Hey all! This one is for the books! It’s a keeper, it’s delicious, it’s a dish that doesn’t need added salt, a bit more acid, anything, it literally is perfect as is! It’s fall here in Victoria, BC and that means a whole lotta local broccoli, brussels sprouts, zucchini, and all things cruciferous! I’m listing the first three vegetables because that is what this dish features! You can honestly throw any nice green veg in here. Bok Choy would go amazingly. So would any kind of cabbage, which are also growing locally right now at the farms!
Let’s chat about each green vegetable for a second.
Brussels sprouts: my daughter loves them! They are packed full of vitamin C and vitamin K. They have a good amount of folate (good for you mommy-to-be’s), vitamin A, fibre, and protein!
Broccoli: my daughter also loves! And this vegetable really shines in this dish because it absorbs so much sauce and delicious flavour! Broccoli is high in fibre, vitamin K, vitamin C, potassium and actually is also a good source of protein! Broccoli contains about 3g protein per cup (which I think is pretty rad because I could eat it for days!).
Zucchini: my son loves!! This squash is so fun to cook with because it is so versatile! From grilling on the BBQ to twisting it up into some awesome zoodles (zucchini noodles), it’s super tasty and chock full of vitamins. Some of the vitamins that zucchini contains are: calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium.
I am not usually a fan of a stir fry, unless I’m the one making it. I’m fully comfortable admitting that I’m extremely picky when it comes to how cooked or not cooked my vegetables are, Chris can attest to this… And sometimes, I struggle to find what kind of sauce I want to go on my stir fry… I don’t like it too sweet, too salty… For another post, I do have a bomb-diggity stir fry sauce that you can actually feel good about putting on your veg AND it’s super simple to whip up.
This particular evening I wasn’t feeling like doing the whole stir fry song and dance. But I wanted something like it, something similar to black bean broccoli… So, I just started throwing it all together and SHAZAM! Magic!
See the recipe below. Let me know how you like it!! Would love to hear!
** If you want to serve this dish with rice, get that started right away. The dish comes together pretty quickly. For our little family of four, I cooked 1 cup of wild rice with 2 cups of vegetable broth/water. Quinoa would also be wonderful with this dish!
Ingredients:
– 3 cups broccoli florets
– 1 cup quartered brussels sprouts (if they’re small, you can just half them)
– 1 medium zucchini, chopped*
– 1 block of tofu, cut into cubes
– oil for cooking
Sauce:
– 2 large garlic cloves, minced.
– 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced (or a chunk of fresh ginger the size of your thumb)
– 2 tbsp sesame oil
– 2 tbsp rice vinegar
– 2 tbsp tamari (or soy sauce, they also have gluten free tamari)
– 1 tsp maple syrup**
Instructions:
- Chop all the veggies and tofu and set them aside.
- Mince the garlic and ginger and add to the rest of the sauce ingredients.
- Heat a frying pan and add enough oil to coat. I find that grapeseed or avocado oils are nice to fry with due to their higher smoke points; however, olive oil is absolutely perfect too.
- When the oil has heated, throw all veggies in at once. They should begin to sizzle and sear immediately. Toss them around until you can see that they are turning a nice bright green colour as well as starting to brown.
- When they are cooked to your liking, toss the sauce on them. Give them a few good stirs/tosses in the pan and remove from heat.
- They’re done 🙂
Serve with rice or on their own. Seriously, so good!
*I slice a zucchini in half, lengthwise and then in half again, so you have four long quarters of the vegetable. Then cut into little triangles. Does that make sense? 😉
**If you would like, taste the sauce before adding maple syrup, it may be to your liking without the syrup. I found just a little splash of maple syrup balanced the flavours perfectly!
Sarah Vidalin 