Spicy, Tasty and Healthy!

Ok- so like everyone else in the world, I have a New Year's resolution to get healthy and eat right.  Very unoriginal and un-foodie-like I know, but, what can ya do..  So lately I've been scouring the Internet and cookbooks for healthy and tasty recipes to make and this past week I requested a healthy meal when we were dinner guests at my parents house.   My mom came across a recipe for vegetable and pork stir fry that was featured on The Biggest Loser and made by Rocco DiSpirito. 

My mom and I made it on Thursday evening and it was really good.  My parents didn't particularly like it, but Ryan and I loved it so we made it last night for Ryan's family and it was a huge hit! The combination of the ginger, orange, red pepper flakes and peanut butter make a surprisingly complex sauce.  You could add any vegetables to this and in fact we added carrots. I would love to try it with an Asian medley with broccoli and baby corn and all of that good stuff, but Ryan is not a fan of broccoli so maybe I'll have to make this just for me someday.   This is also a fairly quick and easy recipe, which is nice for busy weekday nights.   We served this over brown rice.  

Vegetable and Pork Stir Fry

Rocco DiSpirito

serves 4

Ingredients:

cooking spray

1 lb. lean pork loin cut into bit size strips

Salt

4 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger

1 large red onion, thinly sliced

1/2 pound snow peas*

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

1 cup frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed

2 tablespoons natural peanut butter

2/3 cup chopped fresh basil

heat a large nonstick skillet, spray cooking spray, season pork with salt and add to pan.  Stir fry until golden brown and cooked almost through, about 3 minutes.  Remove pork and set aside. 

Spray cooking spray and add ginger, cook for one minute.  Add onion and season with salt and cook for about 4 minutes. **We added one clove of garlic, finely chopped,  for some extra flavor**.  Add snow peas and continue to cook until tender. Remove vegetables from the pan.  Add orange juice concentrate and red pepper flakes and bring to a boil.  Whisk in peanut butter and return to a simmer. Toss in pork, vegetables, and basil to combine.  Adjust seasoning if needed and serve!

****To make this dish even quicker, we used frozen carrots and snow peas and partially cooked them, and then added when instructed. 

**Not to drill home the whole diet/new years resolution thing, but this dish is only about 300 calories per serving.