This stir fry vegetables and eggs recipe was created by serendipity. I'm going to give you the back story of how it came about to show you the weird and wonderful way a blogger's mind works. I think the story is entertaining, but if you want, you can just scroll to the end of the page and grab the recipe.
- While researching and thinking about starting the Pats for posts: real food for busy women series, I ran across Jamie Olivier's 15-Minute Meals. Though I don't watch his show, I'd seen his Ted talk, and knew he was a proponent of better nutrition. So I watched a few of his videos thinking they might be helpful for my series, but they really weren't. Each video begins with mise en place, which is French for "I have someone to cut and measure everything for me before the camera is turned on." Jamie himself is a young and healthy guy who pretty much bops around the kitchen with more energy than I ever had after a long day at work. And finally, he finishes up with so many pots and pans dirtied that it's going to take some serious time to repair that kitchen if you don't have staff. So while the concept of preparing a meal in 15 minutes was attractive, my understanding of what it would take to translate those videos in my own kitchen was more like an hour.
- A Facebook friend hosted a 14-Day GREEN Breakfast Challenge event. Though I juice almost every morning, I was looking forward to participating and getting some new ideas. Unfortunately, I got a bad case of the flu which kept me from getting out of bed for 3 days and left me rather wobbly when I finally could get up; having missed a good chunk of the challenge, I never went back to it.
- Shortly after I was out of bed, another friend posted about using sage tea to help her cough and referred to a friend of hers, Carol, who is an herbalist. I decided to see what this Carol had to say about flu, since my trusty elderberry syrup had failed me. On her site, I noticed a post with the subtitle "GREENS for Breakfast!" and wandered over to check it out. It included a recipe for a light breakfast of stir-fried baby bok choy with scrambled eggs on the side.
- Next time I was at the grocery, I was thinking about how I'd like to change Carol's recipe, and bought a regular-sized bok choy and some scallions. A couple days later, I made a stir fry for breakfast, using dried ginger and garlic powder, as I felt chopping the bok choy and scallions was enough work for the morning, given that I am not a morning person.
- When I posted the first post in my posts for Pat: real food for busy women series, it was massively popular for my teeny-tiny little blog and got more comments than I'd ever seen. One comment asked if I intended to include vegetarian choices and I made a note to consider that for the future.
- I began writing my magnum opus about growing corn and corn nutrition one night after dinner. One of the reasons I don't write that type of post often is because it is very time-consuming and I have a tendency to get into a fugue state. I worked until late, fell asleep with notes on scraps of paper all over my desk, a bunch of PubMed articles in the various tabs on my browser, and the corn chapter of the book open in the Kindle app on my phone. The next morning, I got coffee and started back at it within 5 minutes of waking. I did vaguely note that I was hungry several times, but I had nothing of any color whatsoever for breakfast, nor for lunch for that matter. Around 3 in the afternoon, my brain paused it's corn obsession briefly, and all these other thoughts came together and I wondered if I could make that vegetarian meal in 15 minutes. I grabbed my phone and left the corn behind to find out.
rules I set for the 15 minute challenge
- start the stopwatch on my phone as soon as I step into the kitchen
- almost everything is included: getting out ingredients, chopping, mixing up the eggs, putting the ingredients away, cooking, plating the food
- no pauses for taking pictures, stopwatch keeps going
- while I won't include doing dishes in the time, my kitchen can't be trashed when I'm done, I must do my normal clean-up-as-I-go
- stop the stop watch after I plate the food
| What I Did | Pictures |
|---|---|
| Walk in kitchen and turn on stopwatch. Get out trusty cast-iron skillet and put on stove. Get out coconut oil, use a wooden spoon to scoop some into skillet, turn stove on high and put coconut oil away. Get out bok choy and scallions. Chop bok choy, separating the ribs from the greens. Chop scallions and add the scallion whites to the bok choy greens, keeping the scallion greens separate. Double-check that coconut oil is not smoking yet. Clean up the odd bits by putting them in the bucket I keep for the chickens. Take pictures of my workspace. |
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| Get out bowl, whisk and eggs. Crack eggs into bowl and put shells in chicken bucket. Double-check that coconut oil is not smoking yet. Get out garlic powder, tamari and dried ginger. Shake tamari into bowl and add pinches of ginger and garlic. Double-check that coconut oil is not smoking yet. Arrange ginger, garlic and tamari artistically around bowl. Take pictures of workspace. |
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| Notice that coconut oil is smoking, so throw in the bok choy ribs and stir it around a bit. Take pictures of skillet. Stir bok choy again. Go back and beat eggs. Stir bok choy again. Put away ginger, garlic and tamari. Stir bok choy again and notice that the ribs have softened slightly and are lightly browned. |
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| Add the bok choy greens and scallion whites to the pan. Take pictures of skillet. Stir the pan. Wash and dry knife and put away. Stir the pan. |
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| Notice that the bok choy greens have wilted. Take pictures of pan. Turn heat down to medium. |
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| Get the egg mixture and whisk it again for good measure. Dump egg mixture in pan. Take picture of pan. Panic that stove is too hot and will burn eggs and ruin meal. Remove pan from burner and stir vigorously. While waiting for burner to cool, wash bowl and whisk. Think that burner should've been turned down earlier in the process and I need to remember that when I write up this recipe. When burner looks cooled, return skillet to burner. Stir eggs until soft cooked, then turn off burner. |
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| Sprinkle scallions over top of stir fry. Take pictures of pan. Plate food for me and hubby. Stop stopwatch. 14 minutes and 17 seconds! Realize I forgot to take picture of plated food. Put my bowl on kitchen table and take pictures. Leave hubby with his bowl and take mine back to the computer to write up exactly what I did before I forget. We now return to your previously scheduled program: corn. |
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So yes, a disabled chick (admittedly having a good day) without a production staff can make this recipe start-to-finish in under 15 minutes. All that was left to cleanup was the skillet, a wooden spoon, and the bowls and forks we ate with.
I recommend that you do NOT take pictures, as that was kinda stressing me out, but you CAN make this dish in under 15 minutes.
Bok choy, scallions and eggs come together in this quick vegetarian recipe, reminiscent of stir fried rice or egg foo young. Delicately flavored with soy sauce, ginger and garlic, this vegetable stir fry makes a healthy vegetarian breakfast. It would also be appropriate for a quick dinner if served with some bagged salad, bread and fruit.
stir fry vegetables with eggs
Category: breakfast
Cooking Method: stir fry
Total time: 15 minutes
Yield: 2 servings
ingredients
- 1 TB coconut oil
- 5 ribs of bok choy
- 3 scallions
- 4 eggs
- 4 shakes of soy sauce, tamari or coconut aminos
- pinch of dried ginger
- pinch of garlic powder
instructions
- Heat coconut oil over high heat. While it heats, chop the bok choy and scallions, keeping an eye out.
- Meanwhile, crack the eggs into a bowl, add the soy sauce, ginger and garlic and beat.
- As soon as the oil shows a wisp of smoke, add the bok choy ribs and stir occasionally until the ribs are slightly softened and a few bits of them are lightly browned.
- Reduce heat to medium. Add the bok choy greens and scallion whites and stir occasionally until the greens wilt.
- Add the egg mixture and stir until the eggs are soft set; turn off heat.
- Finish by sprinkling scallion greens over top.