Orange-Agave-Teriyaki Stir-Fry with Adzuki Beans

First off, thank you all for your kind comments on my last entry, they really mean a lot to me; it’s nice to know that people enjoy this blog.

So anyway. When deciding to focus more on whole foods and less on tofu, seitan, faux cheeses, etc., the one food I was having trouble with was Asian. Both of us really like Asian food, and beyond nuts, I was coming up short with ideas for protein sources in stir-fries that weren’t seitan or tofu. Then Lindsay (aka The Happy Herbivore) sent me a link a friend gave her to this small family farm in Idaho that sells all sorts of dry beans and lentils. They sell lots of organic and heirloom varieties of beans. So I had a look around on their site and it was food nerd heaven. Anyways, I ordered 1 lb. each of organic cranberry beans, organic anasazi beans, and organic adzuki beans.

Well, my problem with protein in Asian is no more, there are nuts, there are soy beans, and now there are adzuki beans. These are lovely little beans. I got a picture of them before cooking since they are far prettier before the color is leached out of them in the soaking and cooking process.

So for dinner on Friday nights we generally do something like a frozen pizza, order in or eat leftovers as it has been a long week at work and we go to the store on Friday nights so after lugging home a load of groceries we’re pretty physically tired as well. None of that stuff sounded good last night, so I decided to whip together a quick stir-fry, and I mean quick, I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time in the kitchen, nor did I want to eat crap food. I like to have frozen veggies on hand, as they are convenient, I much prefer fresh veggies, but sometimes it’s nice not to have to chop all sorts of stuff up. So I went the frozen veggie route. You could use whatever veggies you had on hand in this of course, but I used: peas, asparagus, carrots, green beans, cauliflower, yellow squash, celery, onions, and mushrooms. Aside from the peas (I added them in), it was one of those frozen ‘stir-fry’ veggie mixes. Both Brett and I hate celery so I picked that out.

Note: This did make a decent amount of sauce. We had some leftover afterwards, you could always cut the sauce recipe in half if desired.

Orange-Agave-Teriyaki Stir-Fry with Adzuki Beans

Sauce
1 teaspoon coconut oil (it will melt while cooking)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1/2 cup shoyu
1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/4 cup agave
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
juice of half an orange
pinch cayenne (optional)
cornstarch dissolved in water

Stir-Fry
Mixed veggies
1-2 cups cooked adzuki beans
Hot, cooked short grain brown rice
Sesame seeds (optional)

Have all your other ingredients warming while you make the sauce, this saves a lot of time.

Heat water in small sauce pan. Add garlic and ginger and cook until soft. Add all the other ingredients except the cornstarch and water and bring to a soft boil. Add in the cornstarch mixture and stir frequently as sauce thickens. Remove from heat.

Serve over hot rice, veggies and adzuki beans. Top with sesame seeds (and more cayenne if desired) before serving.

This was very tasty, both Brett and I enjoyed it, and it only took me about 20 minutes to throw this together since the beans were already cooked and I had cooked rice on hand.

‘Til next time!