My second year of college my friends and I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment together…and for the first time in our lives, were responsible for feeding ourselves. I had grown up helping my mom cook and I could follow recipes well enough, but other than baking, let’s just say my repertoire in the kitchen didn’t extend much past sandwiches and fried eggs.
So I started experimenting and came up with a sort of modified version of a Thai stir-fry. Similar to ones I’ve seen or helped my mom make, though I don’t think I’ve seen this particular one anywhere else but my own kitchen. It was easy to make, really forgiving. There’s plenty of room for swapping out ingredients and trying different ones. And so tasty it’s still a solid fall back meal that has satisfied roommates, boyfriends, and now even husband 11 years later. So much so, when I taste it now, it tastes like nostalgia.
What you’ll need:
Chicken or tofu (for two people I use 1 breast, but use however much looks satisfying; like I said, really forgiving)
1 bell pepper (though I use 2 halves, each a different color)
Onion (about 1/3…or whatever looks like a good amount to you)
Shitake mushrooms (3-5)
Bean sprouts (optional)
2-3 garlic cloves
Canola oil
Maggi sauce
Rice vinegar
Oyster sauce (optional)
Dried red pepper (to taste)
If you haven’t seen those sauces before, here’s what they look like:
The oyster sauce is totally optional, so this dish can be totally vegan-friendly.
Here’s what you do:
1. Slice chicken or tofu into bite-size strips. Slice bell pepper, onion, and mushrooms. Mince garlic.
2. Heat about a tablespoon of oil in a wok or large frying pan. Add garlic. When garlic becomes fragrant, add chicken or tofu and mushrooms. Add about 6-8 splashes of Maggi sauce. Stir-fry until browned. Add bell pepper. Splash about 3-4 splashes of oyster sauce and 5-6 splashes of rice vinegar. When the bell pepper starts to soften and chicken or tofu looks nearly cooked, add the onion. Stir-fry to mix.
3. Do a little taste test. If it’s too salty add a little more vinegar. If it’s too sour add a little more Maggi. If it seems on the bland side, add more of both. Don’t worry overmuch if it’s a little intense; the extra flavor goes well with rice. Of course…if you were REALLY sauce-happy, you could probably just drain some of it off. Once you’ve gotten the right balance to your taste, add dried red pepper to taste. In the last minute of cooking, throw in a handful of bean sprouts. Don’t overcook them. You want them to still be crunchy when you serve them.
And voila! Serve with rice. If you want to impress your dinner companions, you can garnish it with some chopped green onion and bean sprouts on the side.
It’s a great way to get a good balance of protein and veggies and, served with brown rice, you get your fiber and carbs. It might even be kid-friendly too. I remember I used to eat my veggies when I was a kid primarily because of my mom’s stir-fries. They’re harder to avoid when they’re all mixed in, and covered in a yummy sauce they become much more palatable.
If you’re not a fan of these particular veggies, give this a go with just chicken and shredded cabbage. In that case, all you need is the Maggi and rice vinegar for the sauce, and you’ll want to err a little more on the side of the vinegar.
Update: after originally posting this, I came across the 365 recipe swap hosted by Simply Modern Mom, so I’m linking up. Check it out! Looks like lots of great recipe ideas!
Usually when I have guests over for dinner, I cook Thai food, which requires about 10-20 minutes of preparation, 10 minutes of a flurry of arm-flailing effort, and then voila! it’s served, and you have to eat it right away. But I’m starting to discover the glory of baking food, which requires you start a little earlier perhaps, but then for the hour or so the food is baking, you can do other things. Like hide the socks, jackets, books, and other bits of evidence that your home is not quite a Martha Stewart home. And light candles. And freshen up your makeup. And have a glass of wine. So you don’t look like a sweaty, disgruntled host who can’t even greet the guests as they walk in the door because you’re busy producing four different dishes at once.
Ahem. Actually, the cookbook says the first step is to preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Then take a vegetable peeler and remove a 2-inch strip of zest from the orange, cut the orange in half, squeeze juice out of one half and cute the remaining half into 4 wedges. Place two tablespoons of juice and the strip of zest in a medium saucepan for Step 4. Tuck an orange wedge into the cavity of each game hen. Sprinkle the remaining orange juice over the hens and place each breast side up in a large roasting pan, leaving space between them. (Although I cut the recipe in half for there were only 4 of us at dinner, I did use the whole orange and just put two wedges in each bird. Figured it couldn’t hurt. And actually I think it helped keep them extra moist.)
Reduce heat to low and simmer gently until the cranberries are tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Just before serving, remove orange zest. (I had a little left over orange juice, which I reserved until it was time to serve the chutney. By the time the hens had roasted the chutney had gotten a little dry, so I stirred in a little bit of orange juice just to liven it up a bit upon serving.)
I put mine on a bed of lettuce and served the chutney with a sprig of mint to decorate.
The crazy work madness is over (allowing me to settle into routine work load) so I’m celebrating with a drink! Actually, this post originated as a Facebook discussion, but this eggnog is just so good, I had to share it with the masses. You know you’re in good hands when it’s a grandpappy’s recipe. Unfortunately, it’s not my grandpappy’s recipe (Something makes me suspect neither of my grandfathers – one Thai and the other, a Christian missionary – were too much into eggnog. But you never know.), it’s someone else’s grandpappy’s recipe that I just happened to Google when my parents asked for eggnog after Thanksgiving dinner. (And by asked, I mean they suggested in wistful tones that it would be lovely to have eggnog and wasn’t it a shame we hadn’t picked some up at the store, and I volunteered to make it with what we had to save us from such despair.) This recipe, which you can find 
Wait, don’t go! Are you still here? I promise this is worth it! I’m not a fan of tomato soup, and my husband likes it even less. I’ll at least eat cioppino and bouillabaisse. He’ll only eat the mussels out of the bouillabaisse. But this tomato soup is fantastic! I think the trick is in the creamy bit and the basil bit. Are you also frightened of the homemade breadsticks bit? Don’t be. I don’t make my own bread from scratch either, but this is totally doable.
But they are soft, hot and delicious.
I’d been getting some complaints that I haven’t been doing any taste tests lately. So this week, you’ll not get just one…you’ll get THREE new taste tests. Starting with this baby. Pumpkin pie brownies.
FAIL. See that splooge? My brownies ain’t pos’d to have no splooge. They tasted alright…but they were gooey. And messy. And I was grumpy.
And basically, I just followed the recipes on the brownie box for the brownie layer and the pumpkin can for the pumpkin pie layer. So even if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s, you can get these items from just about any grocery store and do the same thing. Just keep those principles I mentioned in mind!
Can you see up in there? If you run your finger along the edge of the mixture (and taste it), you’ll get a nice clean edge. If you pull out the whisk, you’ll form some super soft peaks. Thinner than custard. But not super liquidy. So principle #1: Don’t let the pumpkin mixture get too runny.
I did not use all the pumpkin mixture. I only used about half. I think if I had used a larger, rectangular pan, I probably would have used just about all of the mixture. That’s probably a good idea if you want them to end up half-brownie, half-pumpkin pie. These end up more like 3/4 brownie, 1/4 pumpkin pie.
TA DA! Look! No splooge. Just moist, rich yummy goodness. When you’ve finished consuming them (with milk, in the bathroom, in the dark, hiding your gluttony from your husband), hop on over to the stair-master because when I say rich, I mean RICH. If only these were currency on Wall Street….
Are you not already hooked on this pie? Because if you aren’t, then you should be. Unless you’re allergic to nuts and dairy. And even then, you still might be good friends with this pie (perhaps served with Benadryl because it is that worth it).
