Nick's Vegetarian Stir-Fry

Nick here...Long-time lurker, first-time poster, I think. My name's on the blog, maybe I should actually write about something!

After having a wonderful supper at Thai Taste earlier in the week, I thought I'd try my hand at stir-fry on Friday evening. We bought broccoli, carrots, sugar snap peas, water chestnuts, and I thought I'd even make the most dreaded of vegetarian foods, tofu. Lauren had ordered tofu with her meal at Thai Taste and it was honestly delicious. It was dry, tasted like the sauce, and almost had the consistency of a strip of meat, so I thought I'd be able to replicate it and make an awesome stir-fry.

I've made stir-fry in the past, and the trick is to have everything ready before you start cooking, because the pan is super hot and you need to stir it constantly to stop the food from burning. I had already pressed, sliced and dry-fried the tofu and it was marinating in store-bought stir-fry sauce with extra minced garlic. The vegetables were washed and cut so I added them to the hot oil and started cooking. The smell was great, and in a few minutes I added the tofu and sauce. Another minute to warm it all up and off the burner it went.

 

I made an easy fried rice (well, easy but time-consuming) to go with the stir-fry and then we sat down to our meal. 

The spoon that I scooped out the stir-fry looked like it was sticking out it's tongue on a face of water chestnuts and a carrot when I put in the pan...that should have been my first suspicion that something wasn't quite right.

 

We dug in to eat, ....and it was awful. Well, at least I thought it was. Nothing had blended, the vegetables tasted raw, and the tofu... oh, the tofu... it was plain gross, like really really bad. It hadn't taken any of the flavor of the marinade and tasted like something you weren't supposed to stick in your mouth. Almost like a plastic-rubber-snot mixture that was chewy on the outside but turned into cottage cheese before you could swallow it all away.

So, in case you want to keep track, it was 3 hours of work = disgusting meal. We ate some of the meal and the fried rice, but I was not satisfied and pretty angry. So we went out and I got chicken teriyaki takeout from a restaurant nearby, and Lauren got a chocolate milkshake. YUM!

Friday night supper, done.



Lauren would like for me to point out at this juncture that there is a reason that I don't cook too often. Not because what I cook always taste bad, far from it in fact. I think my meals, as a whole, are some of the best tasting that we eat. (What's a blog for if I can't brag a bit) No, the reason I don't cook often is because as a rule, whoever cooks doesn't do dishes. And I am a MESSY cook and it takes Lauren ages to clean up my disaster area. This isn't something I do on purpose, just happens.

Let me submit for evidence, Exhibits A and B...

Anybody have a good story about botched meals they want to share? Let us know in the comments. Help me feel better about this meal by laughing at your misery.