Chinese take-out is a tasty alternative to burgers and pizza, but frequently vegetables are overwhelmed by the carb-rich fried rice and chow mein. You can pretend sugar coated items like orange chicken and sweet and sour pork are healthy, but the truth is you're just eating some dessert with your protein.
At home, you can more effectively control what you're eating by only buying groceries that are your personal favorite nutritious foods. My wife Julie only likes certain vegetables, and if I cook onions, which I think smell great being seared with some olive oil and garlic, she is ready to knock down a wall when she comes home. Bell peppers are another no-no for her. If you like onions and peppers, please use them. They are very healthy and, to me, delicious.
You may have noticed that I don't give too many specific measurements. I think you can adjust your recipes according to your tastes. Similarly, use vegetables you like. As my granddad used to say, "If you don't like beans, you better not have them on your shelf."
Among the Julie-approved veggies are carrots, celery, zucchini (Italian squash), mushrooms and asparagus, which are the ones I used tonight. You'll notice I use carrots and celery a lot, because they are cheap and store a long time in the refrigerator. You can make just vegetables, but I usually include a meat, and most of the time for stir fry that is chicken.
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts create the least mess and, to me, taste the best. Sometimes you'll see split chicken breasts on sale, but these should only be used for stews where you boil the breasts to the point where the bones fall off. Otherwise, they're too difficult and messy to be worth a small net price savings.
2 or 3 pound packages are usually cheaper than smaller packages, and if you have a choice of grocery stores, usually one has it on sale.
Before you do anything else, re-trim the chicken in its styrofoam tray the butcher put them in. Trimming them on a cutting board may be a little easier, but it means you have potential salmanilla on the board. Bet rid of all the fat and gross stuff. I don't like touching chicken anyway, but cutting it in the tray, surrounded by the plastic bag, keeps your kitchen cleaner. Two breasts, or about 1 pound of chicken is a good amount to make. It will make two meals, whether for you and a guest, or one for now and one in a couple of days.
Fold the styrofoam over and enclose it with rubber bands before twist tying the plastic bag that has been surrounding it. Return it to the refrigerator.
For stir fry, I cut the breasts I will cook into small pieces, still leaving them in the tray. At this point, put about two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a wok or large frying pan and heat it on the stove top.
After a minute or so, drop a small piece of chicken in. If it sizzles, you can add the rest of the chicken. Otherwise wait until you hear it sizzle. Sprinkle it with pepper and seasoned salt. Let the chicken cook on one side for quite a while to get a nice crispy brown.
While browning the chicken, clean and cut your vegetables.
You can peel whole carrots or save time with pre-cleaned baby carrots. Cut them into whatever size pieces you like.
Clean the celery, then cut off and discard the tops and bottoms. Cut the celery hearts into pieces about 1/4 inch thick. By the way, if you like bigger pieces, go right ahead. Just don't throw in whole celery stalks.
Flip over your chicken about now to brown the other side.
Wash and clean the mushrooms. Note that you never wash mushrooms until you are ready to use them, so don't wash the leftovers, if you bought more than you can use in one dish, which is normal.
Break off about the bottom third of the asparagus as you wash it and throw that part away. Cut off the tops with a bit of stalk, then cut the rest of the stalk into smaller pieces.
What I do next may just be idiosynchratic, but I add vegetables in perceive order of how slowly they cook, starting with carrots. Basically, that is the same order you just cut yours, unless you substituted others, although I do throw in some of the asparagus stalk bits earlier. The asparagus tops are delicate and must be added last.
At some point along the line, add about one or two tablespooons of Lawry's Teriyaki Marinade. It's also possible to combine ingredients like pineapple juice and soy sauce to make your own, but you have to decide if it is worth the trouble. I think this tastes pretty good. If you add the teriyaki sauce last, cook for at least about 5 or 10 more minutes.
From a Quick-Clean Cuisine perspective, stir fry is great because you only use one pan. The cutting board had no chicken on it, so you can clean it quickly with soap and water. Serve in your favorite bowl and, if you have chopsticks left over from your last Panda Express meal, you won't even get a fork dirty.
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