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"one dish meals"

Stuffed Squash a la Wok Star Style

December 7, 2016 By Eleanor Hoh 2 Comments

The three elements to delicious food are flavor, texture, color in that order and this Stuffed Squash a la Wok Star style is the perfect dish! Impress your friends with this dish…
Stuffed Squash go with anything! Yummy with these bacon wrapped scallops.
TECHNIQUE IS KEY…
So, I wanted to do a festive dish for the holidays and of course squash came to mind. I love the orange color of the squash and lends itself to so many different ways of preparing it. I immediately surf the net for how to make a stuffed squash, my go to site is The Kitchn, I love this site, it’s all about technique.
If you’ve read my blogs, you’ll know I don’t follow, use or teach recipes. Cooking for me has always been about creating a dish from scratch and building on those three elements I mentioned. Recipes are good for inspiration, possibly ingredient combinations and new flavors. Technique for me is the most important element to cooking.
SHAPE YOUR BRAIN TO COOK…
Last night as I was cooking, I was listening to a TED Talk by Dr. Lara Boyd, her talk solidified my philosophy totally!  She described how neuroplasticity gives you the power to shape the brain you want! This means, the more you do something, the easier it becomes and you’re exercising your brain.  I found this so fascinating because it’s what I’ve been promoting all these years. If you keep training your brain to create a dish, you’d be amazed what dishes you come up with. It’s also a lot of fun because you come up with something new every time, no repeats.
TIPS FOR ROASTING SQUASH…
I find out you have to roast the squash first BEFORE you put your stuffing in. I wanted my stuffing to still have crunchiness and colors, so naturally, stir frying them is the answer!  I find when you roast vegetables, the colors are more grey and dull. Do you see where I’m going with this? Don’t just follow a recipe blind and do everything they say.
A good example of this is most Chinese recipes will ask you to make a ‘flurry’, a mix of cornstarch and water to give your dish a nice glaze but I find it’s just one extra step, so I include the cornstarch when I make sauce. Ta Da, eliminated a step.
USE RIGHT CHEESE…
A mistake I made was using hard goat cheese. My husband uses goat cheese in our omelets and it melts beautifully but it didn’t melt as well in this dish.  I suspect the heat wasn’t hot enough, only 350.  Use cheese like cheddar, Parmesan or any sharp cheese.
VERSATILE DISH…
You can make it totally vegetarian or even vegan and leave out the cheese. It’s a great side dish to go with anything! Add meat to it and you’ve got a one dish meal. If served as a main, you will need a half per person.
You can use whatever vegetables you have lying around but try and get a contrasting color in there to make it pop. Even leftover roast potatoes or rice.
I loved putting together the stuffing for this dish because I had many ingredients I thought would be perfect.
celery for color and texture
chestnuts for festive component
mushrooms for flavor
cooked quinoa for texture, protein and good for you
multi colored bell peppers for color
cilantro for color and flavor
WokStar-StuffedSquash-collage
HERE’S HOW TO DO THIS STUFFED SQUASH…
1. Cut squash in half, swish a little olive oil, salt and pepper on the inside. Place on baking tray and roast at 350 for 45 mins. – 1 hour depending on how big your squash is. Give a little fork test to see if it’s soft enough.
2. Chop all your vegetables and leave on chopping board. Grate your cheddar cheese ready
3. Stir fry chopped vegetables with usual, grape seed oil, garlic and ginger, dash of tamari and sherry, I added Flavor God’s dry rub, Everything Seasoning, you can add dried herbs but not both, too much.

4.  Remove squash and crank up to 425.  Fill squash with chopped stir fried vegetables, add cheese on top and return to oven. Squash is ready when cheese has melted and smells amazing in there! You’re welcome.

I found half was way too much to eat in one dinner, so you might want to even only have a quarter of it. I cheated and grilled some bacon wrapped scallops to go with it, yummy!
There you have it, looks colorful and festive!  Stuffed Squash Good a la Wok Star Style! It’s a great dish to serve as a side or a main when you have guests for dinner.
Here are some other festive dishes for the Holidays to try…
Wok Charred Brussels Sprouts
Ginger Honey Brussels Sprouts
Grilled Duck with Stir Fried Brussels Sprouts

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

WokStar-StuffedSquash-redplate
Stuffed Squash a la Wok Star Style!

Filed Under: blog, Cooking Tips, meal ideas, vegetables, wok cooking Tagged With: "one dish meals", cast iron wok, stir fry, tips, wok cooking

Easy Weeknight Soup Made in a Wok

February 16, 2016 By Eleanor Hoh Leave a Comment

If you’re stumped with what to make for dinner on a cold, balmy night, this easy, weeknight soup made in a wok came together in less than 30 minutes!  Stir frying your veggies and meat give them flavor, texture and retains the bright colors.  Get the scoop below how to make soup in your wok…
Wok-Beef-Soup
I purposely took a photo of the clock on my stove so you can witness the time lapse! The actual frying and cooking time took 15 minutes, the washing and chopping 10 minutes. Total, 25 minutes! The only caveat is for new Wok Stars, it’s not a good idea to use your new wok to make this dish till you’ve built up some patina in your cast iron wok.
For this meal, I used Strauss organic ground beef from Publix, it was very good.  Because beef is for a soup, I fried in one batch.  The veggies were mostly leftovers from my cooking class, zucchini, yellow squash and bell peppers. You can sub out any kind of meat or veggies you have in the fridge.
By the time my hubby got home and cleaned up, the soup was on the table, he couldn’t believe it was so fast but was so happy. This is one of his favorite meals, so win win!
Here’s how I did it, Wok Stars, you know the drill…

  1.  Fry your veggies with garlic and ginger in some grape seed oil, and sprinkle tamari and sherry, set aside.
  2.  Fry beef (no marinade needed), add veggies back in.
  3.  Add chicken broth to cover, I use fish sauce instead of salt to give it a umami flavor then added Flavorgod Everything Seasoning Spicy but you can use any of your favorite spice seasoning to give this broth some oompf!

For more soup ideas, try this super fast shrimp and bok choy soup or turnip and pork soup which takes a bit longer.  Enjoy!
Share some soups you’ve made in your wok from your part of the world!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Filed Under: blog, soup Tagged With: "one dish meals", weeknightdinner, wok cooking

Easy Weeknight Soup Made in a Wok

February 16, 2016 By Eleanor Hoh Leave a Comment

If you’re stumped with what to make for dinner on a cold, balmy night, this easy, weeknight soup made in a wok came together in less than 30 minutes!  Stir frying your veggies and meat give them flavor, texture and retains the bright colors.  Get the scoop below how to make soup in your wok…
Wok-Beef-Soup
I purposely took a photo of the clock on my stove so you can witness the time lapse! The actual frying and cooking time took 15 minutes, the washing and chopping 10 minutes. Total, 25 minutes! The only caveat is for new Wok Stars, it’s not a good idea to use your new wok to make this dish till you’ve built up some patina in your cast iron wok.
For this meal, I used Strauss organic ground beef from Publix, it was very good.  Because beef is for a soup, I fried in one batch.  The veggies were mostly leftovers from my cooking class, zucchini, yellow squash and bell peppers. You can sub out any kind of meat or veggies you have in the fridge.
By the time my hubby got home and cleaned up, the soup was on the table, he couldn’t believe it was so fast but was so happy. This is one of his favorite meals, so win win!
Here’s how I did it, Wok Stars, you know the drill…

  1.  Fry your veggies with garlic and ginger in some grape seed oil, and sprinkle tamari and sherry, set aside.
  2.  Fry beef (no marinade needed), add veggies back in.
  3.  Add chicken broth to cover, I use fish sauce instead of salt to give it a umami flavor then added Flavorgod Everything Seasoning Spicy but you can use any of your favorite spice seasoning to give this broth some oompf!

For more soup ideas, try this super fast shrimp and bok choy soup or turnip and pork soup which takes a bit longer.  Enjoy!
Share some soups you’ve made in your wok from your part of the world!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Filed Under: blog, soup Tagged With: "one dish meals", weeknightdinner, wok cooking

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