I eat, I read, I watch — dining solo #36
shrimp and veg on rice
I eat, I read, I watch — dining solo #36
Today’s post is the 36th of “I eat, I read, I watch,” my column highlighting a solo dinner and my reading and watching accompaniments. Don’t just eat alone - dine solo! You’re worth it. And it’s not hard to do.
Missed earlier instalments? Check out the list at the bottom of the post.
I eat: Stir fried shrimp and veg on rice
You know sometimes there are veg in the fridge that need to be eaten? Yeah, well this time, four mushrooms, the inner core of a bok choy, and some green beans cry out to be used before they succumb to the green bin. So I take action. While I often enjoy stir-fry with noodles, this time I have a craving for rice, or more to the point, I crave fried rice and egg for breakfast tomorrow, meaning tonight I’ll take the first step towards that. I put a cup of basmati into a pot with two cups of veg broth from an open tetra pack in the fridge. Good way to ensure that doesn’t go bad either! I get it to a boil and turned it down to cook for 12 minutes, followed by turning the element off and leaving the lid on for another five, for the rice to absorb the liquid.
Then I chop all of those sad veg along with half a cooking onion and pull five decent sized shrimp from the bag in the freezer. It is a not a night to get the wok out — a better result but an ordeal to lug it and then wash later — so I get some grapeseed oil heating in a stainless steel frying pan with a drop of sesame oil for flavour. When I can tell it’s super-hot, I toss all the veg in to a satisfying sizzle and shake it around for a bit. I add the shrimp a little later — too soon, as it turns out, because they get a bit rubbery. Never mind. I add a glob of bottled stir-fry sauce whisked with sriracha and a cornstarch slurry and that covers the worse of the sins.
It all lands more or less at the same time. I scoop a decent portion of rice into the bowl and top it with the veg and shrimp with a sprinkle of sesame seeds on top. As my father might have said, ‘perfectly edible.’
Prep Time: 30 mins?
Origin: Argentinian shrimp, Himalayan grown Cdn packaged rice, veg - well, it’s hard to get Cdn veg in December. But I’m pretty sure none of it was from the US.
Cost: $5?
What have you done with sad vegetables lately? In the Comments below please!
I read: Thick Skin, Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood
Some weeks ago, in response to another of my columns, someone recommended I read this book. It’s a memoir by a British Columbia-based female welder/writer, Hilary Peach. The combo intrigued me. I don’t know much about welding and the only other female welder I’d heard of was the character in 1980s movie Flashdance (remember that one?!?), so I put the book on hold at the library. I started it during the holidays and in the first 10 pages said aloud for all my plants to hear, “this better improve.” But then I realized I was 50 pages in and still reading! It DID get better.
Part of the problem is there’s a lot of description of welding, but I sped through those paragraphs gleaning the general idea — welding uses heat to melt metal to join it to other metal; there are different techniques uses; on a big project, skilled welders need to come from other cities; and some people are better at welding than others. But this book is about so much more than that.
The stories Peach tells about job sites throughout Canada and the US opened my eyes to a work culture where overt discrimination and harassment against women is still more or less acceptable. In one situation, Peach is warned about some guy being trouble and on the first occasion when they are alone together he suggested she could be his girlfriend and save some money on accommodation costs. Her response? ‘If I was your girlfriend, you’d never get any sleep!’ He asked why and she let him know that he wouldn’t sleep because he’d be worried she would stab him in his sleep and make a necklace of his teeth. When the dude complained to the foreman about her behaviour, the foreman commended her for her response.
Yup, this is a world I know nothing of! I enjoyed learning more.
Been pleased with a recommendation lately? Please share it in the Comments below.
I watch: A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story
Over the holidays, I had time to dig deep in the BritBox files for something to keep me entertained and interested. One that really captured me for all its four episodes was this one, a docudrama about the last woman to be hanged in Britain, 70 years ago.
Like Hilary Peach, Ruth Ellis was living in a world I know nothing about. Ellis worked hard to present herself as something other than the Welsh-born working class single mother of two, including re-inventing her accent and bleaching her hair blonde. By her mid-20s, she was the youngest bar manager in London and attracted a lot of male attention. One of those, wealthy race car driver, David Blakeley, became her lover. And her abuser. Another suitor, Desmond Cussen, encouraged her to kill Blakeley, supplying the gun and teaching her to use it. She was convicted and sentenced to die by hanging. Cussen got off scot-free.
Aside from marvelling at the alacrity of the judicial system of the time (the murder was April 10, 1955; the date for the execution was July 13, of the same year!), this series gave me a flavour for the treatment of women and the class system of a time only a decade before my birth. I recommend it.
Seen anything good lately? In the Comments below please!
Missed the earlier instalments of this column? Click:
#1 (pork chop & green beans)
#2 (trout & veg)
#3 (shrimp pepper bisque)
#4 (rice & peas with coleslaw)
#5 (ramen)
#6 (burger & fries)
#7 (duck sausage & salad),
#8 (shrimp & veg with pasta)
#9 (Wigilia)
#10 (mushroom shepherds pie)
#11 (roasted veg and sausage)
#12 (leftovers)
#13 (garlic shrimp with rapini on egg noodles)
#14 (beef stew)
#15 (salmon mac and cheese)
#16 (salmon cakes and ragout)
#17 (pork tenderloin, red cabbage, potatoes)
#18 (pulled turkey and salad)
#19 (almond butter chicken korma)
#20 (lobster tacos with asparagus)
#21 (rainbow trout, garlic mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus)
#22 (pork tenderloin and black-truffle infused egg noodles with fresh asparagus)
#23 (grilled halloumi with roasted asparagus and mushroom salad)
#24 (savoury bread pudding)
#25 (Kung Pao chicken)
#26 (tofu, pepper, and shiitake stir fry on rice)
#27 (stuffed zucchini)
#28 (pulled duck tacos with cauliflower-stuffed red pepper)
#29 (Slow Cooker Chicken and Creamed Corn)
#30 (Beef stew with apple juice)
#31 (Eggs, Eggs, and More Eggs!)
#32 (Creamed Salmon on Sourdough)
#33 (Moroccan Tomato Soup)
#34 (Squash Mac and Cheese)
#35 (Not eating Asparagus Vichyssoise — yet)
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