Sweet potato-chicken stir-fry combo warms all the way to the hair follicles on a cold night

An icy, biting went had blown in from the north. Overnight forecasts sent us to start the faucets dripping as protection in a freeze. Even our puppy dog made haste in from the cold as we let him out to do his business. The night called for a good warm meal—nothing but a skillet supper would fill the bill.

A recent Prevention magazine issue featured some inviting skillet-supper recipes. I clipped this one for Chicken-Sweet Potato Stir-Fry because sweet potatoes are one of Hubby’s heart's-dearest veggie (not to mention that they rate high as a super-food these days). I'd never before seen sweet potatoes in a stir-fry recipe. Healthy ingredients such as red peppers, peas, and cilantro, along with the bright orange of the sweet potato, made the dish colorful and appealing.

Prevention's recipe had called for quinoa as the grain in this recipe, but without that on hand and without desiring to venture out into the cold for a special trip to the grocery, I adapted this to use brown rice as a substitute. Addition of the jalapeno plus the cumin spice gave this stir-fry a little South-of-the-Border kick.

Good and filling, with mouth-watering zest. We thanked the Good Lord for the shelter of a cozy home and a dinner that warmed us from our hair follicles down to our tippy-toes.

Chicken-Sweet Potato Stir-Fry

1 cup water

1/2 cup brown rice

1 medium sweet potato (about 8 ounces), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

4 teaspoons canola oil

12-ounces boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 medium onion, chopped

1 jalapeno chile pepper, finely chopped

1 medium red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup frozen peas

3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Combine water and rice in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer until liquid has been absorbed, about 20 minutes. Put sweet potato in a small saucepan with enough cold water to cover by 2-inches while rice is cooking. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until just tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain. Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in large nonstick frying pan or cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until starting to brown, about 4 minutes. Transfer to bowl Return pan to heat and add remaining 2 teaspoons of oil. Stir in onion and jalapeno pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 minute. Add bell pepper, garlic, and cumin. Cook until vegetables start to soften, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in peas and reserved chicken. Cook 2 minutes. Add rice and sweet potato. Cook, stir frequently, until heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro, salt, and black pepper. Makes 6 servings.

Stir-fry veggies add healthy touch to efforts to replicate time-honored baked fish recipe

Recently I mentioned how our route to the downtown hospital in which our grandbaby was born took us past the scene of the old Casa Linda Wyatt's cafeteria, where my parents took me to dine at least once a week as I grew up. I mentioned my affection for carrot salad, which always has seemed like a taste of heaven and which I've never been able to replicate--or even move close to it--in my own kitchen.

Another Wyatt's staple during that era was its baked fish with a piled-high crusty topping of crushed almonds and bread crumbs. Carrot salad, baked fish, Wyatt's inimitable green beans, and a layer chocolate cake--those were my selections in the cafeteria line. Those choices never varied. How I longed now to be able to prepare something akin to that fish entree as well!

A few years back Family Circle magazine helped my cause by printing a recipe for Nut-Crusted Fish Fillets with Stir-Fry. The herbed bread-crumb-and-almond topping absolutely made the flounder underneath it to die for. Just last week I turned to this long-preserved-but-yet-untried recipe in my binder. With the deed accomplished, I thought I was back in the cafeteria line and dining at Wyatt's again in the secure company of my parents, one on either side. Precious memories!

Healthening-up this Family Circle recipe is the inclusion of the stir-fried vegetables ("stir-fry" being surely unheard-of, at least in my family, in my growing-up days). Green beans and matchstick carrots made the dinner complete, not to mention colorful as everything.

Nut-Crusted Fish Fillets

4 slices reduced-calorie wheat bread

1/3 cup sliced almonds, chopped

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

4 flounder fillets, about 6-ounces each

Stir-Fry:

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 gloves garlic, peeled and smashed

1 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces

2 carrots (1/4 pound), peeled and cut into 2-inch matchsticks

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

2 large scallions, chopped, for garnish

lemon slices, for garnish

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Coat 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside. Place bread in bowl of food processor; whirl until fine crumbs are formed. In a small bowl combine crumbs, chopped almonds, thyme, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, and 1/8 teaspoon of the pepper. Stir in olive oil, lemon juice, and lemon zest until all ingredients are moistened. Season fish with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Fold fillets in half and place in prepared baking dish. Spoon 1/4 of the bread topping over each fillet. Bake in 400- degree oven for 17 to 19 minutes or until fish flakes easily.

Stir-Fry: While fish is baking, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add green beans and carrots. Season with salt and pepper. Stir-fry for 14 to 16 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender. If skillet gets too dry, add a tablespoon or two of water. Serve fish with stir-fry vegetables. Garnish with scallions and lemon slices.

This fresh celery recipe is beyond weird, but what a favorite it turned out to be!

It had to be the weirdest of the weird--a recipe for Stir-Fried Celery. Celery is a stretcher, an enhancer, a crunch- and texture-provider for other dishes. Why would anyone build an entire recipe around chopped celery? Loser, I thought as I eyeballed it more carefully. And for a stir-fry? Celery is an ingredient that goes into a stir-fry to complement other veggies. But this recipe had nothing else added except low-sodium soy sauce, white vinegar, and sesame seeds. Now really.

So what dish at dinner last night got the most rave reviews? Not the Mustard-Lemon Glazed Tilapia that I spent far more time cooking for the entree. The Mustard-Lemon Glazed Tilipia, I might add, only sprang alive when I put the Stir-Fried Celery on top as a relish.

The Stir-Fried Celery was utterly amazing! In previous blogs I've mentioned the guilt factor when I end up having to throw away a bucketful of limp celery stalks because of non-use. This recipe gobbled up the vast majority of the celery in my fridge's veggie bin.

But the taste! Hubby served his over some fresh corn-off-the-cob. I liked mine over the tilapia. But by itself the dish clearly was a stand-alone. By now I should have learned never to look askance at any recipe provided by my little booklet, "Celebrating a Healthy Harvest", that I cite frequently. Always, always, somehow, the folks at the Chickasaw Nutrition Services (who dreamed up the booklet) manage to have a success story.

Weirdest of the weird--still a correct assessment. But I couldn't have asked for a more tantalizing side dish.

Stir-Fried Celery

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 bunch fresh celery, washed

3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons white vinegar

sesame seeds

Chop celery in 1/2-inch slices. In a heavy frying pan or wok heat oil over medium heat. Stir-fry celery for 1 minute. Add soy sauce and vinegar. Continue to stir-fry for 6 minutes or until desired tenderness. Place in serving bowl. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Makes 4 servings.

A healthy, tasty dinner from veggies left in the refrigerator, freezer, and garden

We're not sure who Kathy is, but we'd sure like to thank her from the bottom of our hearts.

Her recipe, entitled "Kathy's Stir Fry", certainly delivered up for us a delicious dinner that was one of the biggest potpourris of garden veggies I've ever experienced.

And the best part about it was the line on the recipe, "Any vegetable may be omitted or substituted as desired."

That gave me a green light to look in my refrigerator and see what veggies were about to be on their last leg if I didn't use them soon. Solution: since Kathy says this is OK, I simply pull them off the shelves, chop, and stir in.

So, at the place in which she said to add asparagus, I subbed carrots, plus I threw in some chopped celery that was close to looking on the haggard side. Instead of regular onion I threw in the remainder of a red onion that was about to go limp on me. How virtuous I felt to be able to perform these rescue operations! Her recipe even called for 3/4 cup of frozen green peas (a recent Prevention magazine discussed the health benefits of frozen veggies and urged us not to be such "fresh" purists that we disregard the frozen-food aisle, especially when a shopper is pinching pennies.) I was happy to toss in those green peas, whose shelf life soon would be questionable as well.

"Kathy's Stir Fry" was one of my recipes from the Chickasaw Nutrition Services (I've just about made my way through cooking my latest collection of these treasured recipe cards that I obtain any time my hubby, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation (tribe), visits Ardmore, OK, for a health exam. I look forward to another trip to Ardmore a few weeks from now so I can round up a few new cooking ideas.)

The Chickasaws are absolutely DETERMINED to improve the health conditions of their people--to reverse a downward spiral into diabetes, obesity, and other woes (that plague the general U.S. population as well.) These handy recipe cards the Chickasaw's Nutrition Services centers make available free to their people underscore the message over and over again: you CAN cook for your family the fresh way; you CAN make perfectly wonderful meals without adding things that cause ills. (For example, unlike a typical stir-fry recipe, "Kathy's Stir Fry" was amazingly good without the addition of any soy sauce, which usually boosts the sodium content of a recipe sky-high.)

The nutrition information for "Kathy's Stir Fry" read: 80 calories, 3 g fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 45 g sodium, 10 g carbohydrates, 3 g fiber. You can't beat that! (Serving the stir-fried veggies over brown rice, which the recipe suggests, alters those counts a little but adds some wonderful fiber to an already fiber-ific menu item.)

Most fun of all, the requested 3 cups of cabbage gave me a reason for traipsing out to my garden, cutting off a fresh cabbage head, and instantly adding it to the sizzling skillet for last night's dinner. When a meal necessitates that kind of activity, the joy of gardening and growing one's own food is complete. My hubby, on the road yesterday for an errand, returned home to lift the lid on the skillet and find a colorful melange of edible health just waiting for him.

Thank you, Kathy. Wherever--and whoever--you are, keep up the good work. I hope to see your name on some more of my Chickasaw recipe cards in the near future.

Kathy's Stir Fry

2 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 cup onion, diced

1/2 cup red bell pepper, diced

1/2 cup green bell pepper, diced

2 1/2 cups zucchini, sliced

2 1/2 cups yellow squash, sliced

2 cups broccoli

1 1/2 cups asparagus, fresh, sliced

2 teaspoons oregano

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 cup green peas, frozen

Heat nonstick skillet on high heat until skillet is hot. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Saute onions and red and green bell peppers for about 2 minutes. Add zucchini and squash; cook about 2 more minutes. Add broccoli, asparagus, and cabbage to skillet. Add oregano, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and garlic to vegetables. Continue to cook until broccoli is crisp-tender (about 4 minutes). Add peas. May be served with whole-grain (brown) rice. Makes 10 1-cup servings.