carrots.. fast cutting for stir frys

[maki2]

Carrots are good for you. Easy to store for a while without refrigeration. They are good raw but take a while to cook. However they will cook quickly for stir fry if cut them into small pieces. Chopping hard veggies like carrots with a knife works but for stir fry you might try a different tool than a knife. Use your potato peeler. It slices off small thin pieces that work just right for quickly cooking to that slightly crunch bite.

My dinner tonight...one carrot, small part of a red bell pepper, some cherry tomatoes, all stir fried then two eggs cracked into the pot and gently stirred into the stir fry veggies. Fast, healthy, inexpensive, easy to prepare, a one pan meal. Lots of beta keratin which helps your body make vitamin A which all RV dwellers need for better night vision.  Carrots, tomatoes and eggs are all in the top 10 list of foods that contain vitamin A. Red bell peppers also have lots of Vitamin A. Eggs are high in lutein which is good for your eyes.  You can't be a van dweller if you can't see to drive

If you want to make hash browns from potatoes use the potato peeler to turn them into the small pieces instead of a grater or knife.

If you want to shave off small slices of a hard cheese such as parmesan...use a potato peeler.

I have found that I much prefer the potato/vegatable peelers that have small serrations on the cutting edges. They do a better job on a wider variety of products. Potato peelers take up a lot less drawer space than a grater.

 

[Dingfelder]

I find a grater of some kind almost indispensable. Well not really, but ... I really like what they do and it's cumbersome to do anything like it with any other tool.

I don't want to take up a lot of room with a box grater, but I do like my small handheld plane grater. It can zest citrus fruits and grate cheese and carrots. With cheese, that means I can have cheese on my sandwich much cheaper than if buying slices, and grated cheese melts better. With carrots, it gives me a quick way to add a nutritious burst of unusual color to salads.

I like to use a potato peeler on carrots too, and cucumbers. Thin carrot slices cook through and caramelize quickly, lending a nice flavor note to sautees and soups, and are also nice on salads if chopped up a bit further.

You can also soften carrot and cucumber slices up by soaking then in salad dressing for a while, and can then eat them like a sort of crunchy pasta, rolling them up on your fork. And sometimes I wrap long thin carrot slices up into circles, which look really bright and cool on top of an arranged salad.

 

[John61CT]

Once you're grating up veggies, pumpkin / zucchini / squash instead of or as well as taters

soak some oatmeal add eggs, just enough to bind together,

make 'em up into veggie burger patties or balls like felafel

Crispy-fry em up, pop into or top of whatever bread , get creative with all kinds of condiments or sauce.

Super cheap, very filling and pretty darn healthy too.

 

[Dingfelder]

That sounds interesting, john. Like it would take a good bit of practice, but a good thing to know how to do.

I'd like to try something like that with quinoa, a fairly new thing for me and something I want to experiment with.

 

[John61CT]

Really hard to mess it up, the egg is what helps hold it together, the dried grain helps soak up the excess moisture, especially if you use canned veggies too, spinach, corn, beans whatever's handy.

Worst case, you get a stir fry melange rather than a crispy patty / ball, still will taste yummy,

pseudo-satay sauce from chilies & peanut butter!

start with some black pepper, onion, some garlic, soy sauce is nice, maybe sesame seeds / oil.