Birthday Broccoli

The husband's birthday was Saturday. (Yes, Gentle Reader, I'm no longer sleeping with a younger man. Oh well.) Although he'd been crazy busy at work with employee evaluations and other nutty stuff and at home with his article for StarWars.com (did I mention we received a LucasFilm holiday card? How bitchin' cool is that!), I tried to get him to tell me how he wanted to celebrate--specifically, what kind of cake he wanted and what kind of birthday supper he wanted. When he finally got a break, he actually skimmed over the old posts in this blog to jog his memory about some of the dishes we've had.

"How sweet to reread your posts," you might be saying at this point, Gentle Reader. And on one hand I agree with you. On the other hand, though, I'm a little...frightened and saddened that he can't remember some of the dishes I've made. It's not like we have something new every night. In fact, for the past few months, I really haven't made many new dishes. I guess between the sleep apnea robbing his brain of essential oxygen and rest and the stress and craziness of work, the husband doesn't remember things as well as he might. And here's hoping those surgeries will help to some degree!

After I, well, mildly yelled at him for sending me an email with links to about half a dozen different possible dishes, he finally decided on the very easy chicken curry I first made back in July. "Or something with broccoli because I'm really surprised how much I like broccoli," he told me.

Stirring up a Birthday Meal
Lucky for the husband, I've saved a broccoli and chicken stir fry recipe I found in a sales flyer from Whole Foods--and later received in an email. The recipe was pretty straightforward and basic and seemed like it might be tasty, so I offered to make it for him for his big day--but would happily make the curry if he changed his mind because, hey, who knew if the stir fry really sucked.

Luckily, the stir fry didn't suck. It was quite tasty and so damn easy to make. I was very thankful for the ease because I was juggling making the husband a pan of birthday ooey-gooey peanut butter brownies so they'd be hot and gooey shortly after supper, just in time for the birthday boy to open his gifts, share some brownies with the boy and then pack the boy off to bed. Speaking of the boy, even he enjoyed it because it didn't have any veggies in it he typically rejects. (Yes, even the boy enjoy broccoli.)

Whole Foods Cheap and Easy Chicken Broccoli Stir FryYou can read the original recipe on Whole Paycheck's Web site. Here's roughly how I modified it:

3/4 C low-Na chicken broth
3 T low-Na soy sauce
1 t rice wine vinegar
1/4 t red pepper flakes
2 t cornstarch
1 T canola oil
Two boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thawed, trimmed and cubed
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 t minced peeled fresh ginger
3 C frozen broccoli pieces
Handful of julienned carrots

1. Combine the broth, soy sauce, vinegar, pepper and cornstarch in a bowl.
   
2. Add the canola oil to a wok or suitable pan and heat.
   
3. Add the chicken and stir-fry until lightly browned (about 2 min.), then shift to the cooler outer edges of the work. If not using a wok, consider removing the chicken from the pan and keeping warm.
   
4. In the hotter center of the wok, add the garlic and ginger. Stir-fry 30 seconds.
5. Add the broccoli (still frozen)) and carrot, then stir-fry about 2 min. or until the veggies are tender.
   
6. Pour in the soy mixture and toss to combine.
   
7. Let the sauce simmer until the chicken is cooked through (about 3 min.).

Nutritional Info
The original recipe includes nutritional info, but that's based on certain products from Whole Foods--and I didn't use some of them. Therefore, the nutritional info, if you ask me, is far from correct, thus I'm not going to include it.

The Faudie's Futzings
As I noted, Gentle Reader, the recipe as it appears above reflects the changes I made to the original recipe. The only change I didn't note was that we ate our stir fry with jasmine rice, which the husband requested. I would have preferred brown rice, but it wasn't my birthday.

As for dessert, the ooey-gooey brownies turned out really, really well. I used a regular (not a reduce-fat, not a reduced-sugar) Betty Crocker devil's food cake mix. While the powder came out of the bag in some large chunks that were reluctant to break up--which I was worried wouldn't bode well for the finished product--the cake itself was excellent. No hardening around the edges, no total collapse in the center. Hooray!