Superfood Stir-Fry
My favorite meals are my stir fries. I make them with whatever I feel like putting in and today’s delight was no exception. This one is packed with superfoods; chick peas, kale, and sweet potatoes. Plus it’s topped with lucious marinated portabella mushrooms. Yum!
I made a panful for lunch and we ate the whole thing. Now I’m sad that it’s gone.
Ingredients
2 large portabella mushrooms, sliced
1 can chickpeas, drained
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin, half-rings separated
1 medium green bell pepper, sliced thin lengthwise (red or yellow or orange people would also work.)
1 sweet potato or yam, sliced into slender lengths. (1/2 butternut squash would work too.)
1 cup kale & 1/2 teaspoon balsamic (Or spinach, Swiss chard, or even broccoli here.)
1 package Soba noodles, cooked (You can use any oil-free noodle or brown rice.)
Several mandarin orange sections, or some diced pineapple
A little low sodium veggie broth
Slivered almonds (for garnish)
Marinade
1/2 cup vegan Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup low sodium tamari
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
black pepper
Method
First, mix the marinade, with equal parts low sodium tamari and vegan Worcestershire sauce, the garlic and onion powder and the pepper. You don’t need salt. Even low sodium tamari is salty.
Wash and slice the mushrooms, creating long slices. Place in a shallow dish and pour the marinade over them.
Rinse and drain the chickpeas, then add to the mushroom marinade. Cover and set aside.
Put your best non-stick pan on the burner at medium high heat and let it heat while you slice the veggies.
Wash, peel and slice the onion, green pepper, and sweet potato, making long, very slender rectangles. The sweet potato should be like the world’s smallest French fries. Slice the pepper long and thing, and slice the onion in half, then skinny slice it and separate the layers.
In between slicing, be sure you shake or stir the marinating mushrooms every now and then.
When the pan is hot enough to make a bead of water dance, pour in the onions and peppers. Lower the head to medium. Do not cover. Put a silicone or plastic utensil nearby and set some veggie broth nearby too. Stir frequently. When the veggies start to stick, add a little bit of broth to deglaze and keep cooking and stirring.
Strip the kale from its stems and wash thoroughly. Then bunch it up into the tightest bundle you can, and slice it with a sharp knife, chop chop chop. Gather it all up and bunch it together and repeat. And again. And once more.
Stir the veggies. If the onions are starting to be some brown on them, it’s going well. Dump in the sweet potatoes and then give the mushrooms another shake/stir.
Now massage a little balsamic vinegar into that kale. About 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon is plenty. Drizzle it over the kale, and then gather and squeeze, and gather, and squash. Massage it for a good while. It really makes a difference.
Shake the mushrooms again. Stir the veggies. Pour in the kale.
Put another excellent pan on the burner to heat. When it gets good and hot, use tongues or a fork to put the mushrooms into this new pan. They should sizzle when you put them in. Lay them out in a single file, lower the heat a little.
I often put a lid on the veggie pan to hasten the veggie cooking ear the end.
Add the noodles, the remaining marinade liquid and the chickpeas still soaking in it, to the veggie pan once all the veggies have reached your desired tenderness and the kale has cooked down a little. Add the mandarin orange or pineapple pieces. Cook uncovered to let the liquid cook down.
When the mushrooms are brown on the bottom, flip them over one by one and continue cooking until tender and brown. Don’t burn them.
Lay the mushrooms over top of the veggie mixture.
Serve topped with slivered almonds
Meanwhile in my other life…
To celebrate my 30th anniversary as a published novelist, and the 30th anniversary of my longest-running (and still ongoing) series, Wings in the Night, we’re offering books 1-3 for an insanely low price. It’s an Amazon Kindle exclusive. Check it out.
“My inspiration has always been Maggie Shayne and her Wings in the Night series!”
—Christine Feehan, #1 NY Times Bestseller