your basic vegetable stir fry

Growing up, vegetables were as much a staple as white rice was in every meal. I remember Dad watching us kids with eagle eyes until we’ve cleaned our plates off any rice or veggie residue.

basic vegetable stir fry rice topping

It was a dictatorial household, I tell you. No kid was allowed to leave the table unless and until he or she has eaten the vegetables that Dad or Mom has dished on his or her plate. I remember my younger siblings and me trying to finish the generous servings of bitter gourd (ampalaya) that Dad would put on our plates, all the while tears streaming down our cheeks. Mealtimes could be such a drama sometimes, heh.

Grown up and a-wanting my veggies all the time, I can’t help but be grateful Dad and Mom taught us how to eat our veggies. I certainly couldn’t survive without them…which brings me to my all-time favorite easy-to-cook, ready-in-a-jiffy vegetable dish: vegetable stir fry.

If I’m pressed for time, there’s a fresh harvest from my backyard vegetable garden, and hubby’s on his way home, this veggie dish is my lifesaver.

Basic Vegetable Stir Fry Recipe 

You’ll need:

1 lb pork, cut into bite size pieces
2 T soy sauce1 T sesame oil
1/2 t garlic powder
Dash of pepper
1 c water, divided
1 T vegetable oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium-sized sweet onion, sliced
1 c diagonally sliced green beans
2 c sliced zucchini (about 2 pieces)
1 c julienned carrots
Oyster sauce, to taste

1. Marinate pork in soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic powder and pepper and let stand for 30 minutes.
2. Cook the pork in its marinade, adding 1/2 c water, at high heat. As soon as it boils, lower heat to medium. Let simmer until water has evaporated and the fat has rendered. Place the pork to the side of the wok.
3. Add vegetable oil (if needed) and sauté garlic and onion. When the onion has turned clear, add the green beans. Sauté for 5 minutes.
4. Add the zucchini and sauté for another 5 minutes. 
5. Add the carrots and sauté for 2 minutes.
6. Add oyster sauce and adjust according to your taste. Add 1/2 c of water for sauce. As soon as the sauce is simmering, remove from heat and serve immediately with steamed rice. Yummy!

Notes:
Potatoes, broccoli, chayote, and cauliflower are also delicious additions to this vegetable stir fry dish.
 

memories of summer 2011 growing season

My first ever vegetable garden—in my entire life, that is—was hewn out of a grassy patch of sandy yard.

sandy soil, overgrown weeds...my first ever vegetable garden

Vain Asian girls like me take pride, and aim for, a fair silky complexion. (That's our definition of beauty, I guess.) In Manila I had a diamond facial peel monthly, without fail, just to clear my skin of any gunk. I was even on a glutathione regimen—worth $80 a month—just to maintain a fair, glowing skin.

All those thousands of pesos down the drain with my vegetable garden in 2011, which I grew in the midst of summer, in Central Florida…where the temperatures are typically around 101ºF (38.33ºC). After a few weeks, Hubby said I was too...brown! (He was pining for my old skin tone apparently.)

I started late into the growing season, you see, because the gardening bug bit me just after spring has gone. And I hadn't known that smart Florida gardeners take a break from their gardens in the summer.

I imagine people driving their cars by and seeing me and they're shaking their heads at the crazy Asian lady hoeing and watering and tending her plots in the broiling heat. (I didn't know! I'm new to these woods, y'know.)

It was an experimental garden where the mantra was “Anything goes!”

And truly, anything went in and out—weeds, pests, alternating 3-day-rains and high temps, gadzukes zucchini that died after setting forth a seriously leafy front...

the gadzukes! zucchini would flower, then not follow
through on the promise of fruit! bad plant. bad!

I even met a ladybug once!

a most welcome visitor in the garden

We had lots of okra, bitter gourd (ampalaya in Tagalog) and string beans every other day.

we had a steady supply of vegetables for our table.
our family just luv veggies!

the okras were the most prolific, sending out new
flowers every day so i could pick fruits every couple of days

ditto with the bitter gourd (aka ampalaya), which didn't
have any problems. probably because it didn't have any predators

the string beans (aka pole beans, asparagus yardlong,
and sitaw,  Tagalog name) were just as prolific as the okra.

And for the first time in my life, I was able to grow several bell peppers from seed, culled from ones bought from the grocery store. How awesome is that, eh?

bell peppers, seeded from store-bought veggie

The only thing that didn't do well were the bush beans. I don't know if it was me or the seeds I bought but they definitely didn't grow beyond a spindly 2 inches long...and I know for a fact that they're not supposed to behave like that. That is, I don't know if I gave them the nurture they needed (grimace).

this was the size that's as far as the green beans would deign to grow

I'm hoping this growing season, started on time finally, all my plants will thrive and fruit vigorously.

after the rains

We’ve had two days and nights of intermittent downpours and my little vegetables in the garden, as well as my ornamentals, are loving it.

My second crop of green beans has consented to come out of their snug soil covers...

...hot peppers sown from seeds harvested from, well, Asian peppers bought at the Oriental store in Orlando, are a-fruiting...

...and okras only a foot or so tall are flowering. 

(The last one’s leaving me scratching my head, with their diminutive size and all. The first time I grew okras, I didn't have any blossoms until they were more than a couple of feet tall. But wth! My family’s been itching for some fresh okras—another one in our longish list of favorite veggies—so I’m not complaining.)

Oh, and my bitter gourd (the much loved ampalaya of Pinoy diabetics) has just sent out its first fruitling. Ain’t that grand?

(I think one of these days, Sis-in-Law R will be wanting to harvest some of the bitter gourd leaves to put in our monggo stew.)

eggplant flowers emerging

Are those eggplant flowers?

Those are flower buds, right? I'm really not sure. Could be just leaves emerging. Let's wait and see.

A day later (today, that is)...

It is a full-fledged eggplant flower!

Dayum! Those were really eggplant flowers I saw the first time. And here's another one for tomorrow's full bloom!

I think eggplant flowers are one of the most colorful, most beautiful blooms in the whole wide world, sniff.

Can't wait to harvest my first ever eggplant fruits grown from seed...in fact, the first eggplants I have ever planted my whole, entire life! (Exaggerated cheer, I know, but don't mess with the glee of a brown-thumb-turned-obsessed-vegetable-gardener at achieving another vegetable gardening milestone, heh.)

my tiny backyard farm

What’s in a garden?

Everything green and beautiful...and pesky (snerk!)

What’s in my garden?

Lots of new seedlings, thriving veggies and youngish fruit trees. And of course, the requisite bugs (argh!).

Welcome to my Spring 2012 beer—er—vegetable garden!

my tiny tiny backyard farm, somewhere in orange city, florida.

yep, those are bud lights bottles. frugality ftw!

beer bottles, up close and personal.

my central florida vegetable garden, from another perspective.

growing your vegetable garden from seeds has its
own (geeky) satisfaction, eh?

tomatoes--both cherry and roma--from seedlings now transplanted.
i forgot to label though so i don't know which is which.

sugar peas seedlings heartily thriving in my beer--er--vegetable garden.

garden beans emerging besides the sugar peas. 

planting eggplants for the first time this spring. hope they
fruit well because my family members are eggplant junkies!

asparagus yardlong beans--aka string beans--emerging.

sweet potatoes, grown for their leaves, not for their fruit.
we love camote (sweet potato) salad!