with the confirmation of a friend who is a fantastic cook. The advice? He uses bok choy in stir fries and sweet and sour soups and such things. Stir fry sounded good, and I just happened to find a basic stir fry that called for green beans (of which we have waaay too many).

Thank you, Allrecipes!

INGREDIENTS:
1 teaspoon peanut oil
3 tablespoons minced shallots
2 carrots, sliced diagonally
1 cup fresh green beans, cut into 1 inch
pieces
1 cup chopped bok choy
1/3 cup low sodium, low fat vegetable
broth
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
DIRECTIONS:
1.Heat the oil in a wok or skillet over high heat. Add the shallots and saute for 3 minutes. Add the carrots and stir fry for 3 minutes. Add the green beans and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the bok choy and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the broth and simmer for 2 minutes. Add the soy sauce and serve.        
         It's a nice base. I didn't exactly follow it. or measure anything really. I chopped stuff up and threw it into the skillet. 
first, I thinly sliced half a medium onion. no shallots.
minced some ginger and garlic. because flavor!
sliced three carrots thinly
cut a bunch of green beans into approx. one inch lengths
cut the stems off the bok choy and chopped them into 1 in pieces
chopped the leaves 
sliced 3/4 of a red bell pepper
and minced two jalapenos


finished stir fry
        I heated a skillet and added some light olive oil and some sesame oil (flavor!!!) commenced to add garlic and ginger. after 30 seconds or so, added the onion and sauteed for roundabouts two min. Then added carrots and stir fried for 3-4 minutes then added green beans when I felt like it, I added the bell pepper. probably after five minutes. almost immediately after that, I added the bok choy stems. gave it 3-5 min and added the leaves. when they wilted I poured in chicken broth (enough to look good) and simmered it for about 5 min to 10 min. splashed in some silver swan and stirred it to mingle the soy sauce and served in a bowl with garnish.

         To go with that I fixed some bean thread noodles. 5 minutes in boiling water. drained. rinsed in cold water and immediately upon placing in a bowl tossed it with some sesame oil to keep it from clumping into a mass of scary bean-stuff that no one is sure what to do with. 



noodle success!!!
         All in all, it was a good pretty meal, that is, until I started serving it up. There was a massive blank spot on the table and on each plate that I served. No meat! We sat and ate. people complimented it. It was happy and light. Then the youngest two asked for second servings. I knew then that this would not be enough for Dad. The chicken that never was fixed was crying out, "I told you so!!!" My food conscience was burning because I had the thought that chicken would be good with this. Mom eventually came the the rescue of the nice, but unbalanced meal and appeased every stomach that craved meat with the leftover carne asada from the previous day. Every stomach lived happily ever after until the next meal when they would feast *spoiler alert* on BLTs. 

OH! I almost forgot, for dessert we had fresh strawberries and whipped cream. they were fantastic!


Good day, all!