June 4th update

Three weeks down, only one week to go.  There is no way I can get enough cooking in over the next 7 days to satisfy my original plan.  I won't continue my all vegetarian diet past my 30 days, but I will keep cooking vegetarian stuff.  I don't mind it for myself, but I don't want to be a bother to the people around me.  I just haven't tried enough stuff to satisfy my desire for learning.


I spent most of Sunday helping people move into a new home.  Doughnuts for breakfast, cheese pizza for lunch and fast food bean burrito for dinner.  Horrible diet, but at least I ate less than I normally would have.

Onward to Monday.  I was trying to go all veggie, no meat subs today.

I hit the local grocery store and picked up just about every vegetable I could find.  I planned on making a giant stir fry to pile on a bed of rice.  Rice is always great, and I have cooked a ton of it.  We have a little 6 cup rice cooker that we use all of the time.  I love just tossing junk in there and trying new stuff.  Besides, when a rice recipe doesn't work, you can just add hot sauce and get something edible.  You can never loose with rice. 

Tonight's rice was a little asian/mexican fusion.  1 1/2 cup rice, 3 cups water, 1 tbsp ancho paste, pinch of salt, about 5 grinds of pepper, 1 tbsp of veggie base and 2 tbsp of soy sauce.  Hit the button and bingo.

My stir fry wasn't really a stir fry.  I used a wok, but I prefer to steam my veggies rather than fry them. 

1 red onion
1 red pepper
1 shallot
5 cloves of garlic
1 yellow pepper
1 little bag of snow peas
1 bunch of broccoli
2 tbsp of ground ginger
1 zucchini
2 heads of baby bok choy

I fired up the wok with a little olive oil.  When it was smoking hot, I added the onion, red & yellow peppers, shallot and garlic.  I cooked them until they were golden brown and delicious.  Well more than most stir fry recipes would call for, but I wanted the onions to mellow and sweeten so the kids would grub them.  After about 10 minutes, I added the peas, broccoli, zucchini and ginger.  At this point, I put in about a cup of teriyaki sauce and dropped the lid on.  This is where I was looking to steam the veggies.  A few more minutes and I tossed in the bok choy to finish.  I move the veggies up the side and just let the teriyaki reduce and steam the veggies.  Lovin it.

Of course I put a little Sriracha sauce on there.

I think every bit of food in the world exists so you can put sauce on it.  I love teriyaki, but I hate how everything has high fructose corn syrup in it.  I decided to make my own.

I clicked on Tyler Florence's first recipe and went with it.

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 2 teaspoon dark sesame oil
• Juice of 2 oranges
• 2 tablespoon honey
• 2 tablespoon ginger, peeled and minced
• 1/2 cup scallion, chopped
• 2 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted

I skipped the sesame oil because I didn't have any, and I didn't want to buy it.  It had some good flavor, but I think it would work better as a marinade.  I will continue my quest for a great teriyaki sauce, and keep you posted

I made some chicken in another pan for my kids to add to their dinners.  I really wanted to try it..... It looked and smelled amazing.  My wife tried to play it down and said it was just OK.  She is a liar.

I cut some chicken breasts into cubes and just let it braise is a stock of soy sauce, garlic, pepper, and a Carolina BBQ sauce I made a few days ago.  My mouth is watering just thinking about that sauce.  The kids ripped it to shreds and my wife didn't say much during dinner because her mouth was full.

We all left the table happy.


I picked up a pile of kale but I didn't think it would work with the rest of the dinner so I will give that a run tomorrow.


More to come next time....