We had a good selection of vegetables
in the fridge, including some home grown courgettes from my
brother-in-law, plus peppers, onions, mushrooms and carrots. The
obvious choice was going to be stir-fry but when I tried to identify
some sort of protein to go with this (usually prawns or vegetarian
chicken style pieces) the freezer was depleted. I went to the
cupboard and extracted a tin of cannellini beans, these would be
somewhat unconventional for a stir fry but edible nonetheless. I also
got out a tin of pineapple that I found in my search for beans.
Pineapple and soy sauce is one of my favourite types of stir fry.
I started chopping the onion and had a
sudden change of heart. Stir fry was off, fajitas were on. This would
have the bonus of using up some aged wraps from the freezer and could
also involve cheese. I really fancied some cheese and it was hardly
an appropriate pairing for stir-fry.
The first stages of the fajita process
were identical to those for stir fry. Namely the extensive chopping
of vegetables. I have found that carrot never cooks enough in these
circumstances unless very thin so have taken to making ribbons out of
it with the peeler. Some minor level of skill is required in the
order of addition to the wok: onion, pepper, carrot (in ribbons, it
would have to go in earlier if it was any fatter), fajita spice (I
cheat and use a pre-mix from a packet), courgette, mushroom.
I decided not to add the beans to the
main mix but to turn them into some sort of refried beans. I didn't
think that I had much time before the veggies would be done so this
was going to have to be a total improvisation (apart from containing
beans of course). I whizzed the beans in the food processor with half
a red onion (I figured if the onion didn't cook red was better than
white) and 2 cloves of garlic. Then this went into a small pan with
more olive oil than I would usually use (most of the time I use at
most one tablespoon, here I heated up 3 tablespoons), I suppose I
could have put some spices in but decided to keep it simply for my
first attempt.
It was all just about ready when Matt
decided that he wanted to go for a swim. I had already been and was
feeling slightly peckish but I was not about to discourage my husband
from engaging in some exercise, so I turned off all the flames and
entertained myself for the next hour or so.
Matt let me know when he was leaving
the pool and all that was left to do was cut up a bit of lettuce,
grate some cheese (and eat up those little left over bits that you
can't grate because it's too close to your fingers) and to reheat the
veggies and beans. I suppose this could be seen as the re-frying
part. At this point I realised that I hadn't seasoned the beans so
hastily mixed in some vegetable stock powder (this was more easily to
hand than the salt) and black pepper.
I am yet to discover a way of heating
up wraps so that they stay both warm and soft. The loss of heat must
be to do with their large surface area. Putting the wraps in the oven
turns them into crisps so for now the microwave seems to be the best
option for a bit of heat.
These particular wraps were on the
small side and I grossly overfilled mine. To be honest I always
grossly overfill, because I prefer the fillings to the wrappings. So
I had to pin my wrap together with a cocktail stick and eat it with a
knife and fork rather than my fingers. (Which is a shame because I do
enjoy eating cutlery-less from time to time.) But (even with cutlery)
the fajitas were very enjoyable – augmented with squirty salsa,
gaucamole and sour cream.
The beans turned out to be delicious –
I can't believe that I haven't done something like this with them
before. I think this could be a very versatile technique.
In case you were wondering I had the
pineapple chunks for breakfast this morning.
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