you almost need to make it twice

Why? Because it cooks so fast you can't believe you actually made dinner.

I'm afraid that right now, as I type this, it's late, my brain is a little fried and I'm not entirley convinced I can even explain a recipe as simple as this one.

So, that's about all the preamble you get, and I make no promises that I will meet my weekly quota of almost dirty jokes, innuendo, entendre, or fucks.

Pork and Bok Choy Stir Fry

Really, the name says it all.

What you need:

• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 1/4 of a small onion
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 2 cloves garlic
• an inch or so of ginger
• 1 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• big bag of baby bok choy
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp water
• sesame seeds and green onion to make it pretty

What you gotta do:

In a bigger bowl than you think you need, combine the first 7 ingredients (pork, onion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, cornstarch).

Dice the onion, mince the garlic, and grate the ginger first though...

You just did about half the work on this dish.

While that rests and marinates, dump all your mini bok choys into a sink full of cold water.

A quick bath this way will get rid of any residual dirt caught between the stalks. Trim the ends off and separate the leaves.

Those of you familiar with romance epublishing will totally recognize the Samhain Publishing logo.

 Totally looks like bok choy.

Drain most of the water off your little leaves, and set them aside while you start cooking.

Heat the peanut oil in a large pan over medium high heat. When it's hot enough that you want to start cooking in it, add the sesame oil.

Peanut oil can take the high heat needed for a stirfry, but sesame oil can't. Adding the sesame to the peanut helps protect it from burning in the 30 seconds it takes for you to get the pork in the pan.

Quick!

Don't worry, it won't burn in 30 seconds or anything.

But the pork cooks damn quick. You barely get it into the pan and it's done.

Once the pink is gone and you're thinking it's gotta be done (which takes all but 5 minutes, if that) drop in your still-damp bok choy.

This is why you needed a large pan. Greens like these start out big and wilt down to nothing in no time. Cover the pan and let them steam for 3-4 minutes.

I'm really starting to think I should have timed this one. I'll bet it's another one that can be done in less than 20 minutes.

The bok choy aren't entirly done yet, no, but it's only a couple minutes now.

In a small lidded container, shake up the last 3 ingredients (water, soy sauce, cornstarch), and pour them into the pan.

A bit of sriracha hot sauce would totally be awesome mixed in here, but I'm still working my kid up to hot chili sauce, so I refained.

In the time it takes for the sauce to thicken, the bok choy will finish cooking.

Serve on rice (leftover rice would make this one of the fastest dinners ever) or noodles.

I sprinkled mine with a little green onion and toasted sesame seeds. Lately I've been wanting toasted sesame seeds on everything and I'm trying to work out a cookie recipe that includes them.

I know a lot of people think stirfry has to be at least 8 kinds of vegetables and takes hours of chopping before hand, but really, it can be as simple as this. When I worked at a small town family owned Chinese restaurant, this is what I ate for dinner late at night with my employers. Home cooked family food. "Dinner for 4".

What do you like to order for take out?

Update on Monday, August 20, 2012 at 11:33PM by Seeley deBorn

Okay, two things:

1) once again I have totally unintentionally copied Taneasha... a fast and easy dinner of ground meat, green things, and rice. Dude. I don't know how I keep doing this!

2) I have no idea why there's a lime in the ingredients pic.

why are there still bananas in my freezer?

I just made them into cookies!

 

I've been looking for something to do with the bananas in my freezer for a while now. No, not banana bread. That's too obvious. And not muffins either. That's just banana bread in a different form. I wanted to make them into cookies. Plus, the spoiled kids at work have been tugging at my apron strings begging for cookies.

Banana Cakies

(because although they look like cookies, they're super soft and cakey)

What you need:

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 bananas
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 ½ cups almond flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp cloves

What you gotta do:

Take the bananas out of the freezer. You can thaw them quickly in a bowl of warm water. In fact, you can even let them thaw while you do the next couple steps.

Cream the butter and sugar (I totally suggest replacing some or all of the white sugar with brown, I just didn't have any), and beat in the eggs and the vanilla.

In another bowl, mix together the flours, spices, salt and soda.

In a third bowl, mash your previously frozen bananas.

Taneasha and I have been discussing food that is not photogenic, and I'm thinking bananas need to go on the list. Her stuffed shells are winning at the moment though. I think they look awesome, like little brains. She thinks this is not a good thing. *shrug*

So, I was winging it with this recipe, and realized I had three bowls of stuff: a creamed butter, a bunch of dry, and a bunch of wet. This is a pretty common set up when making a cake. What the hell, lets make these cookies as if they were cakes.

Start by adding about 1/3 of the dry stuff to the creamed mixture. Stir it in completely.

Now, add 1/2 of the wet stuff (the bananamash), and stir it in completley.

Next third of the dry, the rest of the wet, then the last of the dry. Mix well after each.

If you want to fold in some chocolate chips here, I won't call you crazy.

You'll have a very soft and fluffy cookie dough. I do think it's mostly soft enough that you could spread this into a pan and make something cake-like; it's definitely thicker than your average cake batter, but it's also much softer than a typical cookie dough.

And I really wanted to make this into cookies. So I put it in the fridge.

An hour in the fridge can do wonders for cookie dough. It also gives your oven tons of time to heat up to 350.

Drop the dough by spoonfuls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Leave lots of room between them!

Bake them for about 14 minutes.

The dough spreads a lot, but the cookies maintain a nice puffy shape.

 They'll be super soft when they first come out of the oven, so give them a minute on the pan to cool off. Let them cool completley on a rack, but don't try stacking them. They're too soft and the tops and bottoms will stick together.

These things are perfect little mini cakes. Like the tops of cupcakes, just waiting to be frosted.

They are quite tasty on their own though, with a good bite of spice that makes them perfect to go with a cup of dark roast coffee.

The only problem is that tonight, as I was rooting through the freezer looking for dinner, I found more bananas. I think they're multiplying in there.

What's taking over your freezer??