Saturday, February 2, 2008

kitchen blogging

Since my roommate moved in, I have had the opportunity to cook a lot more than before. When I was the only one in the house, I didn't really care how I cooked and generally ate very poorly. It's really difficult for me to cook healthy in small portions. So tonight I had the chance to throw somethings in the wok.

As my friend Barb is off handling a family medical matter, I thought it fitting that I would try and post tonight's creation.

Fresh Veggies & Beef

Ingredients:
1 Green Pepper
1 Red Pepper
1/2 Cucumber
1 yellow onion
1/2 pound of stew beef.

I chopped all the veggies fairly large so that they don't get lost in the mix but chopped the meat smaller so it would cook up faster. The whole thing had some chopped fresh ginger added and a bit of lemon juice.

Oh, and this medley is served with brown rice.

Normally there would be a long post on the procedure involved in making such a meal but as this is only as Chinese as the Wok that it's cooked in, I'll assume that everyone reading can toss some veggies in a pan and make it work.

I'm just really enjoying the idea that I'm blogging from my kitchen.

3 comments:

Emeleth said...

Blogging FROM the kitchen...Sweet!

Tim said...

Hey Monk;

Next time you try that recipe, you may get better results using something like Flank Steak (A touch pricier, but you can get the bigger pieces of meat to cook in equal time) This also allows you to cut the vegetables a bit smaller.

I doubt I need to go into how wok cooking is VERY high temperature and best suited to an oil with a high smoking point, like peanut oil. Canola or even worse, Olive Oil, smokes at WAY too low a temperature for what you should be shooting for with such a natural heat holding vessel like a wok.

I got a good (and VERY easy) chili recipe too, if you want it.

Barbara Fisher said...

Canola oil works fine in a wok, Tim--it doesn't have low smoking point--it is 400 degrees F in comparison to peanut oil, which has a smoke point at 450 degrees.

I normally use peanut oil in my wok, but after the birth of my seventeen month old, I switched to canola, because it is less likely to cause allergic reactions in a kid.

And, even with my 23,000 BTU burner and cast iron wok, I have had no problems with the canola. It works fine.

But I do agree that flank steak, or top round or sirloin will do better for cooking in a wok.

Other than that, it is looking good, Tom!