This blog is about cooking when you don’t have much time  I usually cook the meals I post here on Sunday when I have more time, so what do I eat during the week?  I eat my version of stir fry at least once a week because it’s SO easy! So here I give you my all purpose recipe for those days when you only have a half hour and you don’t want to eat fast food or a frozen meal.  It’s quick, it’s easy, its yummy, and it’s perfect for one person (although you can tweak the recipe for more).  I will admit that I may have stolen the idea for this from a certain roommate I had a few years ago 🙂

There are four key ingredients to my all purpose stir fry:

Rice: I use brown of course and for one person I use 1/4 cup with 3/4 cup of water and cook according to the package directions

Meat: I find that chicken or shrimp work best.  I’ll use one boneless skinless chicken thigh (I like dark meat) or half a breast cut into cubes.  Or 7 or 8 peeled deveined raw shrimp.  Sausage works pretty well too.  I’ve tried beef before but wasn’t a fan.  I think you can probably use any meat you want.

Veggies: 3 different kinds.  I’m not joking when I say I’ve tried everything!  Potatoes, radishes, peppers, bok choi, mushrooms, zucchini, squash, onions of every color, broccoli, egg plant, carrots, celery, you name it and I’ve probably tried it in stir fry.

Sauce: There are a number of different stir fry sauces out there.  I’ve tried tons of them.  I tend to like the sweet and tangy sauces but there are lots of savory ones too.  Whole Foods has them all over the place, by the seafood counter, in the Asian isle, near the BBQ sauce, there are any number of sauces just waiting to be tried.  Trader Joe’s also has a variety of sauces that are pretty good.

The first step is to chop up your veggies. I am obsessed with Chinese eggplant right now so it’s made its way into many of my quickie meals recently.  You cant go wrong with onions and peppers of any hue are great too.

Saute in olive oil all your veggies starting with the ones that take longer (onions, potatoes, carrots, root veggies, etc) then gradually adding the stuff that needs less cooking.  With most meats you want to start with them then add veggies, with shrimp they take less time to cook so I add them last.  Once all is cooked through, add the sauce, coat the veggies an heat through. Serve over the rice!  Total cooking time: less than 30 minutes!

There you have it folks!  Happy cooking!