Vegetarian Vegetable Stir-fry

Finally, another cooking post!

I decided to try making a stir-fry! I have made stir-fries before, but I wanted to try this out:

That's right! Electric wok! It has amazing temperature control, by the way. I sort of inherited it from my parents who never used it.

When choosing veggies for my stir-fry, I basically wandered around the produce area and picked up things that seemed like they'd be good. I ended up with: carrots, zucchini (my favorite!), snow peas, red bell pepper, and broccoli.

And no stir-fry is complete without rice! I used a long grain brown rice. It's good for you! Also, I don't know why I chose not to use my rice cooker...

Finding stir-fry sauces is difficult for vegetarians because most of them have oyster in them. Oyster juice? Anyway, not vegetarian friendly. I ended up going with this because it was the only vegetarian one I found.

I started the rice because it takes about an hour to cook. I chopped up my veggies, as seen above. To the wok I added olive oil (I almost always use olive oil and that works for me. What do other people use?) and the sauce. I turned the wok on to about 350. It heated much quicker than expected.

Colorful!

Stir-fry is nice and easy, especially without meat (maybe I will try tofu next time). You just add everything in. Try to give the veggies that take longer to cook more time in the wok, ie: broccoli and carrots (depending on how they are cut). Keep stirring the veggies so nothing burns. I probably left it in there for about 10 minutes? And then left the temperature on warm until the rice finished.

I got this wine as a gift from my friend, Lydia, so we popped that open to have with dinner. I must say, I don't usually like dryish red wines, but this one was quite tasty!

And voila! Our meal is complete! We just put the stir-fry over rice and enjoyed! And it was delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 For anyone who is interested, I wanted to share a couple of food-related blogs run by a couple close friends of mine.
Tubby Jubby's Food Blog: http://tubbyjubby.blogspot.com/. She is just starting out, but it looks great so far!
Easy Entertaining Food: http://easyentertainingfood.tumblr.com/. She finds good stuff!

Random David Bowie Post

There are a few David Bowie-related things I wanted to share!

One is this picture and quote:

This is scanned from one of my early scrapbooks. Love the guy in the background.

I found this in some magazine (I don't even know which one) in my Interior Design class in 10th grade. That was about nine years ago. (Wow...) I came across it while working on a project, quickly tore out the page, shoved it in my bag, and felt momentarily guilty. For what, I don't know. Taking time away from class for DB obsessing? Tearing up a magazine needlessly? Who knows? I don't feel guilty anymore because it is amazing and I love the quote.

The page reads: "Never mind the stares. 'If I'm going to do something that could be provocative or artistically relevant, I have to be prepared to put myself in a place where I feel unsafe, not completely in control. I have no fear of failure whatsoever, because often out of that uncertainty something is salvaged, something that is worthwhile comes about. There is no progress without failure. And each failure is a lesson learned. Unnecessary failures are the ones where an artist tries to second guess an audience's taste, and little comes out of that situation except a kind of inward humiliation.'"

Inspiring, I'd say. This scrapbook was for a class my senior year of high school. My teacher left a note that says, "Wow! I love David Bowie's courage! (Can I have a copy of the quote?)"

Another item. This was recently posted by the official David Bowie people who update us via social media: David Bowie and me. It is an article about David Bowie as told by several people who have been close to him or worked with him over the years. If you are familiar with David Bowie and his music, you will recognize many of the names on the list. It is super interesting! I love the first one--its from the guy who damaged DB's eye, giving his famous appearance! Love it!

Third point. I would also like to take this moment to say that I am (was?) one degree of separation away from David Bowie. I used to take ballroom dance and my instructor was about to be married. During this time I met his soon to be brother-in-law, a fellow DB fan who had actually met him.

We danced a few times at a party to discuss this. He told me that DB is so famous and popular that he can be kind of stand-offish (understandable). So you have to approach him with something he's not used to, like "do you like animals?" Made me laugh. Despite the fact that he was joking about the last part, I have always remembered our conversation, in case I get to meet him one day.

And one more issue. Around the time I was a sophomore or junior in high school, the band, orchestra, and choir of my school took a trip to New York, New York during spring break to play some concerts.

My family and I were vacationing in Florida the week before, during, and after spring break. My mom was a chaperone for our New York trip so she and I flew up from Florida and took a taxi to our hotel to await the school groups. At least one bus-load of kids, on their way from the airport, had a mini tour that involved driving by David Bowie's house. To this day, I am devastated that I wasn't there! I don't know who is to blame for that, but someone should pay!

So those are my little, random DB things to share. Now you know just how much of a DB nerd I am. (There is SOOOO much more where that came from, but I don't think I need to share everything here.) If you need more DB randomness from yours truly, see my posts: David Bowie and Other Oddaments and Cento from David Bowie. Enjoy!

That is all for this segment of Nerdy Ravings! Til next time! (I should create a continuous segment with that title...)

Insanity Update

First of all, this week began with the fit test. I am sad to say that I progressed a little in a few exercises, stayed the same in a couple, and did one fewer in the last two. My measurements have not changed, either.

I'm sure you will all think we are crazy, but we decided to start Insanity over again.

Yes, you heard right.

If you read my last Insanity post, you know that we hated the last month's videos and our motivation was dropping.

We thought that, by starting over, we would continue to make progress. Then we have the chance to get strong enough to actually do the last month. That is our reasoning. I will continue to track our progress and give occasional updates.

So no, we have not quit, we are just... re-doubling our efforts.

And Isaac is joining us! Join the suffering! Yay!