EXTENDING THE FESTIVITIES

After a barbecue, I am left with a little it of steak, some boneless chicken, and a fair amount of sweet Italian sausages.  I decide that these ingredients, along with some carrots, broccoli, peppers, and onion will make an outstanding stir fry.  I am also left with an ear of corn, but I eat that with butter and salt before I have a chance to consider adding it to the mix.

There's plenty of rice to use as a base for the stir fry, but now I have to decide exactly what kind of stir fry goes with a smorgasbord of leftover meat and some random vegetables.  While I am thinking about this, I start grabbing seasonings from the spice rack: salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, basil, rosemary, oregano, tarragon ... I start the fry pan, add some olive oil, then dump the sliced up food pieces into the hot oil and start stir frying the heck out of everything.

I look in the fridge.  I have all kinds of salad dressings, and I could go Italian, since I already have the sausages, or I could go balsamic vinaigrette.  I could even lean toward barbecue sauce, which is what the sausages marinated in before they ended up on the grill.  This debate rages on far too long, and I am afraid the vegetables will dry out, so I lift the glass stopper off a bottle of port wine and heavily pour it into the fry pan.

Oooooooooooohhhhhhhh, that smells sooooooooo gooooooooooooood.

Before all the wine is vaporized, I throw in soy sauce and teriyaki sauce.  In about eight minutes, the stir fry is done and smells like heaven.  The rice takes two minutes longer.  Dinner is done, dinner is delicious, and I no longer have plastic containers full of leftovers in my fridge.  I also have very little port wine left, but that's a story for another day.