Being vegetarian means you have to wing it, quite frequently, and a big part of why I wanted to do this blog thing is because there are so many crap vegetarian pseudo-food "recipes" on the Internet. I once saw a recipe for "delicious" tomato soup: tomato juice and cracked pepper, heated in the microwave. I knew then that something had to be done.
I am lucky enough to have learned the cooking basics from my mother. I never had macaroni and cheese or a cake out of a box until I was living at home and going to college. Mama was too tired running after my baby brothers to be as circumspect about the food they ate as she was when we were growing up. I was also lucky enough to have come of age during the first TV food renaissance, beginning with Jeff Smith, Julia Child, and Natalie Dupree on PBS. I do not eat bad food. Yeah, we are sort of food snobs in my family.
So here's how it went down tonight.
I had red, yellow, and green bell peppers and some mushrooms, and was planning to make vegetarian fajitas a la Casa Manana (our favorite locally owned Mexican restaurant). But I also had some broccoli that needed to be eaten, too. What to do?? Stir fry. I even decided to make white rice. Normally the only time I use white rice is when I make what I call "sweet rice", a low-fat, barely sweet rice pudding-y dish. (I'll share that and the fajita thing another time.)
It had been a while since I had done stir fry. They've kind of gone out of vogue--out of sight out of mind, I guess. I started the rice in my grandmother's old heavy-bottomed aluminum pot. Since moving here and cooking on this gas stove, I've had problems with rice sticking to my pots. I couldn't get the flame low enough to work with the 6 quart pots I had used on the electric stove I had in my last home. All of a sudden one day I broke out of "this is how I have always done it so I have to continue to do it that way forever and ever" and realized that I could use my grandmother's pan. Unfortunately, I also have had a problem recently with not completely rinsing the dish washing liquid from my pots and lids. So when I opened the lid to check on the rice after 15 minutes, I was assaulted by the steamy smell of cooked dish soap! D'oh! Oh well. Nothing I could do about it at that point.
I cut up my vegetables and aromatics and sat down in front of the TV. (Aromatics? Dang, but I'm fancy. Hey. I told you I learned the basics!) I hesitated to start because I couldn't think of a protein to use. Of course I didn't have any tofu, and it's fairly unappetizing when cut into cubes and stir fried anyway. I figured out at some point this last year that I can make fried rice using only an egg--no ham--and it still tastes like fried rice to me. But I had never done it in a stir fry. Then it hit me--I bought lemons (a splurge) and I've wanted to make a Lemon Ice Box pie, which uses three egg yolks... So, ta da! Stir fry with three egg whites. Perfect.
Here's what I did.
Caveat emptor: I'm not into precise measurements. At all.
One cup rice, 2 cups water
About a quarter of a medium onion, sliced more thinly and longer than my normal dice
One rib celery, sliced
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
Green, yellow, and red bell peppers--about a fifth of each, sliced 1/4" x 1"
1 stalk broccoli cut into 2"florets, stem peeled and cut into chunks
1 carrot, sliced
1/2 lb button mushrooms, sliced
3 egg whites
1/2 vegetable bouillon cube dissolved into 1 cup boiling water
1 T soy sauce
1 tsp corn starch
1 T canola oil
Note: I split the bottom of the celery in two so that the size more closely matches the slices from the top. And I usually just slice into the peppers from top to bottom and remove a 1 1/2"-2" section, leaving the rest of the pepper intact. Cooking for one. You know. I steam broccoli in the microwave with 1/4" water, covered with a paper plate (which I re-use relentlessly before going on to the next one). My bouillon is Edward & Sons Garden Veggie. Bouillon is expensive, and I got this in the natural foods section at the store, so it was about $5. But it's one of those things that I have to rationalize--since I don't eat meat, it's OK to splurge a little on some ingredients.
Cook the rice. Steam the broccoli for one minute.
Saute onion and celery in oil about a minute on medium high heat. Add garlic and mushrooms, stirring for another couple minutes until the mushrooms begin to soften, then add the carrots, broccoli, and peppers and let them cook another minute or two. (Until they look like you want to eat them--my mother's rule for how long to cook things. She is always right. No, really!)
Move the vegetables to the side of the pan and add the egg whites, breaking them up when they are cooked through, then push them to the side, too. Whisk the corn starch and soy sauce into the broth and pour it into the cleared spot in the pan. Stir the slurry until it thickens.
Then just stir it all together and eat it with rice and a splash more soy sauce. Easy as pie.
Which reminds me. I need to get back in there and make that pie!
The pie:
It took a little effort to find the recipe for this Lemon Ice Box Pie, because I wanted the same one my grandmother used to make for me. I found this on the Canadian Eagle Brand web site, of all places. I like this one because it's the same ingredients she used, but they have you bake it so the egg yolks cook. I am not a fan of uncooked egg yolks, so I was happy to see that they had added that bit. The funny part is that there are essentially just 3 ingredients. And I don't make the meringue. For one thing, I already used the egg whites. And of course I make my own graham cracker crust, crushing the crackers in a heavy-duty zipper seal bag with my rolling pin. On my coffee table, of course. I just cannot make myself buy graham cracker crumbs when I can torture myself by crushing them at home.
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