Wok Star Eleanor Hoh

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"one dish meals"

Easy Weeknight Soup Made in a Wok

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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!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Easy, Healthy Lunches to Bring To Work! 

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Don’t sweat over lunch ideas for work, here’s one easy and healthy way to stretch ground organic beef that will last you a few days!
You can ‘stretch’ it by adding a few chopped veggies which will bulk it up and at the same time add flavor, color and texture to the ground beef.   Change it up with different veggies or what you find in your fridge and have a nice surprise!
IMG_1050You’ll notice I didn’t add garlic or ginger in this dish! You can if you want, I didn’t because I didn’t want hubby to be breathing it down his students!
A wok is a perfect shape to cook batches of food! However, please don’t overload it because it will lower the heat and your food will become soupy instead of crispy crunchy.
Here’s the game plan…
1. Chop all your veggies and leave on chopping board. For this dish, I had onions, zucchini and tomatoes.
2. Heat the wok till hot, add 3 swirls of oil, add your veggies and near the end of stir fry, sprinkle San-J tamari and a little medium drinking Sherry. Transfer to glass container.
3. If there’s caramelization from tamari, use a wet paper towel and wipe clean before you start cooking the meat.
4. Heat the wok till hot again, add oil, add ground beef. Spread out the beef like a big burger! When golden brown on one side, flip over and use your spatula to break up as much as you can! Sprinkle tamari, Sherry, white pepper, cornstarch and a few teaspoons of chili sauce to give it some oomph!
This is my lazy way of cooking meat, you’ll get much better results if you marinade the meat using the same seasonings prior to stir frying!  This is how I usually show it in my cooking class. However, since we are Wok Stars, we don’t follow rules!
I made this stir fry after dinner and it took about 15 minutes! So worth it because you won’t have to worry about what to bring to work for a few days!
Share what lunch ideas work for you or let me know what would help you with more lunch ideas?
 

Easy, Healthy Lunches to Bring To Work! 

By Leave a Comment

Don’t sweat over lunch ideas for work, here’s one easy and healthy way to stretch ground organic beef that will last you a few days!
You can ‘stretch’ it by adding a few chopped veggies which will bulk it up and at the same time add flavor, color and texture to the ground beef.   Change it up with different veggies or what you find in your fridge and have a nice surprise!
IMG_1050You’ll notice I didn’t add garlic or ginger in this dish! You can if you want, I didn’t because I didn’t want hubby to be breathing it down his students!
A wok is a perfect shape to cook batches of food! However, please don’t overload it because it will lower the heat and your food will become soupy instead of crispy crunchy.
Here’s the game plan…
1. Chop all your veggies and leave on chopping board. For this dish, I had onions, zucchini and tomatoes.
2. Heat the wok till hot, add 3 swirls of oil, add your veggies and near the end of stir fry, sprinkle San-J tamari and a little medium drinking Sherry. Transfer to glass container.
3. If there’s caramelization from tamari, use a wet paper towel and wipe clean before you start cooking the meat.
4. Heat the wok till hot again, add oil, add ground beef. Spread out the beef like a big burger! When golden brown on one side, flip over and use your spatula to break up as much as you can! Sprinkle tamari, Sherry, white pepper, cornstarch and a few teaspoons of chili sauce to give it some oomph!
This is my lazy way of cooking meat, you’ll get much better results if you marinade the meat using the same seasonings prior to stir frying!  This is how I usually show it in my cooking class. However, since we are Wok Stars, we don’t follow rules!
I made this stir fry after dinner and it took about 15 minutes! So worth it because you won’t have to worry about what to bring to work for a few days!
Share what lunch ideas work for you or let me know what would help you with more lunch ideas?