Monday's Recipes-Stir Fry

First, sorry I have been absent a lot. I don't want to make up excuses. I deal with depression and there are definitely days I want to do nothing more than cuddle with my daughter and maybe read a book. Most days, I do well, as you have seen with this blog. This past week has been a hard one. Nothing triggered it, but rest assured it's being dealt with.

One of our favorite back up dinners in our home is stir fry and home made wontons. Occasionally, we add some egg rolls. I am not going to go into the egg roll making in this one, as we have only made them from scratch once-most of the time I don't have the energy, and I like to be familiar with a recipe before I go spreading it around.

Our Stir fry tends to vary by what we are in the mood for. Most often it consists of:

2 chicken breasts, sliced and usually diced a bit smaller.
1 bell pepper, any color.
An eyeballed amount of frozen broccoli
Small can of Water chestnuts
Snap or sugar peas (I go by whichever is cheaper) I use about a handfull, bought fresh
Baby corn (found in the "ethnic" aisle at the grocer)
Jullienne style carrot strips
a dash of either teriyaki sauce or General Tao's sauce

We do have a wok, so I heat that up with about a teaspoon of oil, and toss the chicken in. I fry that, stirring pretty much constantly. I than add the frozen vegetables and when those are thawed but not hot, I add the rest of the veggies. Usually, once all the veggies are added, I put a big of whichever sauce we desire on and fry it all up, stirring fairly often.

For the won tons, usually I prep them during the day. I whip up some cream cheese and Worcestershire sauce until soft, than take won ton wraps from the store (I usually find them in the produce section, however depending on the store, have also found them in other odd places), I'll put probably just over a teaspoon of cream cheese in each wrap and pinch it closed at the top. We than use our deep fryer and fry them. I don't want to give you a time for how long to deep fry because it REALLY depends on the type of oil you use. When we use veggie oil, it takes 2-3 minutes, when we use corn oil, we're taking #1 out as soon as we put #7 in. You just want them golden brown. You can also bake them instead, this of course would be healthier but just doesn't taste quite the same.

What are your favorite ingredients to Stir Fry?