With Apologies to Benny.

Gentle readers!  I have been sorely remiss in my blogging, but I have a reason(s), sort of!

See, I am taking the GRE next week, and between pretending to learn math and getting angry at practice tests, I have had neither the time nor energy nor inclination to engage in anything culinarily (a word I just made up) exciting.  Also, The Husband and I leave soon for our four-week New York/India Holiday Extravaganza, so we have enacted a moratorium on new food purchases and are forcing ourselves to work though the fridge and freezer stocks as much as possible before our departure.  As you can imagine, this complicates starting up all the exciting new blog things I had planned.

However, we still have to eat, and what better way to use up old vegetables than stir-fry?

I used to hate making stir-fries.  They never tasted right, things didn't cook properly – for something that seemed so easy to throw together, it was remarkably difficult.  That is, until we got our wok.  Our glorious, 14-inch, cast iron, solid-as-a-friggin'-rock wok.

gracias, ben y alé!

Seriously, it's pretty awesome.  It may weigh somewhere in the area of a metric tonne (imperial weight) and take forever and a day to heat up, but it works like a charm.

Now, I've always thought that pieces of specialized, single-function equipment – things like woks and bread makers and rice cookers and pastry cutters – were entirely unnecessary, and that a good cook could easily improvise and make good food without them.  I still believe that about most things, but the wok has converted me.  I am a wokist.  All hail the mighty wok and its ability to cook food.  Thou shalt not mock thy wok.  Wok wok wok.

like this, only with woks (also I am not a tiger)

Anyway, so:  stir-fries.  After some rummaging around in the fridge (which is still packed to the gills with dairy products), I found the following: shallots, garlic, ginger, hatch chiles, red peppers, zucchini, carrots, broccoli slaw, peas, bok choy, and tofu (full disclosure: I might have actually gone out and purchased the tofu and choy, but that was only because we needed some protein and who doesn't love bok choy and don't judge me).

Once everything was chopped, I heated up some grapeseed oil and, once it was hot, added a couple of teaspoons of Gunpowder green tea leaves and let them fry until they began to open up (for those of you unfamiliar with Gunpowder tea, the leaves are tightly rolled little balls that uncurl when you cook or steep them).  Then, add the onions, garlic, ginger, and chiles; once they have become fragrant, mix in the tofu and a bit of Chinese Five Spice powder and cook until golden brown.  Next come the snap peas, then the red pepper and zucchini.  The carrot and broccoli slaw follow (broccoli slaw is this awesome pre-made mix of shredded carrots and broccoli stems that they sell at both Fresh and Easy and Trader Joe's, which has become a fixture in my salads).  The bok choy goes in last, and once it has wilted and become tender, you're basically done.

"But Heather," you might be saying, "what about the flavor?  Your dish seems to be lacking in tasty essences."  And herein lies the trouble I usually had with stir-fries:  it turns out that I don't really like soy sauce.  In small quantities, sure, but I find it very easy to be overwhelmed by the flavor (and using it as a dipping sauce for gyoza or similar just plain terrifies and confuses me).  But I do really like teriyaki sauce, which is what I used here (I added a small amount after the red pepper and zucchini, then some more after the bok choy), so go figure; I also added a bit of Trader Joe's sweet chile sauce (which, incidentally, is what I use for dippings of gyoza or dumplings, etc.).  Oh, and at some point you should tell The Husband to cook up some black rice/somen noodles and then throw them in at the end, and also chop up some pickled peppers if you want some extra kapow.

Et, voila!

noodles!  they are EVERYWHERE.

You can also do basically the same thing again tonight, using homemade seitan in place of tofu and peanut satay sauce/seitan cooking liquid in place of teriyaki and brown rice instead of noodles, and maybe adding some dilly beans too if you're truly mad.