Asian Chicken Stir Fry

Hello again,

So it’s 1:37am in Toronto Canada.  I have foreseen that tomorrow will be stupid busy for me so I am preparing a portion of tomorrow’s family meal tonight.

Yesterday I made that wonderful Braised Salmon with Riced Cauliflower, and so I still had a few veggies left over from that meals shop and I knew I had some other veggies in the fridge that were begging to be used.  Stir frys are perfection for using all the veggie remnants in your home.  This particular recipe is also cool because the sauce is so easy, consisting of only 4 items.  Water (free), just a tablespoon of soy sauce (hey you might have a free take out packet from the Wok restaurant you walked by at lunch hour?! ), corn starch (but any starch will do- even flour- maybe your cute neighbour could spare you a tablespoon and give you an excuse to chat it up?!) and the trickier item miso paste.  I happen to enjoy miso soup on the regular- and perhaps if you buy a little tub of the paste you’ll have a new favourite snack soup too? that might make picking it up worthwhile.

Yeah so like I was saying, I wanted to try to use my time as efficiently as possible so I prepared the stir fry portion of the meal tonight, it took about 30 minutes in total to prep (chopping veggies and chicken) and cook.

I found chicken breast on sale about 2 weeks ago so I stocked up and defrosted a package this morning in anticipation of preparing this tonight.

3 chicken breast – chopped into bite size bits
used all my left over veggie stragglers:
1 Carrot
2 Celery Stalks
1/2 a Leek Stalk
1/4 Cup chopped broccoli
2 Green Onions
(you could add red pepper flakes if you like a little h-h-heat)

I also sliced 3 cloves of garlic in advance of cooking, grated about 1 tablespoon worth of fresh ginger (if you don’t have fresh ginger you can use powdered ginger- obvi it’ll be a little less potent but still it’s a solution to a small problem) and I chopped a yellow onion – or a sweet onion.

kk, next I put 3 Tablespoons of sesame oil (mmmm smells so lovely – admittedly distracting for 1am) in a pan – let that heat up for about 60 seconds and then added the sliced garlic, grated ginger and chopped onion.. sigh the smell continues to pleasantly permeate the house, thankfully the family didn’t complain).. alright about another minute has passed and I added the bite size chicken bits and let ’em cook for 4 minutes.. next add 2 tablespoons of Red Miso Paste and the medley of cut up veggies and leave to cook another 4-5 minutes on medium low heat.  At this point the food being stir fried together has a brilliant color and as mentioned a tasty scent.  around that 4-5 minutes you’ll see the liquid in the pan bubbling a bit, now you can add the sauce mix – which was just 1/2 cup of water, 1 Tablespoon of Soy sauce and 1 Tablespoon of corn starch – let this sauce bubble and boil.  the corn starch is a thickening agent and will help the stir fry get that asian restaurant texture/consistency.

I’ve placed this in sealed tupperware in the fridge so that tomorrow after work I can do a quick reheat on the stove top and serve over asian rice noodles- or of course you could serve over rice- which is probably easier especially if you have a rice cooker!  but my family isn’t keen on rice…

I’ll return tomorrow to post a piccie- and hopefully the picture will look fresh and scrumptious despite having been made the night before.. what what.

I didn’t hit up the grocery store for this stir fry.. I can’t say it’s a free meal because I bought the food before- but it was a good way to reduce waste of food by using whatever you’ve got, and I did have a nibble of the meal and it was gooooood.

I’ll do up the calorie count tomorrow too – so stay tuned pals.

— Hi again, so after work this evening I placed the stir fry mixture in to a heated pan again to warm it and add to the chow mien noodles I just dunked into boiling water.  Gotta say, this one wasn’t great for the next day re heats- oopsies.  Like, last night I nibbled the stir fry and it was ‘yummers’ but upon reheating for tonight’s dinner, it didn’t do the dish justice.  the poor veggies lost that bright green color it had when freshly prepared and the flavour was a little duller too.  just being honest.  it’s still a good low calorie meal that serves the noble purpose of using veggies that you may have ended up tossing otherwise, just prep it for same day serving I suggest.  I did end up adding a few shakes of slivered almonds that I had in the pantry to add an extra oomph to my saddened last nights now ‘limp’ veggies.  It helped a little.  Anyhow as promised, the photograph is up..  and here’s the calorie count.

Serves 5 human beings (probably could have a little leftover for your dog too, if they behave- dogs love to eat don’t they!?)

Calories per serving:  461

What did you make tonight?  Until next time : )