Stir-Fry Story

I have not made a stir-fry for a long, long time. I have been thinking about it for weeks now, and finally got around to it tonight. I realized when I started that I did not have fresh mushrooms. I reluctantly pushed on...it was snowing and cold and I didn't want to run back to the store. Then I saw that my garlic was also gone, and that was that. I bundled up, left the kiddos at home, drove to the store, and was back in about six minutes. I timed myself.

Grace has been going through a nightmarish phase lately. I guess she's making up for being a perfect, adorable, loving angel the first few years. I may start a photo album of her tantrums, because they are pretty funny. What else can you do when she has fallen to the floor, screaming, thrashing and crying in the middle of the store for the tenth time but laugh at it?

Despite all of this, I absolutely adore cooking with her. It has always been her favorite thing, and I am in love with the fact that I get to share this with her. She is really good at it, too. She can even use a sharp knife and is very careful (although it makes me nervous). And I try to explain things as we go along. Here she is after I chopped up all the vegetables:

I love the outfit she wore today.


I pulled out the wok I have only used a couple of times because I needed the room. I had a lot of veggies that needed to go in. Grace insisted on helping with that.


Stir-frying the tofu.

Then things got all weird with the wok. The tofu was sticking and the bottom was getting burned and I didn't like it and it's an old wok anyway so I gave it up. I moved on to a different pan for the veggies. It turned out most of them were green. Broccoli, pea pods, green peppers, zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, and onions.



Making up for the lack of veggies in my diet this weekend.

For the sauce, I did not have my usual organic tamari sauce, so I had to use plain old soy sauce instead. I just mix some soy sauce, water, garlic and cornstarch together and dump it in the veggies when they are done cooking. The result? Meh. It was okay. The broccoli was awesome, but the zucchini tasted funny, and the tofu left some to be desired. The sauce was saltier than I like. Things just went downhill from there...Grace refused to eat hers, and demanded chicken nuggets. By the time I was cleaning up we were back to this:



Ah, well. It's good for a laugh, anyway. And a blog post.