Summer Stir Fry

 (Not my photo, I of course was not thinking of blogging as I was rushing to get dinner on the table, but it gives you an idea, minus the pasta.)

I've got to tell you, this is one of the family's favorite new recipes, and I came upon it completely on accident.  And when I say I came upon it, it means that I just made it up...so please feel free to adjust it to your tastes.  As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the easiest things to make, because it is almost entirely made of leftovers, and only heats up your kitchen for just a few minutes, so is very temperature friendly on those very hot sticky days!  Here are the ingredients that I use:

~Leftover cooked meat; so far this has been diced pork that has been cooked in the crock pot or BBQ'd chicken.

~1 bag broccoli coleslaw mix (I get mine at the food pantry, but it is very inexpensive in the produce aisle)

~2 or 3 colorful peppers, I use 2 pretty non spicy peppers and one spicy

~veggies of your choice (I use whatever is good that week, squash, snap peas, the sky is the limit, or better yet, your kids are the limit!)

~cooked pasta or rice (we like our Chinese food lo mein style and I always have leftover pasta in the fridge that I can just toss in there so it saves me the time of cooking rice, but knock yourself out.)

~Soy sauce.  No kidding here, the first time I made this, I used leftover packets from when we had take out, and believe me, we can't afford take out very often, so it doesn't take much soy sauce!  We like this recipe so much I did break down and buy a bottle of soy sauce though and it is very cheap, look for it on the "Asian" food aisle.

Since everything is usually precooked, just start by heating your pan with just a tiny bit of olive oil in the bottom while you cut up your veggies.  Place all of the veggies, along with the slaw and brown for just a few minutes before you add your cooked meat and pasta.  Heat all the way through and add the soy sauce to taste and consistency.  I do want to remind you that soy sauce is very salty.  Tom got a little carried away with it the last time we had this and added some after I served dinner and had a stomachache in the night, so don't serve it on the side!  You'll hear about it later-ha!

This is a great dinner because all of your veggies, carbs and protein are all in one helping; I simply get my fancy bowls out and serve it up!  The family thinks they're getting a fancy schmancy dinner and it probably only takes me about fifteen minutes from start to finish, I haven't heated up my kitchen too much, it hardly cost me a dime and I cleaned out my fridge...let alone how many veggies I just snuck into their unsuspecting little bodies!