Shrimp and snow peas stir fry

Remember my recent post that included a reasonably priced bag of frozen shrimp?

Well...we're moving and I needed to use it up.

This was sort of what I had in mind...it made me crave white wine.

I stopped at the store and was noticed a slight drop in produce prices now that spring has arrived.

Trying to buy as little as possible for this meal, I grabbed a lemon, a bag of snow peas and a small pack of bean sprouts.  THAT WAS IT!  Less than $6.00 later...for the meal items, I'm not including wine there...and you don't need to know how much I spend at that store...

We already had the garlic and the brown and wild rice.  Veg oil, onions, had those too.  Strangley enough we had a small bottle of wite wine vinegar ini the pantry from a previous recipe attempt.  We also already had the coriander in a grinder.  At the least minute I threw in some slivered almonds I snagged at the Bulk Barn!

Salt and pepper?  Check!

Boil rice.  Fry onion and garlic in a pan in veg oil.

Toss in the thawed shrimp, handful of sprouts, handful of snow peas, splash of lemon juice and coriander ground up.  Add a tablespoon of butter or marg if you like a thicker sauce. 

Insert white wine here...or in the pan if you wish.

Add some white wine vinegar if you want some zip...but it's fine without it too.

S & P to taste.

Heat pan until aromatic (makes the house smell yummy) and serve on rice (drained)!

You can eat this with chopsticks if you like to add flare to a meal...but its not required.

Enjoy!

Asparagus is back!

In honour of springtime and the return of the mighty asparagus...

Here's a fun recipe to try!

It's by far one of the cheapest dishes I've ever made...I already had everything in the pantry with the exception of the shrimp....a whole $6.99 at the store.

My mainstays:

Brown & wild rice

Cashews

Garlic

Onions

Chili Powder

Red pepper flakes

ground coriander

S & P

Lime Juice (cuz we ran out of lemon)

The shrimp was on sale and I only used about a handful from the bag, leaving tons left for another day.

The asparagus just started to emerge from their winter's slumber.

Poking their purple heads up from the dry garden soil.

Asparagus are a part of the Lily family (Liliaceae). Various species of asparagus were cultivated by Egyptian cultures beginning as early as 3000 B.C., and by Europeans including early Greek and Roman cultures.

Although it does take 3 years from planting to picking, if you have the patience and the time, it is certainly worth the wait!  (especially when you see what they sell for in the stores!!!)

Asparagus Care Guide:

Asparagus' very high respiration rate makes it more perishable than its fellow vegetables, and also much more likely to lose water, wrinkle, and harden. By wrapping the ends of the asparagus in a damp paper or cloth towel, you can help offset asparagus' very high respiration rate during refrigerator storage. Along with this helpful step, you will want to consume asparagus within approximately 48 hours of purchase or picking.

Chop to nice lengths and rinse.

I already had cooked rice in the fridge.

Pressed garlic and slivered onions into a frying pan with a bit of veg oil.

Simmer and add the chopped asparagus, rice and shrimp.

Add the spices and nuts.  Simmer until warmed thoroughly.

I like my fresh asparagus crunchy, so I just threw in the raw veggies and warmed them up...if you like a softer asparagus...then nuke for a min or steam them (about 30sec).

Asparagus Nutrition Guide:

Asparagus contains anti-inflammatory nutrients such as saponins, including asparanin A, sarsasapogenin, protodioscin, and diosgenin. Other anti-inflammatory nutrients in asparagus include the flavonoids quercetin, rutin, kaempferol and isorhamnetin.

Like chicory root and Jerusalem artichoke, asparagus contains significant amounts of the nutrient inulin. Inulin is a unique type of carbohydrate called a polyfructan, and in practical terms, healthcare practitioners often refer to it as a "prebiotic." Unlike most other carbs, inulin doesn't get broken down in the first segments of our digestive tract. It passes undigested all the way to our large intestine. Once it arrives at our large intestine, it becomes an ideal food source for certain types of bacteria (like Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli) that are associated with better nutrient absorption, lower risk of allergy, and lower risk of colon cancer.

Alongside of its unusual inulin content, asparagus is rich in fiber (about 3 grams per cup, including about 2 grams of insoluble fiber and 1 gram of soluble fiber) and also contains a noteworthy amount of protein (about 4-5 grams per cup). Both fiber and protein help stabilize our digestion and keep food moving through us at the desirable rate. (By contrast, too much fat can slow down our digestion rate more than desired, and too much sugar or simple starch can speed it up more than desired. We're not surprised to see species of asparagus like Asparagus racemosus (commonly known as Shatavari) having a long history of use in treatment of digestive problems in certain healthcare traditions (like ayurvedic medicine), and it makes sense to us that asparagus be considered as a great food for improving digestive support in most diets.

In short: 

Loads of fibre, high in vitamin K, anti-inflammatory.  Good for digestive tract, great for diabetics!

They also make your pee smell funny.  Its not dangerous, just one of those funny human things (like corn in your poop).

A Stir Fry for the Family!

This recipe started off with a question...

"What am I gonna do with this leftover steak???"

I sliced it up thin and then it hit me....STIR FRY!

The above picture shows the sliced steak thrown on top of thin sliced orange and yellow peppers, thin sliced onion rings, several pressed garlic cloves, S & P to taste, a handful of raw, whole almonds (could have used sliced almonds...but this was all I had to work with) and red pepper flakes.

Basically you want to quickly cook the veggies and then heat up the steak (so as not to over cook it).

When everything smells good, you'll want to add in a handful of spinach so it can wilt properly but not melt away.

I served everything on top of brown and wild rice

(which I had made several days prior and needed to eat up)

alongwith my trusty chop sticks for full effect!

I'm pretty sure I didn't add any additional flavours or spices to this dish, attempting to let the flavours of the foods stand on their own.  It was a wonderfully colourful and flavourful meal!  If you find it a bit bland for your tastes, you can try adding in some white wine vinegar for an extra zip.

Owen wasn't a fan of the stir fry...but he did like the chop sticks!  He spent the dinner time trying to manipulate the chop sticks like mum was doing...and in the end just liked stabbing his noodles.

Try making something out of the ordinary...from another culture, another flavour...you'll never know how your kids will interpret the event.  It may just open up a whole new world for your kids!

What weird and wonderful things have you been making in your kitchen?

Flying saucers...not necessarily from Mars

After last year, growing and eating zucchinis became a passion of mine.  I was never a huge fan of the tasteless gourd...but I am a born-again zuke lover.  This year I couldn't resist buying the flying saucer squash plant.  The picture on the tag was not unlike the image above.  I think they an adorable edition to our garden.  The debate between hubbie and I is are they a summer squash like zucchini?  Or are they like a winter squash like butternut or acorn squash?  The plant grows like a central bush like a zucchini plant, rather than vine-like as its winter squash cousins do. 

I have so many stuffed zucchini recipes put aside, that I thought I would try it out on something more fun...like a flying saucer! 



Because it is our first year with flying saucers...I had no idea what was the perfect picking size?  When they are cute and small?  Or do I neglect them for a few days and let them get as big as my hand (as shown above)?

I started browning some ground beef before I chopped off the top of the squash.  I simmered the beef for a few minutes while I dug out the center of the flying saucers.  Hope the martians didn't mind the renovations...

I added some chopped tomatoes, cooked brown and wild rice (I had in the fridge), some purple peppers (the turned green upon being cooked) and since we had no onions in the house, I used frozen wild leeks!  (we picked them this past May)



In the oven they went...at 375 degrees C and baked for 25 min.  Topped with mozzarella, of course.



After almost 35 min, I took them out of the oven, perfectly browned and crisp.  (I added a green zucchini and a yellow zucchini because I made too much filling...and truthfully, the flying saucers didn't look big enough to fill both  my husband and myself in one meal)

This was one yummy, healthy meal...and it occurred to me that the only thing we didn't grow ourselves was the beef, the cheese and the rice.  Pretty low cost meal indeed! 

What's the weirdest thing you've ever grown?  (could be the name, the shape or the colour)