Is It Stir-Fry If You Don't Use a Wok?

First real food post! Woo!

Tonight I went with something relatively simple, although it's not as simple as one would think.

The basic recipe was this chicken and broccoli stir-fry on Cooks.com. I halved most of it since I was just using half a chicken breast, and omitted the ginger because I'm not a fan. Now, I say stir fries aren't as simple as they would seem because it's not just a matter of dumping everything into a wok and cooking. It's all about the timing. You have to brown the meat first, but not too much or it will turn tough when you put it back in the pan; and you have to make sure the toughest vegetables are sauteed the longest, so they have to go in the pan first; and you want most of the cooking done before you put the sauce in, lest the sauce all evaporate. So, yeah. Not that simple.

This one turned out pretty dern good as the chicken was cooked perfectly; really tender. I probably would have preferred the broccoli was a little crisper than it ended up being, but it wasn't too bad. I had it over brown rice, which was actually left over from some Chinese take-out I had this weekend. I reheated it by placing the rice in tinfoil inside a steamer, a trick I learned from my grandmother.

In all, a successful meal. Now I have to start thinking about what to make tomorrow. Horrors!