A quick and simple stir-fry

It's good to have a plan. It's even better to make that plan happen. All too often, I will plan a week's worth of dinners only to decide that they don't appeal to me during that week. But, tonight, I had planned on making a Cooking Light recipe that is in the current magazine. The January/February issue is turning out to be a good one! In the Superfast section, they have a fair number of quick and easy dinner options that can be made in about 20 minutes. As anyone can tell you, if there's too much chopping and prep work to be done, that 20 minutes will extend to closer to 40 or so, depending on your knife skills and organization.

Soon as I arrived home with the boys, I put the frozen shrimp in a colandar to begin defrosting under cold running water. I also put water on to boil for the brown rice that I wanted to serve with the stir-fry. All that going and a quick snack into the boys, now I was ready to organize my ingredients and do my prep work.

The stir-fry recipe has only a couple of things to chop or cut (onions, broccoli and fresh ginger). I managed to get all of those things ready in a few minutes. A quick tip for peeling fresh ginger: use a regular spoon and just drag it across the skin. It comes off easy-peasy and you are ready to chop! Next, I put together the sauce ingredients and whisked away and set that aside. All told, those tasks only took about 10 minutes. I am getting faster - somehow. Who am I to question, when dinner hit the table in about 30 minutes.

Overall, everyone loved the flavor of the dish. The boys will devour shrimp and broccoli on any given day, so I knew I was going to be serving something that they would at least give a fair shot.




Shrimp and Broccoli Stir-Fry
Source: Cooking Light - January/February 2008

Ingredients

1/4 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon canola oil, divided
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
1 tablespoon bottled minced garlic
1 pound peeled and deveined large shrimp
1/4 teaspoon salt4 cups small broccoli florets
1 cup vertically sliced onion

Directions

Combine first 6 ingredients in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk.

Heat 2 teaspoons canola oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add ginger and garlic to pan; stir-fry 30 seconds. Sprinkle shrimp with salt. Add shrimp to pan, and stir-fry 3 minutes or until done. Remove shrimp mixture from the pan.

Add remaining 1 teaspoon canola oil to pan. Add broccoli and onion to pan; stir-fry 4 minutes or until broccoli is crisp-tender. Add shrimp mixture and broth mixture to pan; cook 1 minute or until thickened, stirring constantly.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup) - Calculates to 4 WW points

CALORIES 220 (27% from fat); FAT 6.7g (sat 0.8g,mono 2.4g,poly 1.9g); PROTEIN 26.2g; CHOLESTEROL 172mg; CALCIUM 105mg; SODIUM 577mg; FIBER 2.8g; IRON 3.6mg; CARBOHYDRATE 11.8g