We had a fabulous time with our guests–Bob, Susan, and their daughter, Greer–on the weekend–lots of great food and conversation. James made wonderful dinners on Friday and Saturday, while I took care of breakfasts and lunches. A fine time was had by all!

We also spent a very rainy Saturday on Hornby Island–at the Farmers’ Market, the Ringside Market at the Co-op, and the Phrog Distillery. Em, who has been friends with Greer since they were four or five, came up for the weekend, but decided to stay an extra couple of days, so we drove her to Nanaimo yesterday. After we dropped her off, we stopped at Brown’s Social House for a bite, and the food was delicious. James had a veggie burger and fries and I had a Dragon Bowl–veggies and rice topped with teriyaki tofu. In fact, it was so delicious that I decided to try to replicate it for dinner this evening.

I found a very well reviewed recipe for teriyaki sauce, but was a bit turned off by the fact that the recipe demanded powdered, rather than fresh, ginger and garlic, so I replaced both with fresh. I also replaced the honey with maple syrup because…you know well my obsession with maple syrup.

Here’s the recipe!

Teriyaki Sauce

Throw the ingredients below into the bullet and blend until smooth:

• ¹⁄₄ cup soy sauce
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 TBS fresh ginger
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 TBS maple syrup

Pour into a shallow saucepan and, stirring constantly, bring to a boil.

Make a slurry from blending…

• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• ¹⁄₄ cup very cold water

…in the bullet and then pouring into the boiling mixture. Whisk until blended and thickened and remove from heat.

Meanwhile, stir fry in a wok any combo of wokable vegetables in a TBS of vegetable oil. The trick to a stir fry is frying the vegetables in stages according to their cooking time.

In this case, I started with….

• sliced onions
• garlic
• sliced carrots
• sliced celery

And let that go for about five minutes before adding….

• sliced red pepper
• broccoli florets
• fresh peas

And let that cook for a few minutes before adding….

• sliced mushrooms
• puffy tofu

Once I’ve added everything and stirred it around to cook for a bit in the wok, I make a blend in the magic bullet of…

• 2 TBS soy sauce,
• 2 TBS sambal oelek (more or less to taste)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tsp BTB paste

…and pour it over the vegetable mix, toss and cover for a few minutes to ensure that everything is nicely flavoured.

Then serve it up: line the bowl with brown basmati rice, top with the vegetable/tofu mixture, pour over a generous helping of the teriyaki sauce, and sprinkle sesame seeds and cashews on top.

Yum yum–it is absolutely delicious!!