For an easy peasy dinner, make Shrimp-Tofu Stir-Fry with a Bok Choy side
prep once to cook 2 dishes in 1 pan
Hello everyone,
Ugh. A couple weeks ago, I felt awful from some annoying heartburn. It happened daily and I thought it was just postmenopausal me. But it felt like fire in my chest. Freaking out, I consulted with my primary care doctor and we narrowed it down to acid reflux (GERD — I hate the sound of the acronym, don’t you?). I admitted that it was due to stress.
Work wise, the end of last year and beginning of this year were very, very busy. I had personal and professional dramas to manage too. (Every time my mom asked me if work had slowed down, I responded, “Not yet.”) The busyness and emotional pressures describe many of our lives, does it not? I thought I could tough it out until there was relief, but it wasn’t so.
My doctor prescribed Protonix, a proton pump inhibitor that slows down the production of acid in your gut. I was clueless on proton pumping before that. My pharmacist brother suggested Pepcid Complete which I spotted at Costco.
Because I’ve never had anything like this, naive me didn’t realize how much shelf space is devoted to relieving digestive issues, specifically gas and heartburn. There’s about fifteen feet of products. I chew on Tums once in a while but obviously, I was a lightweight. While I was studying the shelves, one man nonchalantly picked up a box of Pepcid like they were old buddies. Another customer, who wore a worried look on her face, grabbed three different products.
Along with the pharmaceuticals (food is medicine too!), I’ve also dialed back my eating and cooking — making simpler dishes, eating small meals, replacing caffeine with ginger-turmeric tea and other herb teas, avoiding highly acidic food, walking (or just marching in place!) for 10 minutes after eating, and eating dinner earlier so I finish 2 to 3 hours before bedtime. I’ve also scheduled in afternoon mini yoga sessions and meditation. This has all been part of my attempt to calm down.
It feels like a spa or detox situation. I’ve lost a few pounds, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while anyway!
If you have experiences to share, I’m all ears and eyes. My situation is not uncommon, thankfully.
❤️🔥 GERD Can’t Get Me Down
Whenever I’ve had digestive issues like this, I try to learn something in the hopes of avoiding it in the future. My family eats fast and we like food, which taught me bad habits, I finally realized at age 56.
In helping my esophagus to heal, I realized that — and this may seem very obvious to you but not to me until recently — flavors shine more clearly when you take time to eat. Slowly. In smaller portions. Followed by walking some laps around the house and or the yard!
Ideally, your body tells you what it wants to eat, what will make it feel whole. Often times, we let the food tell us whether or not we want to eat it.
I’m sure that’s what advertisers are banking on when they try to sell us ultra processed foods, such as General Mills’ upcoming launch of ramen noodles that taste like Old El Paso fajitas and Totino’s cheese pizza. Both are branded as a “Bold, Slurp-Worthy Twist on Comfort Food!” Cheese ramen is a Korean thing and fajitas ramen is like to putting a stir-fry atop the noodles. I don’t know. Perhaps General Mills will appeal to Gen Z but it’s definitely not me.
More than ever, right now, I contemplate how to make lunch and dinner with few ingredients so that the stars are allowed to shine. The meals have to come together easily because we’re trying to eat earlier these days. (Before GERD, we ate at 8pm. I know, we were bad!)
Which is how I came up with this dinner recipe for you to try out and keep in your back pocket — shrimp-tofu stir-fry with a Shanghai bok choy side.
With rice, the two dish meal is the kind of thing you may see fly by at a Chinese restaurant, being carried from the kitchen to a table of eager, in-the-know diners. It’s not deep-fried but rather soothing, slightly silky, and highly aromatic with ginger and sesame, with a balance of flavor. You taste the main ingredients — shrimp, tofu, bok choy, which is what good Asian cooking is all about.
Look, I’ve expressed my love of sweet and sour pork over the years in recipes like this one, but now is not the time for that. Plus it’s winter going into spring so cozy, lightish fare seems appropriate.
This 2-fer recipe for dinner will get you through many weeknights. It’s easy, satisfying, and happy. I think you’ll enjoy it.
What to expect from this Shrimp-Tofu Stir-Fry with Bok Choy dinner:
One main dish plus a veggie side — both cooked under 15 minutes in the wok (or a big skillet, if you don’t have a wok yet!).
Minimal ingredients and minimal waste for maximum flavors. The tender tofu picks up the shrimp, ginger, and scallion flavors beautifully.
Streamlined prep to guide you from efficiently cutting the bok choy and draining the tofu to stir-frying both dishes. If you want, just make the shrimp-tofu ditty with another vegetable, or vice versa. But I put it all together so you can zip through it like I did!
Lots of takeaways (substitutions! advance prep! veganizing it!) plus photos for guidance. And, as always, a text recipe plus a downloadable PDF.