So it seems that I cook a lot more on summer vacation when I'm off all day. Who knew? This week is shaping up to be a week with lots of cooking, so it seemed appropriate that I blog about what's going on currently in my life.
One of the things I love about summer is fresh vegetables. Little produce stands start popping up around town, and everything just tastes so much better. My summer staple is to get several of my favorite summer vegetables, and stir fry them up for the week. Then I use the vegetables as toppings, side dishes, or just by themselves as meals through out the week. Many of my summer meals tend to be vegetarian, because the vegetables are so good.
This week, I've visited the local produce stand, Whole Foods for some organics, and the grocery store for a few others that I missed along the way. Yesterday afternoon, before beginning this week's process, here is what I had:
Yellow squash, Zucchini, Carrots, Green Beans, Broccoli, Corn, Onions, and Okra
Onions are always first. I like them to be carmelized - cooked very well, and browned. This always takes longer than the quick stir fry for the the other vegetables, so start them in their own pan first.
8 onions. It sounds like a lot, but they cook down, and if spread out between several people or over several meals during the week, they do tend to go fast. And it's easy to use my handy-dandy Bullet Express (thanks Dad) to quickly chop veggies into slices or shred.
4 onions fills up this large punch bowl, as you can see by the several chunks of onions still awaiting their turn through the food processor. And one bowl of onions fills up a large frying pan:
To cook this big a quantity, I cook one bowlful of onions first, and then completely remove the cooked onions before starting the second bowlful. You could add onions as these cook down, because they shrink down quite a bit, but then I worry about trying to keep the well-done onions from becoming completely burned while the new onions are cooking.
Here are the onions, almost done. You can see that they've cooked down quite a bit.
And that entire pan of onions - doesn't even take up half of this 4" plastic. Both pans together will fit into this container.
Onto the other veggies. Normally I mix most of my other vegetables all in the same pan. However, this week I'm sharing vegetables with family and friends in a birthay celebration, so I'm cooking the squash & zucchini separately from the other vegetables. This next pan will include okra, green beans, broccoli, corn, and carrots.
Okra - whole and then chopped ready to stir fry.
And the green beans - whole and then chopped ready for stir frying.
Here is the okra and green beans, starting to cook up in the pan.
Yummy young carrots, washed and then shredded.
Add the carrots to the pan.
Add some broccoli. At this point, it's starting to get crowded, so it's time to
divide what's in the pan between two different frying pans.
divide what's in the pan between two different frying pans.
Fresh corn on the cob. I love corn on the cob in the summer time. It always tastes so good. This corn was in water that was brought to a boil, to just get it barely cooked. Then drained, and cut off the cob.
Add corn to the stir fry mix, and cook it for just a few more minutes.
Almost Done
And there you go. 2 pans full of stif fried vegetables, nicely mixed and cooked enough to blend the flavors, but still have a bit of crunch and texture. This large plastic container is enough to feed a family for a couple of meals, or add vegetables to many of my meals through the week.
I'm not quite finished for the night. I really love squash and zucchinni. From the earlier picture, you might notice I have 4-5 of each that need to be sliced and cooked. This fun cooking project took a little over 3 hours, so squash will be a project for another day. I decided to quickly chop and stir fry one of each for tonight's dinner.
Well, 1 zucchini and 2 squash, if you are picky. Sizewize, this worked out well. Quickly - washed, sliced, and set up in pans.
This looks like a lot, but like the onions, it will quickly cook down.
Yum. Now, ready for dinner. Since I've spent all this time cooking vegetables, and used up all 4 burners on the stove at one time or another through this process, I'm a bit limited in my dinner options if I want something that won't take too much longer to make. I decide to go for quick, and put some pierogies in the oven to bake while finishing up the last of the vegetables. Whip up some guacamole, and then garnish with all the veggies. This may be simple, but it's one of my favorite meals. :)
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