Veggie Stir-Fry with Orange Peanut Sauce

I want to share one of my all-time favorite stir fry recipes with you. It comes from a 2009 CSA newsletter from Harmony Valley Farm, and I pull it out every summer, because it is so delicious!! It is comprised of many of the vegetables you may expect to find in a CSA share or farmer’s market at this time of year. These items are likely available at the local grocery store at a good price at this time of year. That’s part of the beauty of working with whatever’s in season. 🙂

As always, with a stir-fry recipe, it’s easy to make changes if you don’t have everything listed. It will still be good with a few tweaks to the recipe. The original recipe is actually orange cashew sauce, but I don’t have cashew butter on hand. No problem – it becomes orange peanut sauce. Still fantastic! I’ll give you the original recipe and note any changes that I made.

Veggie Stir-Fry with Orange Cashew (Peanut) Sauce

2 cups Napa or Sweetheart Cabbage, sliced thin (I used Napa)
2 cups greens roughly chopped (Amaranth, yukina savoy, beet greens, chard, saute mix, etc.)
3 scallions, sliced on the bias
2 garlic scapes, chopped
1 cup sugar snap or snow peas, cut in half (I skipped)
2 cups broccoli, chopped (florets and stems)
2 cups summer squash or zucchini
12-16 ox. beef (I skipped the meat)
1 T toasted sesame oil
3 1/2 T soy sauce
3 T cashew (peanut) butter
3 T rice vinegar
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground coriander
1 1/2 to 2 t ground white pepper
1 to 1 1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
juice of one orange

~Wash and cut all vegetables. Set aside in separate piles as they will be added to the pan at different times.
~Trim and Cut beef (if using).
~In a small bowl, combine sesame oil, soy sauce, nut butter, rice vinegar, cumin, coriander, white pepper and black pepper. Stir to combine into a thick paste. Gradually add the juice of one orange and stir until well combined.
~Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 T oil to the pan. Add beef and stir-fry about 5 minutes. (I obviously skipped this step.) Add garlic scapes, scallions and cabbage. Stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes. Add remaining vegetables and stir-fry for about another 5 minutes.
~Stir in sauce, lower heat to medium and simmer for another 3-5 minutes or until sauce is slightly thickened.
~Serve over hot rice, quinoa or millet. (I used brown rice this time.)

Enjoy!

I’m not going to lie to you. I am not including a picture, because this dish does not look pretty. What it lacks in visual appeal, it makes up for in flavor. I have actually never tried it with the cashew butter, but I bet that would be very good too. We always have peanut butter on hand, so I just go with that.

At some point in your summer, there will likely be an abundance of zucchini to be had. It seems that anyone who grows zucchini also gives zucchini away. It’s such an abundantly growing crop. 🙂 This recipe provides a delicious way to use up that abundant zucchini along with a lot of greens. And it is so good.

I have a tendency not to repeat recipes a lot – not because I don’t like them – it’s just that I like trying new ones. You can tell that this is a really good one, because I pull it out again and again.

What do you like in a stir-fry?