Thanks all. (Illyrsdaughter: thanks. I had kind of figured that's what they meant. I probably do do better than a lot of people. I probably still exceed the "guidelines" on added sugars, but not greatly. Especially since I don't really care for pop - so I usually drink water when I'm thirsty.)

Hopefully today will be better. Actually, it reached the point midafternoon yesterday where all the mess-ups and missed communications ceased to be annoying and began to be somewhere between funny and surreal. Kind of like one of the old Laurel and Hardy shorts where you can't quite BELIEVE that stupid thing is going to happen to them, yet you also KNOW that it is - and it does. (Or sometimes something even WORSE happens)

Perhaps I got my quota of stupid annoyances for the next two months out of the way yesterday. One can only hope.

***

Anyway. One of the best ways I know of dealing with having had a frustrating day is to go home and cook something nutritious and good for dinner. This seems counter-intuitive, as it does take time, and it dirties a lot of dishes, and it makes more of a mess than a simple salad or a bowl of cereal would.

But there's something therapeutic for me in chopping vegetables or mixing stuff. And there's the thought that the world can't be too badly messed up if I can still successfully cook dinner.

So I tried a new recipe last night. This is a modification of one from the most recent Eating Well magazine. I like Eating Well fairly well - I could maybe do with a bit less smugness in some of the editorial writing, and I'd like to see more of the recipes readily made cut-downable (Oh, and fewer "exotic" ingredients I'd have to mail-order). But most of the stuff I've tried from the magazine has been good, and, as you might guess from the title, you can be pretty assured that the food meets nutritional guidelines.

What I made was a stir fry. I'm calling it Protein.* stir-fry (in light of the old Windows search convention). The original calls for pork. I used chicken breast, which was good. I think tofu would also be excellent in this dish. You could probably use lean beef, as well, but I'm not sure how it would work with the sauce - I think you need something a bit more neutral flavored.

I also ate mine over rice rather than the recommended rice noodles or soba noodles. (I'm not even sure I've SEEN soba noodles at my local grocery stores). Rice just seemed easier somehow.

I also used Napa cabbage rather than the called-for bok choy. Because I could not find bok choy in the larger of the two grocery stores I usually shop in (and I assume the smaller one - being even more provincial - would not have it). But the napa seemed a reasonable substitute. Though, next time, I'd use a greater amount, as I was not prepared for how much it would cook down.

So. Here it is, "for two," though I dished up half the amount it made, ate three-quarters, and decided "no mas" - any more and I would have been too full (so I put it away with the rest of the leftovers). I think you could easily get three servings out of this, or four, if you served something like a nice fruit salad along with it to fill in a little.

First, prepare the noodles or rice so it will be ready.

1/2 pound to 3/4 pound protein item of choice, cut into slender matchstick pieces

1/2 pound Napa cabbage, cut similarly (including "ribs." The "ribs" of napa are actually pretty good)

a small onion, cut similarly.

(I have read that in some forms of Asian cooking, there is a principle called "harmony of cut" - where it is considered aesthetically pleasing for food to be sliced into similar sized and shaped pieces. So for once, I resisted my tendency to dice the onion into near microscopic pieces - because I normally hate big globs of onion in stuff. But this time, the bigger pieces were OK, because they did cook thoroughly.)

1 chopped clove of garlic

3 T water
1 T reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon corn starch
1/8 cup dry sherry (you can also use rice wine, it says. I had sherry on hand)

Mix the water, soy sauce, and sherry in a bowl and stir in the corn starch. Set aside.

Heat about 1/2 T oil (I used "light" olive oil) in a large skillet or fry pan (you may need more oil if it's a large pan. And a wok would work even better if you had one). Put the onions in. Cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or so. Then add the napa cabbage. Cook and stir for 5 minutes or so. Next, add the garlic and the protein.

Finally, add 1/2 Tablespoon of "chili garlic" sauce. (a/k/a sriracha*)

Then, cook and stir for 3 to 4 minutes until the protein is cooked through. (Tofu, you'd probably cook less time. Maybe 2 minutes).

Re-stir the cornstarch mixture, add it to the pan. Let it come to a boil and stir until the sauce thickens, maybe 4-5 minutes.

Serve over rice or noodles.

(*I actually used a brand called "Aroma Kitchen" (heh). I bought it because, I admit, the "real" sriracha scared me a little. The difference between the two...the real sriracha, sitting on the store shelf, looked to me like the tomcat snarling in the back of the cage at the animal shelter, and the Aroma Kitchen brand was the kitten falling over its own feet. Or maybe, it's like when a girl first starts noticing boys and thinking about dating them, she goes for the nonthreatening, kind-of-nerdy guy with glasses and a forelock of hair that falls down over his face and who has a silly sense of humor, instead of the brooding wanna-bee delinquent who wears a denim jacket he's written band names all over on in Sharpie and who is saving up for a motorcycle. Or maybe that was just me. Anyway, I bought the less-threatening looking brand**.)

And I have to say: sriracha, where have you been all my life? I know, I avoided you because you were "spicy," and I didn't like "spicy" things. But really - used judiciously, it is incredibly good - yes, it's spicy, but it is also garlicy and not-quite-tomatoey-but-sort-of (I think that's the chilis) and it just adds something to food. So I think I will use it again, and not just for this recipe.

Because this recipe - well, it was outstandingly good. I figured it would be fine, I can usually judge a recipe by reading it. Though I have had a few Food Defcon 3 adventures where something came out just "wrong" and I couldn't finish eating it.

But this one...oh, my goodness, delicious. Definitely one I will make again. And it's not that hard or time-consuming.

(**truth be told, I still prefer the sort-of-nerdy guys with silly senses of humor to the brooding types)

The original recipe can be found here.