Holiday remorse. All that eating over the Christmas season probably added 5 pounds of fat to my mid-section. So while attempting to clear out the fridges and pantry so that we have minimal overall food waste, I have also tried to eat a lot more vegetable heavy meals in the past week or so. This stir-fry is by no means diet food, but the shift to more plant material from animal protein is presumably a step in the right direction.
We like to have a fully stocked larder in the run-up to Christmas, so that I have the flexibility to make many different dishes, but that means I end up with a lot of “extras” or ingredients that are perfectly good, but now basically odds and ends. This is a dish we made a week or so ago. From the freezer, some fresh corn kernels from Cavite corn we stocked a few weeks earlier. We had about 200 grams of ham left in the fridge, some peppers, a few french green beans, lots of patani or broad beans, and of course tomatoes, onions and garlic and green onions.
Into a large wok over high heat, I added the onions, garlic, ham and tomatoes to some vegetable oil and sautéed this for a minute or so. Added the corn, french beans, chopped peppers, patani and tossed vigorously. Added some oyster sauce, a bit of soy sauce, salt and pepper and a touch of shaoxing rice wine and stirred some more.
This was all done in about 6-8 minutes max. Garnish with chopped green onions. It looked good, it smelled good, and it tasted good. It was probably relatively high calorie due to the corn, but overall, a really nice dish from “leftovers”… In the past few days we have been eating more salads, grilled fish and meats, some baba ghanoush and hummus, simple soups and less starch. Gotta keep this up for a while if I am to lose the five pounds of holiday fat. Btw, you could make this totally vegetarian by omitting the ham, but that little bit of ham provided an incredible amount of flavor.
10 Responses
I do that leftover thing with bibimbap, ever since I learned to make it. (It used to be pasta but I can’t work greens into the pasta too much). It works great the same way, and has no need for other ulam to go with it. The only staple in my bibimbap is the rice, the store bought chili paste gochujang, and sesame oil. Then everything else varies. You should try it, if you are open to Korean food!
Looks like succotash.
Happy New Year! Our family’s been eating a lot of tofu and more vegetable dishes too MM to make up for all the holiday eating!
Getter Dragon 1, you are SO RIGHT. It is indeed succotash, corn, lima beans, peppers, etc. except I put the Asian flavorings… :) Clarissa, I LOVE Korean food; had a Korean roommate for 3 years in college along with a Portuguese guy and another Pinoy.
Wow your pictures are incredibly life like, I thought my iPad was “smoking”!
Susan, you must have one of those snazzy new ones, with “retina?” screens or something… :)
You had me at ‘ham’.. The dish looks like a jewelry case of a very rich person!!!
Great way to use up the Smithfield ham!!
Nah, my iPad is the oldest version…lol
Beautiful photos, MM!