Sometimes I surprise myself

Last night, on the way home, I started thinking about dinner. Now, this is highly unusual for me. I usually don't ever think about dinner, or if I do, it's about 5 minutes after both Amar and I get hungry.

For some reason though, yesterday was different.

I knew that I had some beef stir-fry strips in the freezer. I had bought them quite a while ago, optimistically thinking at the time that it would be fun to try that...

And I also knew that I had frozen broccoli florets as well as some left over rice.

And in a moment of sheer inspiration and sense of impending victory, I decided that I would make beef and broccoli "stir-fry"*.

Adding to the level of complexity for the evening was the following:

• Amar had a meeting to go to at 6PM. I made the decision to cook at 4:45 PM. Past cooking endeavours such as this one had dragged on for an hour or so, thus I knew I had to step it up...
• I had no recipe that I could reference, so I had to find one by digging through a few cookbooks.
• I have never made beef and broccoli, much less anything resembling "stir-fry" before.
• After locating a recipe, I realized that I didn't have any ginger. Gasp!

In the past, this would have paralyzed me. I'm a perfectionist, and I don't like to try things that I know I can't win. The above constraints would have just sent me packing.

But last night was different.

Unencumbered by self-doubt or the fear of failure, I pressed on.

I started cooking additional rice, since I didn't have enough left-over.
I started mixing the stir-fry ingredients for the sauce.
I started chopping vegetables (onions, garlic, etc.).
I started prepping everything else.

And without stressing, without snapping at Amar, without setting anything ablaze, it happened**:




And we both actually liked it.


*Note: we don't necessarily have a wok, so I made due with what we did have: Pots and pans. I know, genius.

**Note: Not an actual picture of our meal, but pretty darn close.