Cooking With Us - e30 - Brussel Sprout Butternut Squash Stir Fry

Ahoy mateys!

This time I did an off the cuff stir fry using somewhat seasonal veggies, and it turned out darn good and healthy!

Also, I cooked some chicken in Mrs. Renfro's salsa - which if you haven't tried - is fantastic!
(The salsas, but cooking with them rocks too!)

As you can see from the video still - I'm a big Mrs. Renfro's fan!

This is a short one which I enjoyed making with Mr. Brigly.

It gave us some quality time to cook together before the big puppy got home! ;)

As always: share & subscribe... After you, of course, watch this in high-res n full screen!

More info/pix/etc after the jump!

It's important to always introduce your co-host!

Mr. Brigly!

I chopped my brussel sprouts in half.

Keep in mind these are like mini-cabbages, and as such, take a while to cook!
Brigly watches over everything with an eye for detail :)

Ever since I was a kid, my mom always put water chestnuts (aka "crunchies") into our stir fry!

My hubby is usually not a fan, but this time he actually liked them - score!

These things needed to cook the longest!

Meanwhile, I chopped up half a large red onion.

I did add it too soon though, next time I will wait till the closer to the end!

I also added some water as I went so things could cook faster and not get burnt!

"How will these chunks of butternut squash work out?  Let's see!"

Turns out they went really well with everything :)

Next, I cut garlic cloves in half which I then added to the wok!

I sliced up some green onion and put some of it in the wok,

 though opted to use most of them to top the stir fry at the end :)

Then I quickly thawed and chopped up chicken into chunks.

Here, I expound upon the delishiousness that is Mrs. Renfro's!

I used mostly the chipotle raspberry, but did also add in about 4 tablespoons of the mango habanero.

I got the chicken off to a good start cooking the chunks with some oil, then added in my salsas.

Salsa 1: Chipotle Raspberry.

I got some flack from my mom and my sis for licking the can ;)

Salsa 2: Mango Habanero!

Now just let it cook, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, I added liberal amounts of soy sauce to my stir fry!

As well as more water, then turned up the heat so i would cook faster!

Voila - finished stir fry!

I hadn't thought to make rice till I was done, but of course this would be great over rice!

See? Topped it with green onions!

We put our salsa-cooked chicken on separate plates, but you could easily put it in your stir fry

to change up the flavor even more of you wanted to be so bold!

Theron liked it!

And it was all done in just an hour and ten minutes, including all cooking, prep, and plating time! 

And from Theron's new rating scale of: "Try Again," "Don't Make it," and "Make It"...

He suggests you 'Make It!' - Huzzah!

So get thee to a grocery store, grab some simple ingredients, and cook a healthy dinner tonight!

Till Next Time!
-Val!

Recipe:

In a wok, add some Pam or olive oil.
- Cut brussel sprouts in half and cook them for a good while.
- Add in a can of sliced water chestnuts. These can cook alongside the brussel sprouts.
After some time:
- Add in chunks of butternut squash
- Add in cloves of garlic, halved
- Add in half a big red onion (diced)

Add water as needed, as well as a lot of soy sauce.
Cook for as long as you want!

-In a separate skillet, cook chunks of chicken in your desired sauce.
I used a mixture of Mrs.Renfro's chipotle raspberry & mango habanero.

-Put your stir fry in a bowl, top with scallions.
-Eat your chicken separately or mix it with your stir fry.

Et voila!

Transcript:

Hi, Welcome back to KumoCafe's Cooking with Us!

Us is me and Brigly right now, because my husband's still at work.

I went to the store and decided I'm gonna make some kind of stir fry...

But with some kind of random ingredients...

Well, first, onions and green onions, they're not that random...

But, brussel sprouts and butternut squash... and we'll see what else.

So, just bear with me, 'cause this should be interesting and I'm just making it up as I go along.

Basically, I'm just gonna cut these in half...
And fry them a little bit...

Brigly's smart, he likes his vegetables.

My husband doesn't like crunchies... or water chestnuts...

But we're gonna use some anyway, 'cause it's not a stir fry without water chestnuts!

Water chestnuts.

I'm just gonna add a little bit of water to my wok so the stuff can cook a little and not burn.

I'm gonna add my butternut squash and hopefully it'll hold it's own.

We'll find out.

My garlic's already thawed, I'm gonna cut them in half and then just toss 'em in.

Of course I could just always throw these on top at the end so...

I'm gonna leave these guys for later on.

As you can see my chicken has thawed out already.

So I'm just gonna cut it up into chunks.

I don't know if you guys have Mrs. Renfro's where you are, but if you do um, I suggest you get their salsa... it's awesome.

I love the jalapeno and the habanero's really good too - but it's hot.

But I got, um, this the other day - Raspberry chipotle salsa.

And... mango habanero salsa - medium hot, and it is medium hot.

Anyway, they're both really good and I would suggest cooking with them, which I'm going to do now.

Now you can kind of see everything that we've got going on right now.

So I'm just gonna pour some of the salsa in here, see the bottom's already getting white...

Don't be shy, don't be shy... you can always buy more.

I'm gonna use a little bit of the mango habanero too.

I'm gonna add some soy sauce to this, because - stir fry.

Mmm, it's good.

I'm gonna put some more water and just turn up the heat so it cooks a little faster, maybe.

OK so our stir fry is done.  This is what it looks like.
It smells really good.

But you can't smell it.

Ok...
Looks good.

Mhm.

Well we should give it a rating.

It's like: Try again, make it, or don't make it.

Come try it.

Squash?

Yep! Butternut squash.

Yum.

I dunno, I like the crunchies when they're like that.

This is so delicious! Oh wait, I have to eat it first.

It's really good, make it.

Maybe you should put the chicken in there, and make it all different.

I'm gonna put the sauce in here.
Yeah.

Ok, thanks for joining us on this episode of Cooking With Us.

Bye Bye.
Bye.

Ok bear, get on the floor for now.

There you go.