I LOVED IT!

People on a budget and vegetarians (who can eat mushrooms, sorry Dave) should love love love this VERY filling meatless dinner I made tonight (and practically ate the whole thing myself). This is an Oriental Stir Fry With Peanuts and I could tell at each and every step I took as I made it that I was going to like it. A lot.

This serves 4 but, I have to say, I LIT into this. I'm lucky in that I loves my veggies and so to have a vegetarian dinner is no big whoop for me. Youse that like meat, I could certainly see beef strips or chicken strips in here with no problem. But for tonight, I went the holy way and killed nothing with a face.

But first I want to talk about take out Chinese (this dish is more Japanese than Chinese but it's a lot like the "fried rice" you can get at any take out place.). Did you know that the distribution of the ingredients for take-out (not sit-down, dinner style) is provided by a very narrow channel of providers, like maybe - one all around the country? There are two Chinese take out places near us that we've used back and forth from time to time and BOTH changed their egg rolls to something pretty inedible at the very same time. That kind of made me suspicious, as you'd think here in 'merica they'd be more into competition. But no. The same distributor services both take-outs. And who knows who owns the provider. All I'm sayin'... (insert hidden dragon music).

So okay anyhow...

1 cup of rice gets cooked like a cup of rice. What? Read the damn box.
But here's what you're doing on the side while that's ricing itself...

put
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon of Sriracha (I used Tobasco, same burn different day) sauce
2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice (MrsRW got me a citrus juicer for Christmas and this translates into the juice from one actual, real lime... woo hoo!)
in a bowl and whisk all that together. Put it aside.

You have cut
2 organic carrots (hard outside skin shredded off with a peeler)
and
1 red bell pepper, seeds removed
into thin, narrow slices that are not chunky and hurt your cooking time.

You have also cut
7 to 8 ounces of shitake mushrooms (stems removed and tossed)
and 2 scallions
into thin, smaller-than-bite-sized chunks

You have drained
a can of bean sprouts in a strainer

You chop
1/4 cup of Planter's Dry Roasted peanuts

With that...

Heat a big wide pan (or wok if you got) to the point where putting
1 tablespoon of canola oil
can heat perfectly for what is to follow.

First the carrot and pepper strips... 3 minutes constantly stirring
Then the mushrooms and bean sprouts 2 to 3 minutes constantly stirring
[NOTE: People who can't eat mushrooms because of allergies are one thing, but I've always held that people who simply don't like mushrooms never had them prepared right. Cook too long and they are rancid. Cook not long enough and they are rubber.***** I challenge anyone who doesn't like mushrooms - allergies aside - to have mine in something I've made and we'll see what you think then.]

Put in the scallion bits in that whole mess just at the last minute. Stir and stir and keep stirring.

Add the soy sauce/hot sauce/lime juice mixture at the very last and just stir it around to coat.

That's it. You're done.

Fluff out your rice on a plate and scoop the goodies out of the pan and place on top.

Like I said - people who can't live without meat would have an easy time putting beef, chicken, even shrimp in here. I wasn't into faces tonight.

Also - NO SALT. Between the salt in the rice and the soy sauce you're good. If you put more, in my opinion, you ruin it. But at least taste before you add any table salt.

We put FAR too much table salt on our stuff EVEN BEFORE WE EVEN TASTE IT FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!.

This should take about 20-30 minutes tops and serves 4. Unless you were hungry like me...

***** THAT'S BACKWARDS. Too long is rancid, too short is rubber. Sheesh...