This is one of my “go to” recipes when I’m looking for something that’s fast, healthy & totally delicious! Especially if I’ve got some leftover brown rice in the fridge that I’m looking for something to do with. My version here is a knock off of a similar recipe that I saw in Runner’s World back in March and the variations are almost endless.
For me, stir fry comes in 2 categories: sweet and savory. This recipe is in the sweet category with a little heat mixed in. It’s really awesome and if you’re anything like me, you’ll look for a good excuse to have a second helping.
The thing I love about this one is that you can substitute the protein of your choice (shrimp, chicken, beef, tofu) and it’s still just as good. Also, play around with the veggie mix and get what you like. Be creative!
olive oil (about 3 tbs)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 small package frozen stir fry veggies (you can usually find a couple options in the supermarket freezer section; I like the ones with mushrooms and baby corns!)
1/2 lb frozen shrimp (I prefer my shrimp peeled, but the packs at my local supermarket have frozen shrimp that aren’t, so I soak them for a few minutes in cold water before cooking and peel them myself)
1/2 of a 20oz can pineapple chunks (with the juice!)
sweet and sour sauce (usually easy to find in the Asian food section of the local supermarket)
brown rice, cooked
The technique here is key. Once you get the flow down, you can make all kinds of substitutions and come up with your own variation.
First, heat oil in a large pan or wok over medium high heat. Sauté the minced garlic & red pepper flakes briefly and then add the package of frozen veggies. Stir fry until they begin to get tender, around 5 minutes or so. Add the shrimp (read protein of your choice) and cook for 3-4 minutes until pink. Add 1/2 can of pineapple chunks and the juice as well as a generous pour of your jarred sweet & sour sauce. Stir fry together for another 2 minutes until all ingredients are hot & cooked. Serve immediately over brown rice.
My version of this serves 2 people generous portions with sometimes a leftover serving depending on how hungry we are. Use more shrimp & the full can of pineapple chunks (with 1/2 of the juice) and you can stretch it to serve 4. For an added crunch, consider throwing in some unsalted peanuts or cashews.
This is a delicious and really fast recipe and usually only messes up one pan, so cleanup isn’t bad. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do! Let me know what you think.
Making the transition from recipe to creation is both liberating and a bit intimidating. I’ve always considered myself a “creative cook,” but what that practically means is that I like to fuse together different recipes and tweak the ingredients if something else sounds better or if the ingredients are so obscure or expensive that it’s jut not worth going to the trouble.
It seems like Laree & I have been in a “steak night” rutfor quite a while. In fact, it seems like since school started in the fall, that we haven’t gotten caught up and that our Saturdays have been packed with either projects that didn’t get done during the week or with some of the activities that we’re over-committed to that my usual ritual of thumbing through the latest issue of Bon Apetite for recipe ideas has gone totally by the wayside. So, as you can probably imagine, we get to 5:00 on Saturday evening & we are looking at each other saying, “What do you want to do for date night?”
Sure, we’ve been through some ruts before, like the “Chinese Take Out” rut and the “Let’s Just Have Fish Again” rut, but those are usually short lived. But it seems like this fall we’ve really been through a long rut… Steak Night. I guess part of the longevity of the steak night rut is that we both really love a good steak and if you’re going to have a fall back routine, throwing a steak on the grill isn’t a bad one. But after what seems like many weeks now, as much as I love steak, I’m starting to yearn for a different experience, or at least something to kick it up a notch.
And so, again around 5:00 on Saturday, when I finally remembered to think about our Date Night I had my yearning for something different. And again, no time to prep. The conversation goes something like this:
“Have you thought about what you want for date night?” (as if to say, “hey, I’ve been racking my brain and haven’t come up with anything”. Yea, right!)
“Hmmm, I don’t know… Let’s think…”
“Well, we could always do steaks again.”
“You know I always love a good steak.”
“Ok, let’s just do steak. What do you want with your steak…”
And so it continues…
And again, I find myself at the neighborhood grocery store wandering around, with no plan, thinking about what would go with steak that we haven’t already had too many times. And so, I had an idea that turned out pretty good and kicked it up a notch.
First, I have to say that in addition to our steak rut, we’ve been in a sweet potato rut. It’s like the domino effect. We love steak and so that’s the fall back plan. And in my opinion, nothing goes with a steak quite like a sweet potato, they become the secondary fallback plan. I usually like to bake a sweet potato in the oven at 400 degrees for something like a hour and 15 minutes until it’s totally mushy inside. Kind of the standard approach. Did that last week.
This week we’re still going to do sweet potatoes, but tonight I’m going to cut them in chunks and season with cinnamon sugar and rosemary. There’s a nice fall balance there to go with the season. I’m going to drop my chunks from 2 sweet potatoes (after I’ve skinned them) into a large freezer bag. I’m using canola oil tonight instead of my usual olive oil, because I think the olive oil clashes a little with the cinnamon. Then I’m going to season liberally with both the cinnamon sugar (just cinnamon is fine too but I want to get them extra sweet) and rosemary leaves. Then I’ll place them on a baking pan in the middle rack of my oven and bake them on 400 degrees until they get a dark brown crispy crust in places, usually about 25 minutes or so. Keep watching them so you get the texture and color how you like. This part is totally personal preference. Don’t forget to shake the pan a couple times during cooking, just to rough them up a bit.
Asparagus with Pancetta
Since my mom always taught me to have something green, and because green contrasts so nice with the orange of the potatoes and the brown char-grilled steak, I’m adding asparagus to tonight’s lineup. I love oven roasted asparagus with a little olive oil, kosher salt & cracked pepper, but tonight I’m going to add a little twist. I picked up some pancetta in the deli section. Pancetta is basically an Italian bacon and it’s pretty expensive per pound, but I’m just getting enough, sliced paper thin but not falling apart, to wrap around the stems of my asparagus, probably something like 3 oz or 15 slices. This is going to lend a nice subtly smokey flavor to my asparagus. I’m simply going to roll them around the stems of my asparagus – they’re not big enough to wrap the entire asparagus and that’s not the look I want anyway – sprinkle them with kosher salt & fresh cracked pepper, and bake them when my potatoes are done for about 10-15 minutes, again depending on how much you want them done. I like them before the asparagus starts to turn brown from baking and still have a little crunch to them.
As for the steaks, that’s simple. I usually buy supermarket steaks and I prefer ribeyes, but I’ll take a New York Strip too and if the cut is good, maybe they’re an inch thick. Grill those guys over a layer of gray charcoal for 4 minutes on each side for medium rare (my preference) or 5 minutes for medium (Laree’s preference). Remember, different grills cook differently and it depends a lot on the thickness of the steaks. Just find your sweet spot and remember it.
I’ve started the potatoes as soon as i got back from the store and could get them cut up. They take the longest. Then I can lend Laree a hand getting the kids down early. I know my coals will take about 25 minutes to get good and hot and that’s good for some talk time with Laree. I’ll plan on putting the asparagus in just before I actually start cooking the steaks. We’re hungry & have a little time to kill, so I’m thinking appetizer!
My Antipasto Board
Here’s something you may want to try, or take the idea and run with it. I’m going to surprise Laree with an antipasto board tonight. Since she loves pickled stuff, I’m going with a sweet and sour idea. Some sweet baby gherkin pickles, some kalamata olives (both out of the jar) and some extra sharp white cheddar cheese squares (the supermarket was a little weak on artisan cheeses tonight). I arranged these guys in nice little piles on a wooden cutting board for a nice rustic look. Make sure to put the pickles and olives on a paper towel first to absorb the juice. We don’t want a big puddle on the cutting board taking away from the effect!
Add a red wine with some kick to it like a Cabernet Sauvignon and a bottle of San Pellegrino or whatever sparkling water you prefer, a couple candles, and whatever playlist you think fits the mood (tonight mine is Norah Jones and Alison Krauss) and make it a Date Night!
