Will Sustain Life: Shrimp Stirfried Rice

This one is a Will Sustain Life with an exclamation point, as in,"Yay, this will sustain life and more!"

We went to New Plymouth for the rugby last Thursday.  Jonno was cheering for the USA, I was cheering for Russia.  I know, I should be rooting for my yankee brothers, but what can I say, my loyalties are screwy!  My favourite thing about the night was Captain Clever, the captain for the USA team.  I thought he should be a superhero. 


A Kiwi backing USA and an American pulling for Russia.

On Sunday when we got home, I did a Very Important Thing and organised our home study.  This had been bugging me for weeks, and upon arriving home from seven hours in the car playing crazy nerd games with my husband, I thought, "Now is the perfect time to tackle the bogey that is the study."  Not anything about relaxing or doing something about the pile of laundry that was starting to swallow the bathroom floor or about putting something together for dinner that was healthier than the last three nights pizza I had endured.  (Ok, 'endured' might be a bit strong - I loved every bite of all that pizza, even if some of it was frozen from the supermarket. I loves me some pizza!)  Nooooo, I was fully in 'Must Organise or Die' mode and nothing was gonna stop me!

I pulled out all my boxes of craft stuff and re-categorised everything, I filed all of our important papers into a new filing system, I even re-framed a photo and painted the frame black which is something I've been threatening to do for about eight months now.  I found our wedding decorations and made plans to create something arty with them one day.  I boxed up everything related to the seventeen different projects in various stages of 'bought the supplies and just barely begun' so that they looked pretty and weren't sitting out all over the show and thus reminding me of my failure to get past the starting line.

Meanwhile Jonno was sitting on the couch, watching the rugby - his Very Important Activity for the next month.

All of a sudden, I hear behind me, "Honey, don't you think we should do something about dinner?"  I realised it had gone way past dark out and my tummy was arumblin', aka past the point of logically being able to think of something to make for dinner and into the slightly-panicky phase where anything edible will do.  Jonno had a scared look on his face, like he was afraid I had forgotten to feed him. 

I always hate it when it gets to this point, when you're so damn ravenous that you can't even wait for the water to boil for pasta, you must have food thisveryinstant.  This time, I did a very new and novel thing for us - I went and looked at what food we had in the kitchen!  (Usually I just declare any thought of actually making food pure foolishness and beg for takeout.)  Lo and behold, in the freezer were some shrimp and some frozen veg, and lightbulb!  Shrimp Stirfry!!  This also helped to reduce the number of soy sauce bottles lurking in our cupboard down to three, all of which are in a semi-full state.  I'm pretty sure the kitchen elves are having a laugh at us somewhere behind all the pasta they stocked up on last month. 

Here are the details on my surprising food win on Sunday.  The stars must have aligned!

Shrimp Stirfried Rice
about 4 serves, super-easy for the lazy meal

• 2 cups frozen pre-cooked shrimp
• half a bag of frozen veggies, stri-fry mix if you have it
• 1 medium onion
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1/4 oyster sauce
• 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (ish!)
• 1 cup cooked rice
• 2 eggs

1. Start your rice and cook as per directions.
2. Put the shrimp in a bowl full of very hot water to defrost.
3. Steam up your frozen veg.
4. Beat the eggs in a bowl, then cook them as you would scrambled eggs in a small frying pan or in a non-stick wok if you have one.
5. Roughly chop the onion, then put it into a hot wok with a swirl of olive oil.  Once the veggies are done, shake any excess water off and add to the onions in the wok.
6. Add the sauces to the veggeies and season with a little salt and some pepper.
7. Once the rice and shrimp are done, turn the heat down to low and add them to the wok at the same time, and give the whole thing a swirl of soy sauce, and let it all get to know one another for a minute or so - you don't want to cook the shrimp for too long because they will go all rubbery.
8. Roughly chop the scrambled eggs and add them at the very last possible second.
 

You could also add chopped capsicum, green beans, broccoli - the sky is the limit on the veggies, but this is what I had in my kitchen and therefore what my starved brain thought would be enough to sustain life for another night!  Also, my husband loves pineapple in anything Asian-related, and if we had had some, that would have been a nice addition to this too.

What have you thrown together in a moment of hungry desperation that turned out better than you thought?

...Now back to the rugby!