Mild Stir Fry

Mild Stir Fry

I do not cook every night. Some nights we scavenge leftovers or eat cereal (with skim milk). Or my son (the vegetarian) will eat white rice with margarine (bla-and) and my daughter will eat Ramen noodles (gross). Yes. I let my kids eat white rice and Ramen noodles. We go out to eat sometimes.  I know all of this erodes my cooking-blog cred, but there you are. You have my blessing if you wish to seek a new heart-healthy blog right now. 

Tonight after several nights of immersion in other things and, therefore, "faking it" in the kitchen, this mom actually put a home-cooked dish on the bar. Not the table. The table's covered with Vacation Bible School stuff. But I did cook from scratch, and I did plate the meal. So, here we go...

This is a meal for which we all need to remind ourselves of the difference between good-for you and better-for you. Is this meal good for you? Probably not by your cardiologist's standards. But is it better for you than what you'd get in a restaurant or even in your typical home cook's kitchen? Sure!

Marinade
1 Tbsp soy sauce (BIG sodium offender, here, but most of it's gonna get discarded)
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (don't get the cheapest or the most expensive)
1 Tbsp sherry (cheap "cooking" sherry from the grocery aisle is fine)
3/4 tsp sesame oil (mmmm! I love sesame oil! NO sodium and BIG flavor!)

Stir Fry Sauce (I always double this b/c we like saucy stir fry)
1 Tbsp corn starch
1/3 c chicken broth 
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp hoisin sauce (BIG sodium offender)
1/2 Tbsp lo-so soy sauce (again, BIG sodium offender)
1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp minced (grated) fresh ginger root

Actual Food Ingredients
1 bag of egg-white noodles 
Some chopped up veg (Tonight, I used about a cup of frozen broccoli florets, half of one orange bell pepper, and 3 bunches green onions because that's what was in the fridge)
1 chicken breast

1. Cut up your veg into similarly-sized chunks or slices. 
I use a cutting board and an impressively large chef's knife. I never ever use a paring knife. EVER.

2. Move the veg to a tray. 
I have several cheap rectangular melamine trays in various holiday themes that I snap up for $1 each at my local Dollar General Store. They are excellent "staging areas" for stir fry and other "I'll get to you later" food ingredients. They are perfect b/c they are about the same length as a cutting board and I can move all the veg to them in one swipe with my impressively large chef's knife. 

3. On the same cutting board as you used for the veg, cut up a single chicken breast into slices or chunks. 
It's nice if the chicken matches the veg, ya know? Why on the same cutting board? Who does dishes at your house? Yep. Same here. We are all about having FEWER dishes to do, even if "doing dishes" really means only "loading the dishwasher." Although it's all gonna be cooked thoroughly, I always cut up veg first and then chicken. It's just good cross-contamination-avoidance practice.

4. Dump all the marinade ingredients into a quart-sized zip-closure bag and slide the chicken off the board and into the bag.

5. Stick the bag in the fridge for 30 minutes. 

6. Get your noodle water boiling.  
You must get the noodles going before you start stir frying because stir fry is, like, instantaneous. You will not have time to boil the noodles after you start stir frying.

7. Make your stir fry sauce. 
I have a clever little Measure Mix and Pour container from The Pampered Chef. If you don't have such a thing, mix all the ingredients using a whisk in a large (4-cup) mixing cup or a small mixing bowl. 

8. By now, your water is close to boiling. Move your chicken bag, your veg tray, and your stir fry sauce to the side of the stove. You are ready to COOK! 
Good grief! Seven stinkin' steps and we're just now gonna cook? I warned you! I told you that you couldn't just rip open a box or take the top off a can if you wanted to cook better-for-you. I did warn you.

9. Your noodles will take about the same time to cook as your stir fry ingredients (~6 min). On your mark...get set...put in your noodles!

10. Fire up your wok/skillet with maybe a teaspoon of canola oil, no more. DRAIN the marinade off your chicken chunks, toss them in the pan and stir fry them until they are juuusst done. "Stir fry" means you stir constantly while you cook over fairly high (ok, high) heat. My wok is smokin' hot most of the time. That's how I roll. This step will take, like, 2 minutes. 

11. Remove the chicken from the pan. 
The chicken chunks/slices should still look a little juicy when you spoon them out of the pan/wok. If they look like dried up gambling dice or crispy bacon strips, congratulations! You've cooked them too long. Fortunately, the sauce and veg hide a multitude of sins. Serve them anyway. Chewing hard builds jaw muscles (!)

12. Veggie time! Toss in the veggies. Stir fry them until they appear to be steamin' hot. 
This will take no more than 2 minutes or so. Your goal is crisp-tender. You do not want "canned vegetable" consistency. Yuck. 

13. Add back the chicken and dump in the stir fry sauce. Stir everything until the sauce thickens and bubbles (that's the corn starch, baby)
Right about now, your noodle timer will ring! Success!

14. Drain noodles. Turn off the heat under the stir fry. Plate everything and bask in the compliments! 
Instead of dumping soy sauce over the dish (insulting!), I drizzle maybe a 1/2 tsp of sesame oil over it. NO added sodium, but BIG flavor, and mostly good fat. Yay!

Notes:
1. This is my go-to stir fry sauce. Not too spicy hot! 

2. Most heart disease patients' doctors tell them they must consume only a heart-healthy (lo-so, lo-sat fat) diet for the rest of their lives. Period. We live by that rule in our house. If you disagree, find another blog. Don't quote "alternative studies" to me. 

3. No meat? No problem! Your cardiologist (if you have one) would probably cheer! Meatless meals are pretty popular with cardiologists.

4. You may not think you know what egg-white noodles are. I'll bet you do. The famous brand is "No Yolks." See? You've heard of them. 

5. Even lo-so soy sauce is HORRIBLY high in sodium. Therefore, I always cut it half/half with balsamic vinegar. If a recipe calls for 1 Tbsp of soy sauce, I use 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce and 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar. They both have that funky, fermented, wang-y flavor, so it's a decent compromise for a heart-healthier diet. And it has ZERO mg of sodium, so anytime you cut your lo-so soy sauce with balsamic vinegar--hey, presto! You've halved the sodium content in the recipe. Kinda proud of myself for that one. Actually, I think my niece, Kayla, suggested it to me. Home run, Kayla!

6. We need to have a discussion about broth. Even the 1/3-less sodium broth you can buy in a can or box in the grocery store is not lo-so enough to suit my husband's doctors. Therefore, for everyday [read: non-holiday] cooking, I use Herb Ox instant chicken and beef broth which I can get at most of our nearby grocery stores. It has NO sodium. Each packet makes 1 cup of no-so broth. 

7. Hoisin sauce. Oh, the salty deliciousness that is hoisin sauce. No gettin' around it: this stuff is ri-DONK-ulously high in sodium per serving. As bad as soy sauce (hoisin: ~700 mg / lo-so soy sauce: ~600 mg) But the good news is this: even with the recipe doubled, there's only a serving of hoisin sauce in this entire recipe. So, unless you are gonna belly up to the table and do a Jabba-the-Hut, the sodium count per serving is not as bad as the label would make you think. Nevertheless, you simply cannot eat stir fry sauce everyday. I know: bummer.

8. Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a fresh-ingredient snob. I do not like jarred minced garlic or jarred ginger. Does that mean I never use them? Weeelll, I never say never. But do yourself a favor! Buy that gnarly looking ginger root from the fresh produce section of the grocery store. Peel that sucker and grate it on a fine grater and you will never, I mean NEVER, willingly go back to jarred or powdered ginger root.

Marinara Sauce

We eat a lot of pasta in this house. I'm sorry, FOOD TV superstars. I watch you gleefully toss a palmful of salt into every pasta pot, insisting that I "must" do the same. No, I mustn't. If he knew I was cooking like that, Dr. E would give me a disapproving glare, and I can't take it. Besides, if I make a flavorful sauce, why do I need salty pasta?

Here's a sodium wake-up call:

How much sodium in a teaspoon of salt?  2325 mg
Dietary guidelines for people with high blood pressure? >1500 mg/day
How much sodium does your body actually need per day to function? ~250 mg (ouch!)

Remember when I said "canned sauces must go"? Sodium in a half-cup of Ragu pasta sauce: 300-360 mg/serving.  Get that? 1/4 of your allowable sodium intake gobbled up in a half-cup of pasta sauce. And let's be real. Who eats only a half-cup of pasta sauce at a sitting? By the way, don't even think you can get around that "canned sauces" blackout by buying plain canned tomato sauce and doctoring it, either. Unless you buy the no-salt-added kind, canned tomato sauce is anywhere from 200+ to 400+ mg/serving. And how much in a serving? 1/4 cup. What. a. downer.

The good news is this: healthy marinara sauce is easy-peasy to make yourself. Here is a delicious, fast, easy homemade marinara sauce for some pasta. It is 100% developed by us, so there is no link to an original recipe. If you use a pound of dry pasta, it serves 4 or thereabouts. It should probably serve more people, but we are hogs.

Puree

Marinara Sauce  (~30 mg sodium per 1/2 c of sauce)
Extra virgin olive oil
1 29 oz can tomato puree (I use Contadina or Red Gold)
3-4 plump garlic cloves, pressed or finely chopped (cloves are sections of a bulb)
1 small-medium onion
1 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp dried basil
1 Tbsp garlic powder (NOT garlic salt)
1 Tbsp onion powder (NOT onion salt)
1 bay leaf
~2 Tbsp granulated sugar

1. Toss onion, dried oregano and dried basil in food processor and chop finely. I use a Cuisinart 4-cup processor. Yes, you can chop with a knife.
2. Heat some olive oil (1-2 tsp) in a 3-qt saucepan over medium heat. Toss in pressed garlic and saute briefly. If your oil is too hot, you will scorch the garlic, and trust me, that's disgusting. Patience, grasshopper.
3. Once garlic has turned white and smells delectable, add bay leaf and the onion/herb mixture from the processor and heat until it begins to add to the heavenly chorus.
4. Add the tomato puree. Be careful, it will probably plop and blubble. 
5. Add the garlic powder, onion powder, and granulated sugar.
6. Reduce the heat to low, slap a lid on the marinara sauce, and let it go for a while--at least 15 minutes. Check it once in a while and get busy boiling your pasta. Remember! No salt in that boiling water.
7. Remove the bay leaf and serve over pasta noodles of your choice.

Notes:

1. I can get from "maybe we'll have pasta tonight" to food-on-the-table in less than 30 minutes with this recipe.

Paste

2. Canned tomato puree (always my preference for marinara sauces) or canned crushed tomatoes (also ok) have far less sodium than canned tomato sauce. Because lower-sodium alternatives are readily available, we always avoid canned tomato sauce. Sauce and puree and crushed and paste are all different products.  Crazy, huh? That's a photo of paste to the left. I don't even have canned tomato sauce in my house for a photo. Finally, check those food labels. You'll be amazed at the difference in sodium levels among brands. 
3. No meat? No meat. Two reasons. First, our son is a vegetarian. Second, ground beef has some sat fat, which we avoid, no matter how much we love the taste. Could we use ground turkey or chicken instead? Or a plant-based meat substitute? Yep. If you want red meat, add it. Just remember that you are adding sat fat when you add red meat. I'm not anti-red meat. I love red meat. I wish we could eat more of it, but on a lo-sat fat diet, it's a BIG no-no. In a sauce, we don't miss it, so I leave it out.
4. In summer when we have fresh basil and oregano, we use them. Chop 'em in the food processor separately from the onion, and add them closer to the end of cooking, and NOT in step 3. To cook them that long would destroy their lovely, fresh pop of flavor.
5. I always add fresh (raw) garlic and onion as well as powdered. My husband does not. He always uses fresh and only sometimes uses powdered if he thinks the sauce needs it. See what you think. It's not rocket science. Enjoy!