Spinach Stir Fry

I like stir frys, but usually when I make them I end up buying the pre-prepared packs of vegetables, sauces and noodles but this time I thought I’d save a bit of money and compile the ingredients myself.

When I moved into my flat last year, I bought a load of frozen veg and now that I’m due to move out again in June, I’m trying to get rid of all this veg in time for moving.  At the moment I have frozen broccoli left (hence the green pesto and broccoli pasta) and chopped spinach.

I found a recipe in Vegetarian Nosh for Students for a spinach stir fry, I adapted it a bit as I bought some carrots this week in a view to use them to dip into some homemade hummus I never got round to making.  The result was tasty, even tastier when I added some sweet chilli dipping sauce that needed using up ;-)!

Chopsticks for illustrative purposes only!

Serves 1, takes around 6 minutes 
  

One garlic clove crushed

Spring onions (chopped) - the recipe called for two, but as I bought a bunch of ten I used five

Half a red pepper (deseeded and cut into strips)- I had this for two night’s teas, so you could use one half one night and the other half the next, or you could use it in a different recipe

2 tablespoons of any nut- I used cashews

Carrot (sliced finely) - as much as you like/have

A handful of spinach- as mine was frozen into little balls of chopped spinach, I used three balls

Noodles- you could use the straight to wok noodle you get in supermarkets but I found some cheap dried Udon noodles at my local Chinese supermarket

¼ pint of water

1tsp honey

1 tsp soy sauce

Heat the a tbsp of oil in a pan until very hot-I used extra virgin olive oil, but something like sesame oil would be nice

Add the garlic, onion, pepper and carrot and fry for one minute

Add the water, honey and soy sauce. Heat for 30 seconds

Add the spinach and nuts and heat for 30 seconds or until spinach is wilted (as mine was frozen spinach it took slightly longer

Add the noodles, if you use dried noodles you will need to cook these beforehand.

Serve

What is good about this meal?

The spinach, carrot and pepper provide 3 of your five a day. Also because the water they are cooked in is used as the sauce, your retain the nutrients from the veg that leach into the water during cooking. The nuts provide protein, and as I used cashews in my stir fry they also provide iron.