Sugar Snap and Snow Pea Stir Fry

I try to take advantage of my time on Sunday evenings and make a healthy meal that I can eat for a few days (instead of bringing frozen meals or PB&J to work for lunch). With the warmer weather I’ve been craving more fresh food so I searched through my past issues of Vegetarian Times and found this Asian stir-fry. The ingredients included things like sesame oil, garlic-lime sauce, cornstarch and lots of veggies (goodbye, money), so I changed it up a bit to fit what I already had, scooped up a coupon for Whole Foods that I found lying around my house and headed to the market.

Here’s the instructions and the real recipe.

Now, for my twenty-something budget friendlier adaptation:

• 1 Teaspoon Flour
• 1 Teaspoon (or to taste) chili powder
• ¼ of a Lime (for juice)
• 2 Tbs Soy-Ginger Sauce (see photo below)
• 1 Teaspoon of minced garlic
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, halved, cut into wedges, and pulled apart (1 ½ cups)
• 1 small yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced (1 ½ cups)
• 1 cup raw unsalted cashews
• 8 oz. sugar snap peas
• 8 oz. snow pea pods
• 8 green onions cut into 1-inch pieces

I tried to replicate the sauce/seasons by mixing up the following sauce. I will warn you that I do not follow measurements closely. I kind of just guesstimate and things usually turn out fine. For sharing purposes I’ll try to record the measurements.

To cancel out the recipe’s need for fresh ginger I found this gem of a sauce in Whole Foods (what 23-year-old can afford to keep their kitchen stocked with fresh ginger).

So, roll up your sleeves Chef, you are about to make a sauce from sort-of scratch (not as scary as it sounds). First, add a little bit of that sauce then the minced garlic, then squeeze in a quarter of those limes you bought for your weekend cocktails—whisk all that together then add the flour. Whisk that up really good so that there aren’t  any lumps of flour. Finally add chili powder to taste. Slowly pour the sauce into the cooked stir-fry (link for recipe instructions is above).

Voilà! Take that, Lean Cuisine!