Stir that fry!

OK, like many other areas of life where I'm late to the party, I've just discovered the stir-fry.

It happened at UMass Amherst when we were at the Asian-food dining commons. My cousin's daughter, a Freshman who had been showing us around, had explained that you pile your plate with raw veg, then walk to the cooks and they make your stir-fry. But I missed something. I piled my plate with veg, then added blue cheese dressing. What? Oh? You mean...this is the veg for stir-fry? I thought it was salad! No? What do I do now?

What you do is you add bok choy to cover up the dressing and get on line.

Not only did the cook not notice, I didn't even taste the blue cheese when it was cooked. Anyway, here is what I learned: hot pan, hot oil. Garlic first, add onions. Then add your protein.Then dump in your chosen veg which for me was broccoli, mushrooms, and I forget what else. Cook for almost no time at all, stirring and tossing. Add sauces. They added 4 different sauces that made it pretty salty. But then they added cold rice noodles, heated them up in the pan and stirred it around with the veg.

What do you notice about the above scenario? What makes you all hot and excited? Could it be that you're only cooking broccoli for a short time for maximum benefit of the SULFORAPHANE????

If you've been paying attention at all, you know that overcooking broccoli will cause it to lose it's anti-cancer benefits. Stir-fry makes it tender with a crunch which is just perfect.

The beauty part is, of course, the element of choice. Any veg you want. Add ginger. Add sesame seeds. Add soaked and drained dried mushrooms.

So tonight I cut up cabbage, broccoli and cremini mushrooms, along with onions and garlic. Cooked it as above (it works best, I think, to cook one serving at a time) and brought it up to Francie. I've been serving Francie dinner in her room lately. I don't know why I do it. I like the look of surprise on her face I guess, and I like when she says, "Why are you so nice??"

Then I cooked mine. Interesting: the noodles I used were called Whole-Grain Rice Vermicelli. Very thin; cook it by pouring boiling water over it in a bowl and letting it set for three minutes.

Here it is:

The picture sucks because Lindy is still in Austin with the phone
and this was an Ipad picture.