Don't kill your veggies!

Yes, that's right, the more you cook those vegetables the more you "kill" the enzymes that the body can benefit from. Chinese style stir fry indicates that the Chinese have this knowledge. If you watch a person using a wok and good sized flame, you'll see that they will saute the vegetables for a few moments, then turn off the flame and add another ingredient-then turn it back on to saute briefly again. The whole process takes just a few minutes. That's why the vegetables in Chinese stir fry's are generally on the crispier side.

Using spices and sauces with your vegetables is an art. Keeping the food from being overcooked is important. Boiling vegetables is generally not recommended. However, the use of baking and crock pots in addition to the saute style is also great for the health and we'll go into that later.

A quick BASIC vegetable style saute:

You can really do this ANY way you want with ANY vegetables.

YOU NEED:
Veggies
Olive oil or another type
Salt, Pepper, Sugar
Another type of sauce (optional)

Put enough oil to lightly cover the bottom of your frying pan. Heat the oil and throw in the veggies. They should sizzle right away. Saute them for a minute or so. ( You can adjust the time depending on the type of stove you have) Take a few pinches of sugar (try to get cane sugar, or some unrefined unprocessed sugar) and sprinkle it on the veggies. Saute for 30 seconds or so. Add salt and then pepper, or leave out the pepper if you like.
From here, you can either add another sauce of your choice, or you can substitute soy sauce for the salt

The point is to taste it and add what you like, while keeping in mind the basics, which are:
Hot oil
Saute 30 seconds or so after each ingredient is added, before adding others
Don't overcook, veggies should not be mushy
Serve your veggies with another grain, like rice, quinoa etc.

We will post a more in depth recipe next time, but this and the TOFU recipe are to give people with either no time or no idea how to cook vegetarian, a start on healthy cooking.

Laoshi Erin Markle
Head Instructor Gold Summit Institute
President GSODEC
Director of Buffalo-China Sister City Affairs

"Everyday in the pursuit of learning,something is acquired. Everyday in the pursuit of the way, something is dropped" ~LaoTzu