Stir-fry is one of the easiest meals for people new to meat-free eating.  Even non-asian restaurants tend to turn to stir-fries for their vegetarian offerings because they are pretty universal.  Cook a pot of brown rice, quickly fry some vegetables, season the whole thing with a soy based sauce and you’ve got dinner on the table in less than an hour.  This is on the menu plan nearly every week in my house!

In fact, there is really only 30 minutes or so of hands on cooking involved in making this tasty asian-inspired meal.  The brown rice takes about 40 minutes or so to cook, but the vegetable prep takes only 10 minutes.

The trick to really great stir fry is to have all your vegetables prepped before you start cooking.  Wash the vegetables and then cut them into relatively small pieces.  If you want to use tofu, I recommend cutting it into very small cubes, so that it cooks quickly.

For the sauce, I used a mixture of Ponzu (which is really just soy sauce with citrus added, soy sauce and a squeeze of lime is a great substitute), sesame oil, powdered ginger (fresh is better), Sriracha hot sauce (crushed red pepper is a good substitute), a splash of vinegar, a pinch of sugar, and a small spoonful of flour to thicken it a bit.

For this particular stir-fry I started by cooking the proteins.  I used about 1/3 of a block of extra-firm tofu (always buy the kind that is in the refrigerated section that comes packed in a plastic tub of water, not the shelf-stable cardboard packaged kind).  I drained the water from the tofu, then cut the tofu into very small cubes.  I also used some Gardein Beefless Tips (about 1/4 of a package).

I heated a wok until it was super hot*.  Then I added a small amount (about 1 tsp or so) of canola oil, and swirl it around to coat the wok.  Next I added  tofu and the (slightly thawed) “beef” and stir constantly, about 3 minutes.  I remove it from the pan and placed it on a large plate.

Next, I added some thinly-sliced onions and minced garlic and cooked stirring constantly for about 1 minute.  I took that out of the pan and added it to the proteins.

I added a small amount of oil, then added carrots (1/3 cup or so), broccoli florets (1 crown), diced celery (1/3 cup) and about 1/3 cup of packaged broccoli slaw mix.  Always stirring constantly throughout this process!  Then added about 1 cup of frozen stir-fry vegetables.

As soon as the vegetables are crisp-tender, I added the proteins back to the pan and added my sauce.  I let it bubble for about 45 seconds or so before plating the stir-fry over some cooked brown rice.

This served the two of us quite generously.  If you have leftovers, package them up and take them to work for lunches during the week.

*Definitely do not use a non stick pan for this- you want to be able to use really high heat so everything cooks quickly without losing its texture.

Dinners for the last month or so have been really fun.  Mex is really open to trying new foods which means I have a good excuse to go all out in the kitchen.  I keep asking him if he has any dinner requests, but he just says to make whatever I feel like so he can try it.

The other day we were grocery shopping and I found packages of Gardein Chick’n Scallopini were on sale (SCORE!).  I’ve used them before and really enjoyed the texture.  You see, the texture matches exactly how I remember chicken.  It’s been a long time now since I’ve had the real deal, so maybe my memory is skewed.  Maybe the realistic texture will weird out some non-meat eaters, but not me.  I didn’t give up chicken because I didn’t think it tasted good.  I really liked it, in fact.  So this is the perfect premade faux meat for me!

I’ve eaten them as is, lightly cooked on the stove.  They are already “lightly seasoned” and they tasted pretty good by themselves.  But I really wanted to dress them up and use them in a way that you might normally use chicken.  So I poked around the internet looking for chicken recipes.  There is NO shortage of them.  Wow!  People really like chicken, eh?

I ended up combining a few different recipes and made a gorgonzola, red wine, and apple cream sauce to smother the chick’n with.  I minced some onion and garlic, sauteed it until the onion was soft, added some Cabernet, a half of a chopped apple, a small handful of gorgonzola, some half and half, and a spoonful of greek yogurt.   Season with salt and pepper and some dried thyme and you’re good to go.

A splash of apple cider would have been a good addition, but I didn’t have any on hand.

On the side Mex and I collaborated on Potatoes Au Gratin ala The Pioneer Woman.  Have I ever told you how much I love The Pioneer Woman?  She’s amazing.  Her posts are hilarious, her recipes are delicious and in general she makes me think that living in the sticks wouldn’t be so bad if I had a studly cowboy as a husband (sorry, Mex).  But anyway, you should read her blog.  And make her Potatoes Au Gratin. 

Just please remember to stir the milk mixture better than we did.  We had a creamy, thick, yummy side of our baking dish, and a milky, runny side.  We of course cut into the milky side first and were totally bummed.  Then I poked into the other side and had the lightbulb moment.

Ah well, we stirred it all up and it was fine. I do recommend that if you’re making this in the toaster oven like we did, that you microwave your potatoes for a minute or so before you pop them in the oven, or give it a few extra minutes in the oven before removing the foil.  Our potatoes were a bit undercooked when we first took them out.

Also, you should make these potatoes for Thanksgiving.  I might.

On the side, I made sauteed zucchini with balsamic and thyme.  This might have been the first thing I have cooked that Mex didn’t like.  I was a bit heavy handed on the balsamic, which is how I like it, but it just didn’t work for him.  Thankfully, I was happy to take his veg off his hands.

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I want to leave you with a Cooking Tip.

In the photo above you’ll see I’m caramelizing some onions and sauteeing zucchini in the same pan.  I do this quite often for a couple of reasons.

The first is that I actually HATE doing dishes and this saves me from washing a second pan.

The second is that I’m easily distracted.  When I just have 1 pan on the stove to remember to stir, I tend to burn things less!

And finally, I really love my Le Creuset skillet a bit too much and always choose to cook with it over any other pans.

Just draw an imaginary line down the diameter of the pan and don’t stir too vigorously or else you’ll end up mixing the two

Also, always always always measure spices and salt in your hand before adding to the pan.  If you’re clumsy like me, this will save you from trying to gingerly scoop out the 1/4 of sea salt that you accidentally dumped into the pan.

I just found this post in my drafts folder- whoops!  It’s my last post from my summer in Ithaca.  I can’t say I miss my time in Ithaca (I was studying for the Bar) but I wouldn’t mind digging into this salad right now.

I marinated a Gardein brand chick’n breast in an asian inspired dressing (recipe below) and piled it on top of romaine, broccoli slaw, and diced carrots.  I topped the whole thing with poppy seeds for a bit of texture and to make it pretty.

Served with a side of edamame and cantaloupe.  I ate a lot of these two cool snacks over the extremely hot and humid summer.

Miso-Tahini Dressing

Use room temperature tahini and miso so that this comes together easily.

• 1/2 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup white (mellow) miso
• hot water

Place the tahini and miso in a bowl that has a tight fitting lid, and add about 1/2 cup of very hot water.  Stir to melt together the miso and tahini.  Add more water as necessary to thin the dressing into your desired consistency.

I like to use a container that I can shake so the dressing is easy to combine and store the dressing in.

PS- There is a tiny bit of time left to vote for Project Food Blogger- head to this site to vote for me!

I wanted to do a bit of an overview of the types of things I cook normally.  As you will see, my style of cooking is pretty varied, and I like to try new things.  All of these meals were made during the week as well, so they were pretty quick and didn’t require much advanced preparation.

Here we go!

These are tofu lettuce wraps.

I got the idea for the tofu + almond butter sauce + soba noodles from this post on Serious Eats.

Instead of just making a noodle and tofu dish, I decided to use up some leaf lettuce with the tofu and soba noodle filling.  I added raw edamame, onions, and carrots before rolling them up.  Yum.

Next up we have “Not Chicken Riggies.” Chicken Riggies is a really popular dish in the Utica area of NY and people there go nuts over it.  It’s a pasta dish with chicken, peppers and onions, and a creamy spicy tomato sauce.

I don’t know why I started thinking of this dish, but I couldn’t get it out of my head so I decided to make my own version.  The people in Utica will probably shoot me for even comparing this to the original.  I’m sorry Uticans.  I couldn’t help myself.

Here’s how I made it:  First I boiled the bowtie pasta (again, I’m sorry Uticans!).  Next, I cooked 2 Gardein Chick’n scallopini pieces in a bit of olive oil and removed them from the pan.  Then I sauteed onions and garlic in olive oil in a large skillet, seasoned with salt, pepper, oregano and crushed red pepper flakes (a lot of them).  Next I added some chopped asparagus (again, I apologize) and some defrosted chopped spinach.  Then I added crushed tomatoes and a bit of soy creamer.  I added the chick’n back to the pan with the cooked pasta and let it simmer for a few minutes.

This was amazingly good.  I ate way too much and then wanted more.  Best thing I’ve made in a while.

Here’s some pretty standard vegetarian chili.  I make this a lot when I want to use up ingredients.  The base is almost always onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, and beans.  This one used up a bit of creamy tomato soup I had in the fridge so it had a creamy texture to it that was really nice.  I added avocado and cilantro to the top and served it with nearly stale bread to dip.  It was tasty!

This last meal was a totally crazy thought that worked out so well!  Stuffed Mexican Portobello Burgers.  I roasted a portobello mushroom in the toaster oven (would have been better on a grill).  Then stuffed it with a mixture of refried beans, salsa, minced onion, lime juice, hot sauce, and cilantro.  I popped that back in the oven so the filling would get hot, then topped it with vegan diaya cheddar style cheese (aka the only vegan cheese worth buying) and broiled it until it melted.  I finished it off with diced avocado, chopped tomatoes, and cilantro.  Served with corn tortilla chips, this was a winner of a meal if I do say so myself.

So there you go!  4 really easy, delicious, and inexpensive meals made during the week.  No more excuses not to cook!

I have a quick product review for y’all on some veggie mock-meat products I got to try when I was in Florida for the holidays.  When I first went vegetarian, I ate a whole lot of boca burgers and chick’n patties as a substitute for meat, but these days I’m not the biggest fan usually.  That being said, I had heard gardein brand products were pretty good, and figured I would give them a shot.  I found them at Publix in St. Petersburg, and picked up the Classic Style Buffalo Wings and the Beefless Tips.

I first tried the Buffalo Wings.  I baked them in the oven per the package directions, and my initial reaction was that these looked nothing like they did on the package.  They looked pretty disgusting, actually.

Appetizing presentation?  Definitely not.

Great taste?  Eh.  The texture was great, but they were unbelievably spicy, and that comes from a girl who pours Sriracha and Frank’s Red Hot over everything.  I could barely handle the heat, and my guess is that most people would find them too spicy.  The sauce just wasn’t good.

I don’t have a photo of the Beefless Tips, but they were much better looking and tasting than the wings, perhaps because they didn’t come with a sauce.  The texture was great, and the flavor was neutral enough that they tasted great both in a stir fry that my sister made and a “beef bourginon” that I made for myself for Christmas dinner.

Overall, C- on the wings and B+ on the beefless tips.  I probably won’t buy them very often, but I might pick them up every now and then.