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Stir
It Up -- Fast and Easy Cooking
Deborah Taylor-Hough
DSimple@aol.com
A Simple Mom
http://www.simplemom.com
On busy days, it's often more than a little tempting to get an expensive
drive-thru dinner just because the ingredients you have at home will take
too long to make into a meal. But I've found that if I keep ingredients
handy in the pantry and refrigerator for simple meal prep, I can have
dinner on the table in a flash -- and protect my pocketbook from that
ravenous Fast Food Monster at the same time!
One of my favorite quick fix meal preparation methods is stir-frying.
Including the prep time of chopping up meats and veggies, I can usually
have a stir-fry meal on the table from start to finish in about 15 - 20
minutes. It's just a simple process where you rapidly cook meat and vegetables
in a small amount of oil. Stir-frying is similar to sauteeing, except
you use less oil, hotter temperatures, and usually a wok. I do most of
my stir-frying in my large heavy skillet on the stovetop because I don't
have enough storage in my kitchen to keep my wok handy. I'm usually just
too lazy on a hectic day to walk to the cupboard down the hall to grab
the wok.
You can find basic stir-fry instructions in almost any good general cookbook
or browse through books at the library on Asian cooking. With a quick
search online, you'll discover that the internet's full of stir-fry recipes
-- and all for free! Don't you just love that price? It warms my little
frugal heart.
Here are few simple tips to keep in mind when you pull out your first
wok recipe:
1) You want the oil in your wok or frying pan hot enough that it's slightly
smoking, otherwise the stir-frying will be too slow and your vegetables
will be limp.
2) Cut your ingredients into thin, bite-sized pieces so they'll cook
evenly and quickly.
3) It's helpful to choose vegetables and meats that will all cook at
about the same speed, otherwise you have to keep track of when to add
the different ingredients so everything's cooked, but nothing's overcooked.
4) Cook the meat first, remove from the pan, and then cook the vegetables.
Add the meat back into the pan at the end of cooking. This keeps the flavors
distinct and separate, and also keeps the meat from overcooking.
5) If you have ingredients that need to be added at different times in
the cooking process, chop them up ahead of time and put them onto separate
plates. Then you can just pick up the plate and dump the contents directly
into the wok or frying pan as needed.
6) When stir-frying, you want everything chopped and prepped in advance
because you can't stop stir-frying partway through the process to cut
up vegetables or slice meat.
7) Once you start cooking, keep stirring and tossing constantly or things
will burn or cook unevenly.
8) Fresh vegetables are wonderful in stir-fry meals, so when your summer
garden really starts producing, you're in the middle of stir-fry days.
To make stir-frying easy as can be, you'll want to keep stocked up on
some pantry staples. Keep watch for the following items when they go on
sale -- then you'll be ready to stir-fry at a moment's notice: fresh garlic,
crushed red pepper, sesame seeds, red chili paste, fresh ginger, water
chestnuts, bamboo shoots, chopped peanuts and cashews, Chinese spice blend,
sesame oil, peanut oil, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, rice vinegar, beef
broth, cooking sherry, cornstarch, rice, and Asian noodles.
Happy fast and easy stir-frying, everyone!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
--Deborah Taylor-Hough is the author of five books
including the newly released Frugal Living For Dummies(r)
and the popular, Frozen Assets: How to Cook for a Day
and Eat for a Month. Visit Debi online, browse her articles
and books, and subscribe to a free e-newsletter or two at:
http://hometown.aol.com/dsimple/
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