lemony chicken stirfry

I went grocery shopping at a different store than usual on Saturday. The place I went had a more extensive produce department than I'm used to, so I had fun picking out some things I don't usually cook with. I also made an impulse purchase: a bag of 8 Meyer lemons for $2.99! Nevermind that I've never used a Meyer lemon in my life...I had to have them. On the back of the bag of lemons, there was a recipe for a meat marinade. I had all the other ingredients on hand anyway, and half a package of chicken thighs to use up, so things worked out nicely!

The marinade consisted of lemon juice and zest, garlic, ginger, sugar (I used agave nectar instead), salt, black pepper and olive oil. I mixed up the marinade and put my chicken thighs in it for 4 hours or so. When it was time to cook, I put the chicken thighs in a hot pan and let them brown up. Meanwhile, I sliced up a head of bok choy, a red bell pepper and half a head of cauliflower. I tossed them into a big pan with some coconut oil, toasted sesame oil and soy sauce. Once the veggies were crisp-tender, I pushed them to the sides of the pan and added a cup of water (I had no stock!) with a tablespoon of corn starch dissolved in it. I let that cook until it was thick and bubbly, then tossed my veggies in it and turned the heat off. I roughly chopped the chicken into bite-sized bits and tossed them into the veggie mixture. I spooned it over some left-over jasmine rice that I'd reheated in the microwave. Yum!

ginger beef and broccoli

I'm always amazed at how the taste of ginger can fit into so many recipes - sweet, savory, hot...ginger does it all. It's one of my favorite things.

Tonight's supper was a simple stir-fry that took me all of 20 minutes, start to finish...and that was with prepping on the fly and some futzing around (because I can never just cook...I always futz, too).



I found a really nice-looking steak at the store on sale, so I scarfed it up with stir-fry in mind immediately. I cut the excess fat off the meat, then thinly sliced it on the bias to keep it tender. I put it in a bowl with about half an inch of grated ginger root, three sliced cloves of garlic, and a couple tablespoons of both toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. I added a few good shakes of Tabasco, gave it a stir, and set it aside. I chopped up two crowns of broccoli, half a white onion, and six large button mushrooms. The veggies went into a hot pan with canola oil and were tossed till almost crisp-tender. I then pushed the veggies out to the edges of the pan and dumped in the meat and all the liquid with it. I tossed everything over high heat until the meat cooked through...just about 3 minutes. I garnished it with a little sliced green onion, because I was feeling artsy.

I realized after the fact that I forgot to put brown sugar in my meat marinade, but it was still really yummy without it.

thai-style beef and broccoli stir-fry

I called this thai-style because I used soy sauce, lime juice and peanuts. The beef I used was london broil, sliced thin against the grain. The only problem I had was that I let the meat cook for too long while I was chopping the peanuts, and it made it pretty tough. It was kind of a shame, because it was really nice and tender when I originally cut it. I'm wondering if the lime juice might have toughened it up some, as well.