Simple stuffs for when I'm lazy

Have you ever been lazy? Like... don't-want-to-do-anything-except-sleep lazy? Ya... I do that. A lot. A gazillion time times a lot. Okay. Fine. All the time. I just want to sleep and I'm too tired to prep anything for food. And I usually get lazy enough to the point where I'd get fast food/restaurant take-outs. Now that I'm struggling with whatever bit of humanity left, before I completely turn into Puffy the Lard Puff, I make simple stir fry that I usually eat with a bowl of rice. But my mom tried these one day and she told me, "I don't think you could ever go on a diet, they all taste good." 

I'm having a hard time to decide whether I should take that as her criticism of me or a compliment of my cooking skill... Oh, bother...!

For those of you who like the idea of 30-minute-meals... Well, here're four less than 15 minutes meals for ya (less than 15 minutes per dish), depending on how good you are with knife skill (if you're really good, you'll be able to make all these in less than 15 minutes). The egg dish was inspired by my dad. He can make fried egg in a microwave within 1 minute (don't ask me how, the last time I put an egg in the microwave it exploded... I prefer frying pan for eggs). So it's not impossible to make these in 15 minutes or less... Have fun trying!

Vegetable stir-fry

Ingredients:

1 - 2 bunches of bok choy/chinese broccoli/broccoli crown

3 cloves of garlic, smashed then chopped

1 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp oyster sauce or fish sauce or salty soy sauce

1 tsp Thai chili sauce

A pinch of sugar

Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Cut vegetable to a size that you like. I usually cut bok choy to 1.5 cm wide strips and chinese broccoli at an angle.

2. Heat your saute pan and spray with cooking spray.

3. Saute the garlic until fragrant (shouldn't take you more than 1 minute)

4. Add vegetable, sesame oil, chili sauce, sugar, and oyster sauce. Stir evenly.

5. Cook until vegetable slightly wilt (I like mine crispy, so it took me only 2 minutes).

Tamagoyaki a la Rie

Ingredients:

1 egg

1 scallion, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp Thai chili sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Crack egg and whisk with scallion, garlic, soy sauce, chili sauce, and sesame oil

2. Heat non-stick frying pan, spray with cooking spray

3. Fry egg for about 2-3 minutes, flip, continue cooking until fully cooked.

Quick chicken "floss"

Ingredients:

1 cooked chicken breast, shredded

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp sesame oil,

1 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp Thai chili sauce

A pinch of sugar

Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Heat saute pan and spray with cooking spray.

2. Saute minced garlic until fragrant, then add chicken, sesame oil, fish sauce, chili sauce, and sugar.

3. Stir evenly for about 1 minute.

Sweet meats

Ingredients:

1 Chinese sausage (lapcheong), sliced 1/2 cm thick

1 garlic sliced

1/2 tsp sugar

Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Heat saute pan and spray with cooking spray.

2. Saute garlic and sausage for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly so the garlic won't be burnt.

3. Add sugar, stir constantly until sugar melts and make a nice char on the sausage.

Notes:

1. The Thai chili sauce I use is the chili in soybean oil version. You can skip the chili sauce if you don't like spicy food. They're there just as an additional layer of flavor and because I love spicy food. And you can use just about anything to make it spicy anyways, so use whatever you have in your kitchen and don't worry about having to add Thai chili sauce.

2. For the chicken breast, I boiled the breast ahead of time with a dash of salt. If you don't have this, you can use leftover rotisserie chicken, they work the same. I never try using dark meat, but I assume that if it's something you can shred, you should be able to use it.

3. For the vegetable stir fry, you can use either Kikkoman soy sauce or any regular salty soy sauce. But if you already add soy sauce, don't add fish sauce, and oyster sauce, that'll just make it too salty. Alternatively, you can do away with 1 tsp soy sauce and 1 tsp fish sauce/oyster sauce.

4. If your lapcheong is already sweet, I wouldn't add more sugar. Taste it before adding sugar.

5. I usually eat this with steamed brown rice, but these are "light" on the seasonings enough to be eaten with fried rice or butter rice. If you do want to try your hands on brown rice, I found that the Thai jasmine brown rice is fluffier than the Japanese brown rice.

6. To make it within 15 minutes, chop/shred quickly.