Spicy Peanut Stir-Fry

As a quick nutritious dinner, while the kids were at school, with minimal chopping, I put together a big steamy stir-fry. In our case, broccoli, bok choy (the same cruciferous category yet still good together), onion, celery, and carrots.  Simple, basic vegetables that require little effort but cover a bunch of important antioxidants and have lots of fiber and health benefits.

For flavor, I added a bunch of basil leaves and thinly slivered ginger.  These are important ingredients that add a lot of fresh healing power to the dish besides playing an important role in the flavor.  Instead of adding a bunch of spices and seasonings, I just added the spicy peanuts and let the dish soak up their coating.

The spicy peanuts were  Feridie's Hot & Spicy Virginia Peanuts.  I choose Feridies because they use peanut oil, none of that nonsense I see about cottonseed, canola, sunflower and/or soy oil.  Shouldn't you know which oil you used in your product?  Silly labeling laws allow bigger companies to pre-print and then choose the cheapest, most readily available oil at any given time.  So, I have more trust in a company that seems able to commit to an oil and, hopefully, they use their own local peanut oil.  It would be disappointing if the Virginia grown peanuts are cooked in oil imported from China and I am assuming the best.  Feridies Ingredients

The recipe:
Simply cut up the vegetables and rinse them
Put one tablespoon olive oil in a sauté pan
Start to brown the ginger a little first.
Dump in all of the vegetables and basil.  Top with a drizzle of sesame oil and a few drops of soy sauce. Stir.
Add the peanuts (about 1/3 of a cup) and about 2 tablespoons of water. Stir and cover. 
Steaming helps the larger chunks of carrot and broccoli cook and maintain their bright colors and fresh flavor. 
This easy dish cooks in just a few minutes.

I had made Arborio rice (a break from brown rice as a treat, although, I was then informed that white rice is not a treat. So, next time I will go back to brown.) when I chopped the vegetables earlier in the day, so we were all set to eat nice and early.  There were a few little issues, like Lizzie eating only the very flowered edges of the broccoli, giving it a trim and then being advised she needed to give it more of a hair cut, all the way to bald stalks.  Susannah, picked out the peanuts but sucked on them and made a need little pile by her plate. We all thought there were too many carrots.  Luke had to pick up every piece of basil and the green part of the bok choy to hold it up and determine which was which.  They look nothing alike but he finds himself funny. We are really working on manners...

Cycle for Survival 2014