Fours Foods on Friday #113

I’m pretty hit and miss this spring with the Four Foods on Friday meme! Val has been “grilling” us with 1-question memes lately, haha! The questions for #113 is:

What can you make with eggs, meat or poultry, vegetables and a starch?

Hm.

Stir fry! Emphasis on the vegetables, though. Here’s one that I like. Use ONLY fresh vegetables and it will be goooooood.

Vegetable Stir Fry with Chicken
Chicken strips, cooked until tender

Peanut or olive oil
Water
Broccoli florets
Sugar snap peas
Red pepper strips
Bamboo shoots
Baby corn
Celery stalk, chopped
White onion, sliced

Hot cooked rice
Egg, scrambled and cooked
Soy sauce or duck sauce

It’s very important to quickly cook the vegetables, and not to overcook them. I start with a big wok, heating the oil a bit. I cook the chicken and set it aside. Then I throw the broccoli into the wok and let it heat up for about 3-4 minutes. I then add all the veggies all at once, add a little water, and keep things stirring until they are *just* starting to soften. If you overcook the vegetables, the stir fry will come out mushy and tasteless. I think the secret to Chinese cooking is to keep everything moving, and add water where needed to avoid burning. And this recipe is a much healthier alternative to the restaurant, take-out stuff that is loaded with chemicals– that may be fitted for best hemorrhoid treatment or something, but I am eliminating as many chemicals in my diet as possible.

So after your veggies are steamed, stir in some sauce, and set aside.
Add the egg to the rice, and add the veggies in or on top of the rice. Serve with more sauce. I think it’s yummy!

Perfect Rice from the Cooker

I finally went out a bought a rice cooker several months ago. OH MY GOSH it was the best kitchen purchase I’d made in a long time!! Why oh why did I wait so long to get one of these?! For decades, I’ve struggled with trying to make good rice, but it always turned out horribly mushy. Then, anout two years ago, I discovered basmati rice, and that I could cook! But for some inexplicable reason, my grocery store stopped carrying the brand I liked (and could afford). So it was back to the yukky mushy rice– couldn’t do it. We stopped eating rice altogether for a few years.

THEN I got a rice cooker, and I love it. My rice is now 800% better than it ever was.

BUT… and this is a small but, but it’s a but nonetheless… the rice cooker rice was a tiny bit mushy, still. I could allow the rice to cook longer, but the top always dried out before the rest.

So I tried something on a whim, nothing ground breaking like green tea diet pills or anything. But it made the rice turn out so well that I thought I’d mention it here:

Coat the rice with olive oil before you add the water to the rice cooker.

For 5 cups of rice, I’d say I added about 2 teaspoons. I didn’t measure, I just drizzled oil in, so don’t quote me on that. But what you basically want to do is coat the rice before you cook it. And that olive oil did JUST the trick! Yay!!

My rice is softer, fluffier, and fell apart like beautiful little snowflakes. *beaming*

Wow Chow Pork and Beans Bake

I am blessed by four children who love to eat beans. I can’t believe it! I HATED beans as a kid. Beans are incredibly nutritious, and incredibly cheap! So I’m implementing them more in our diet. I’d like to have it so that we eventually have a bean dish of some sort two or three times a week, rather than once every other week. Served with rice, beans are a complete protein- perfect for children’s growing bodies and for maintaining a healthy heart. Beans and rice, yum! Better than the best prenatal vitamins you can buy!

My recipe makes use of budget meat, packaged dried beans (although you could use canned), and bulk rice. It’s a very budget-friendly meal. I nabbed up a large package of Southern Style pork ribs at my local supermarket– they have them on sale for $1 a pound! The dried beans cost me $1.20, and the rice (5 cups) probably cost me around .50 because I buy my rice in bulk. So for feeding six adult-sized portions, this meal cost me about $5.70 to put on the table. And we still had leftovers, after that. I did add a salad, which raised the price of my meal, but you could add something like apples and oatmeal mixed together, or sliced fresh peaches, and that would drive the cost down. This is also a recipe that keeps well, so you could make two casseroles and serve one of them later in the week.

Here’s a quick and easy (what else?) recipe that’s perfect for a chilly winter’s day. This would probably be a great meal in the summer, too!

Wow Chow Pork and Beans Bake
serves 6-8

2 Tablespoons olive oil
3-4 pounds Southern Style pork ribs (bones removed and fat trimmed, cut up into large cubes)
1 bag dried black beans boiled/prepared to package instructions (or 3 12oz cans, drained)
1 small can tomato soup (save the can, you’ll need it to measure water)
1 tablespoon Adobo seasoning
Minced garlic (according to your liking)

In a large skillet, heat up the oil and sear the meat. Add the Adobo seasoning and cook a little longer. Once the meat is almost completely cooked, place the pieces into a large casserole dish. Pour in any remaining juices from the skillet.

Open the tomato soup can and pour all over the meat. Fill up the can twice with water, and pour it in the casserole.
Take your boiled beans and pour them on top. Add the minced garlic. Chop in the beans just a little, to mix with the liquid.
Cover tightly with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour; then, turn your oven down to 325 and bake for 3 more hours.
The house will smell GREAT.

Serve with rice and green salad or a fruit salad.

Quick Fake Spanish Rice

I hate Spanish Rice! Yuuuuuuk! So I’ve never made it in my life. But we had a houseful of hungry boys one evening and I was very short on supplies. Here’s what I threw together, and they devoured the entire dish with great gusto. The recipe takes advantage of leftovers, or you can make everything fresh. (Still tastes yukky to me). Well, actually, I did give this a try and it wasn’t TOO bad. Not something I’d serve up for house guests at swanky Tampa apartments… but for a quick fix for the kids, it’s PERFECT.

Quick Fake Spanish Rice

5 cups leftover rice
4 cups ground beef, cooked and drained of fat
1 can (24 oz) spaghetti sauce (I used Hunt’s “Four Cheese” flavor)
1 1.25 envelope Taco Seasoning Powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat up the cooked ground beef and rice in a large pot on the stovetop. If the rice is dry, add a small amount of water to keep the rice from burning. Add the Taco Seasoning packet, the garlic powder, and the salt; mix well. Add the can of spaghetti sauce and mix again. Allow the sauce to heat up but don’t let it burn! When sufficiently heated, turn the mix into a large bowl and let the kids go at it. Even better, give them paper plates and disposable cups, too! Make yourself a peanut butter sandwich and surf the Net.

Use Up Old Veggies with Stir-Fry

Late autumn is the time we finally yank out the final vestiges of the garden. Those poor old carrots may have frost-nipped tops, but they still have some use! This is usually the time of year when I make vegetable soups and stir-fry dishes. I have a HUGE stainless steel wok that I love, and one of my favorite things to cook is Stir-Fry. I just wish I was better at cooking Asian foods, though! I can never seem to get those seasonings just right. Like installing air filters, it seems to be a mystery to have it come out perfect!

Well, over the summer, I discovered the wonders of pre-packaged seasonings! I recently did a post about Sun-bird Seasoning packets at my Freaky Frugalite blog. Although it was a sponsored post about Sun-bird, it was sheer joy to write a promotion for them. I love Sun-bird seasonings– they are very inexpensive and they are everywhere, even my local Walgreens. I always try to have some of the packets as a staple in my pantry. I visited the Sun-bird site and found a very good recipe for basic Stir-Fry. As usual, I am always customizing recipes, so here is my altered version. This will serve four hungry people. I also include meat in this recipe, but we have gone meatless with it and the dish is marvelous. Also, if you like your stir-fry very savory, add two packets of Sun-bird seasoning. I like only a little seasoning, so I have one packet listed here.

Stir-Fry Veggies

1 pound boneless chicken or beef, cut into strips (optional)
1 envelope Sun-bird Stir-Fry seasoning packet
3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
1/3 cup water
2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
2 Tablespoons oil
1 Pepper (Red, Yellow, or Bell), cut into thin strips
1 onion (I recommend Vidalia or Red), cut into thin strips or diced
3 carrots, peeled and sliced (I slice them at a diagonal angle)
1/4 pound broccoli florets (fresh or frozen)
1/4 pound cauliflower florets (fresh or frozen)
1/4 pound button mushrooms, sliced
1 can baby corn, drained

In a separate bowl, combine the Soy Sauce, the sugar, the Sun-bird seasoning packet, and the water, and mix briskly. Set aside.

In a large wok or frying pan, heat up the oil. Add the meat and saute quickly until browned. Add all the vegetables EXCEPT the mushrooms to the wok. Cook, constantly stirring, until the carrots are tender. Don’t overcook. Just before the vegetables are done, add the mushrooms and the Soy Sauce mixture. Stir it in and cook for another minute or until thickened. Serve with 5-6 cups of steamed rice. Serve with Soy Sauce to pass around. Yum!

You can also use pre-packaged frozen vegetables if you wish- just be aware that this may slow down the cooking time. You can also experiment with your own veggies. I sometimes add snow pea pods and water chestnuts, which are heavenly!

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