??? – Curry Beef Stir Fry and I Touch a Truck

Lemme throw this out, right off the bat. I’m pooped.

And not your garden-variety, weekend-pooped, either. I’m pooped in my bones.

I have a couple of side projects happening that occupy a lot of my time, and so things have been pretty lively chez moi lately. So naturally, today I took both kids into the wilds on an excursion roughly analogous to Hannibal crossing the Alps.

My son and I. Guess which is which.

A community near mine has an event called Touch-A-Truck. In case you haven’t already guessed, it’s where we, the Great Unwashed Public, get the opportunity to Touch (and climb in, and on, and operate, and honk the horn of) A Truck (or helicopter, cherry picker, bulldozer, dump truck, bus, backhoe, or bobcat).

If you have a three year old boy, I don’t need to explain the irresistible, all-consuming pull such an event exudes. If you don’t have a three-year-old boy, think of Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Think staring into space, muttering about “diesels” and “backhoes”. Think doing abstract art at preschool, and titling it “Rescue Truck.” Sculpting eighteen-wheelers from mashed potatoes. It’s like that.

Just like that.

So we went. After a half-mile walk from the car, they let my three-year-old operate a backhoe. He sat in a speedboat, played with the bomb-squad robot, and had a dump truck dump a full load of beach balls on him. I stood jealously nearby with my 8-month-old daughter strapped to my chest, occasionally giving chase when the little man tore off after the next school bus/fedex truck/stock car on the horizon.

I gotta admit, it was crazy fun.

Then we walked a half-mile back to the car. Nobody napped. And it’s time to make dinner.

I need to cook. I have beef. I have… um. Some other stuff. Stir fry it is!

Bittman’s book has a dozen dozen stir fries listed therein. I’m gonna make one that also uses curry powder, because I like curry powder. I could be fancy and call it garam masala, but I could do a lot of things.

I’m using a cut of beef helpfully labelled on the package as “Stir Fry Beef.” It comes from the Stir Fry primal, and it helps the steer Stir and Fry.

mise:

Tres simple.

faithful companion:

Don't worry, I would never eat whatever's in that bowl. Wait... is that the phone ringing?

Allons!

It’s a stir fry, and stir fries are easy. That’s why I’m doing one.

Rocket hot wok. Oil.

Rocket hot makes things blurry.

Heat to medium. Aromatics: onion, garlic, ginger.

Smells like joy.

Back on high. Curry powder in. Beans in. Then, a few minutes later, meat in.

Rice for the wife and kids (Papa’s gone paleo). Plate:

Verdict: Great. Not amazing, but tasty and nutritious. Likey. And, when evaluated from an effort/outcome perspective: awesome.

The Wife Says: Tasty. Let’s make more stir fries.

What I Learned: A quarter cup of crystallized ginger, rinsed of its sugar and minced, can substitute for a tablespoon of fresh grated ginger. No foolin’.

Up Next: Travel. Standby for adventure.