Simple Tasty Stir Fry

Ingredients

• broccoli florets
• mushrooms, quartered or sliced
• other sliced veggies of your liking or that you happen to have (carrots, cauliflower, snow peas, onion, etc)
• splash of soy sauce (say 1-2 tbs or so)
• splash of sesame oil (say 1/2 tbs or so)
• splash of water (about 1/4 cup?)
•  oil (I just use olive oil)

Method

1. Heat oil in pan on high
2. Add the veggies and stir for a few minutes until they are coated with oil and starting to look a bit cooked/browned
3. Add the water and cover with a lid to steam the veggies. Leave to cook for a couple of minutes.
4. Check for desired level of done-ness - go with a little underdone instead of a little overdone!
5. Add the soy sauce and sesame oil, stir it all up, and remove from the heat

If you want to get all fancy, here are a few ideas to jazz it up...

• toast some slivered almonds and/or sesame seeds before you put the oil in the pan then set aside to sprinkle on top at the end
• add some minced garlic and/or ginger to the pan with the oil before anything else
• fry some meat (either plain or dipped in beaten egg then a flour/salt/pepper mixture) before cooking the veggies - I'd cook the meat first, remove it from the pan to do the veggies, then add it in at the end with the sauces
• grind some pepper on at the end?

Almond-crusted Fish Fillets

This was a tasty dinner, inspired by wanting to avoid heavy carbs and by taking a look at the fish counter in Thrifty's (they were selling almond-crusted sole fillets). I will write the recipe as I did it (as best I can remember) but there are many options for substitutions or scaling up/down...

Ingredients

• 4 good-sized fillets of snapper (or any white fish would be good)
• roughly 1 cup of nuts - I used mainly almonds and a few hazelnuts
• roughly 1 cup of breadcrumbs
• roughly 1/8 cup shaved/grated parmesan cheese (I probably would have done 1/4 cup if we had it)
• roughly 1/2 tsp garlic powder (I didn't feel like mincing garlic)
• about 1/3 cup chopped parsley leaves
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 egg, beaten 
• olive oil

Method

1.  Chop the nuts finely using a food processor or knife (exact size doesn't matter)
2. Lightly roast the nuts in a dry frying pan then set aside - don't burn them!!
3. Mix together the nuts, breadcrumbs, cheese, garlic, parsley, and salt and pepper and spread some of out on a large plate, saving some for spooning over the fish and replenishing the dipping plate
4. Dip fish fillets, one at a time, first in the beaten egg and then in the nut mixture.. spoon more nut mixture over top and press it down to make as much of it stick to the fish fillet as you can. As each fillet is prepared, place it on a second plate (in other words, do all the dipping first before you start doing any cooking instead of dipping and putting straight in the frying pan - it'll save stress on timing the cooking).
5. Heat oven to about 250F
6. Heat oil in a large frying pan (or in my case 2). Add the fish fillets in a single layer and top each with a little extra nut mixture so as not to waste it.
7. Frying time is going to vary a lot based on the depth of your fillets and your personal preference, but if you do like I did and stick them in a warm-hot oven for a little while at the end then it may help you to avoid over/undercooking... I fried each fillet probably 2-3 minutes on each side then transferred the pans to the oven where they stayed until I finished the rest of dinner about 10-15 minutes later. I turned down the heat on the oven to 170F shortly after putting the fish in.

Suggested Accompaniements

Our meal was fish fillets, green salad (incorporating some roasted nuts), and a simple stir fry of broccoli and mushrooms tossed with soy sauce and sesame oil. Very tasty!