Pork Tenderloin Stir Fry

When I was growing up my mom used stir-fry as a week-day dinner at least a couple times a month. She would take whatever vegetables were left in the fridge, some leftover rice, soy sauce and a couple eggs and dinner would be ready in ten minutes. We always loved it. My husband has a different opinion about stir-fry (as in he isn't as huge a fan of it as I am) so I have to limit how often I make the dish.

There are several wonderful reasons to make this dish; its easy, its fast, its cheap and it is versatile because you can use up whatever vegetables and/or meat you have in your fridge or freezer. Plus it almost always ends up deliciously.

I don't normally buy bottled sauces for such a dish, but I found a bottle of interesting sounding sauce -- on sale -- so I though I would give it a try.

In my preheated wok I added about two tablespoons of canola oil and let it heat up. Into the oil I added garlic, about half of a red pepper, half of a medium spanish onion and about one sliced carrot. I let those cook for a few minutes before adding one stalk of celery, a couple handfuls sliced mixed mushrooms (I had a package containing crimini, oyster, etc) and half a zucchini.

We've been trying to eat more whole grains so in my rice cooker I added one cup long-grain brown rice with 2 1/4 cups water (if you are looking for more flavor to your rice cook in chicken or vegetable broth) a splash of sesame oil, some dried cilantro (though next time I wouldn't bother with the dried and would instead chop up some fresh and add it in at the end) and some soy sauce -- just a few shakes. Set the rice cooker and forget. Seriously, rice cookers are amazing.

While the vegetables were cooking I sliced about half a pound of pork tenderloin into thin-but-not-too-thin strips and poured the stir-fry sauce over them letting it sit and combine while the vegetables cooked in the wok.

The sauce I used ended up being pretty nice. I found it a bit too salty for my general liking, but I did salt the vegetables while they were cooking -- which I probably wouldn't do next time.

The night before husband stopped at Walgreens and picked up their new store-brand lager (think they're attempting to compete with PBR). For $2.99 a six pack the stuff isn't too bad, perfectly drinkable indeed. One for the cook!

When the vegetables were just a couple minutes from done I added in the pork tenderloin and sauce tossing and stirring. The pork cooked up in just a couple minutes and everything was done.

The finished product:

Not the prettiest meal on the plate, but it was damn tasty! Honestly, aside from adding in the cilantro to the rice as I said earlier, I don't think I would bother flavoring the rice again because the stir-fry had enough pop on its own.