Monday, April 28, 2008

Stir-fry on the fly


Tonight was a normal cooking night for me which means no recipes to use or write, no solid plans, no clear idea what's in the refrigerator. I don't usually blog about my cooking when I can't present a recipe, but might as well blab on since I've already started. A look in the fridge revealed broccoli and bok choy. Bok choy is so easy to stir fry so of course I chose that. There was tofu, which I haven't had for a while. I thinly sliced some tofu and started sizzling it in the wok and started a pot of water boiling for soba. There was a container of leftover garlicky tamari-based sauce that we had made for bun salad so I tossed some of that on the tofu. There was leftover tomato paste so I added some of that with a little water. Threw in a couple of mushrooms. There was a recipe on Ricki's blog recently that had prunes and olives, and although I didn't have olives, I had a bag of prunes. I added a handful of prunes, cut in half, and also a handful of cashews, which I tend to add to everything. I cut up the bok choy and added that. By now the water was boiling and I cooked the soba and then added it to the wok. It looked pretty good so I photographed it and here it is on my plate. Delicious. Fast. Easy.
Now, about those prunes. I read a while ago that prunes are high in calcium and may help build bones in women. It takes 7 to 10 prunes a day, which is a little beyond my capacity, but it seemed like a good idea to add them to my diet. Why not? They taste good and it can't hurt to add calcium. My husband does the food shopping and he keeps buying the prunes, not noticing if I've eaten any or not... so we usually have them in the house. I haven't been using them in cooking, but tonight could be the start. They really did taste great.