Recipe Test: Farmers' Market Stir Fry

What's that a picture of?   An open window?  In Nebraska?  IN WINTER?!

Why yes ... yes it is.  The back door was wide open too.  Why?  To air out the smoke before the smoke detectors went off!

Lesson learned tonight:

You know that old saying 'a watched pot never boils'?  Well ... an unwatched pot boils over FAST!  And if said pot is full of a sauce that includes honey be careful!  Honey when it hits a hot stove burns, turns black and bubbles over into a smokey smelly mess.  YUCK!   You'll have to forgive me for not documenting this fiasco in pictures but I was kind of busy making sure that there was no actual fire.  Of course all three dogs were trying to go for the sauce that had spilled off the stove onto the floor so they were underfoot as I was dancing around trying to get the other pots off the stove and mop up the extra liquid ... without setting fire to the rags mopped it up with!  

In a small miracle my husband was in the basement in his 'man room' (the stairs are right off the kitchen) watching TV and he didn't notice.  Thank God for making men have that ability to lose touch with everything in their immediate surroundings other than the football game because otherwise he'd surely have heard the thundering above and smell the smoke!  Come to think of it ... if there ever is an actual fire he might be in serious trouble.

RECIPE:  Farmers' Market Stir Fry

Credit:  100 Days of Real Food Blog

Click here to see full recipe

INGREDIENTS: 

Teriyaki sauce:

• soy sauce 
• water
• ginger
• honey

Stir Fry:

• brown rice
• oil
• vegetables

In another small miracle the main portion of the meal survived and all I had to do was start over on the sauce and then reheat the rice and veggies.  Overall quite good.  Not the best thing I've ever tasted but I think if I added less onion and more types of veggies, maybe a little shrimp or sliced beef or chicken?  Good enough to try again.  The sauce (the non-burnt version!) is good. Didn't quite taste like Teriyaki to me but then I'll admit that's not something I use or order much.  And I'm sure the versions I've had in the past are severely processed.  Definitely better than just plain soy sauce.

Speaking of soy sauce ... DO check the ingredients on your soy sauce!  I bought a new bottle at Whole Foods because I thought we were out, but then when I got home I realized that we did have a bottle still in the door of the fridge.  Tonight I started to grab that already opened bottle when I decided to check the label - I'm glad I did!  High fructose corn syrup.  There is truth that almost everything we eat today had highly processed corn, wheat or soy in it - every time I read a label now it's there.   Into the trash went the old bottle and I used the Whole Foods version.

Ginger - I used dry powdered ginger and it tasted fine.  The recipe suggests fresh grated but I forgot to add that to my shopping list. 

Oil - I chose sesame.  Will have to do some research to see if that was a good choice.  It was that or peanut and sesame seemed more fitting for a stir fry flavor. 

Veggies - I chose a sweet yellow onion, mushrooms, carrots, celery and zucchini.  I think next time I'll go more Asian ... baby corn, snow peas, shiitake mushrooms, water chestnuts or bamboo shoots.  I think I'll add shrimp too.  I'm so used to my stir fry (yep - one thing I dared cook for myself before) being just whatever vegetables over rice with a little bit of salt.  No oil other than the Pam to keep things from sticking and no sauce at all.  Blah blah blah!  But really with no sauce there is no need to think about how the flavor of it goes with the veggies you choose.  With this sauce my veggies just didn't go.  I added sesame seeds but that didn't help much.  

Overall a decent dinner though and I love that I can say I've definitely gotten my servings of fruit & veggies today! 

UPDATE:  Tried again with mushrooms, carrots, snow peas and water chestnuts - much better!