Unholy Stir-Fry

I made stir-fry this week. With apples. It was kind of bizarre.

First of all, I've never actually made stir-fry myself. I've watched other people make it. And I've eaten it and enjoyed it. So I kind of thought I knew what I was doing. Turns out stir-frying is even scarier than I had imagined. I found a recipe somewhere in which stir-fry was made with apples. But then I just decided not to consult the recipe, like, at all, and just sort of toss things into the giant pan at random. Arguably, this technique could probably use some perfecting.

The Ingredients:
Onions, Garlic, String beans, Carrots, Chili Powder, Cumin, tofu, small can of tomato sauce, soy sauce and...apples.

Looks good so far, right?

Anyway, I truly had no idea how to stir-fry. Luckily, Arie was on hand to explain to me that stir-frying has to happen on rather high heat, and that I should remove the tea kettle from the stove because "oil is going to fly everywhere." Wee!

My "technique," if you will:

First, I chopped up an onion, some carrots, string beans, and garlic. Then I cut the tofu into 1-inch squares, and fried them for about 5 minutes, flipped 'em, and fried them for another 5 minutes. Then I removed them from the stove and put them aside on a paper towel. Then I busted out the wok, and began frying up the chopped veggies on fairly high-ish heat in vegetable oil. All was going well until I realized that this stir-fry needed flavor. And just frying the veggies would be a wee bit...dull. So that's when I pretty much began dumping things into the wok at random. Soy sauce? Check. Chili powder? Check. Cumin? Check. Tomato sauce? Check. After about 10 minutes I decided it was pretty much 'done,' so I added in the pre-fried tofu at the end. After I removed it from the heat, I sliced up some apples and threw them in. And I served it over brown rice. It was really, pretty much the most random thing I have ever eaten.

The finished product:

(Served with a pina colada in a pilsner glass - classy).

Luckily, Arie was a good sport and ate two whole bowls. When I asked him what I should call this "recipe," he suggested either "Apple-Rice-Prima-Stir-Fry" or "Tomato Apple Stir-Prise."

Actually, the apples were totally wrong, but the rest of it was quite yummy.
Sorry, apples. You lose.