Eat Your Colors! Asian or Italian? Both!

This is making something from nothing.

Home alone one evening last week, I only had myself to feed and I wanted something healthy and colorful.

The fridge was looking poorly with a little of this or that lying about in half empty bags or plastic containers.

There was a half bag of sweet red, yellow, and orange peppers, a few carrots, a quarter cabbage hunk, an opened container of once fresh mushrooms, 4 small inner stalks of celery, 4 or 5 green onions, and lots of garlic.

There's always lots of garlic here.

I pulled the poor veggie refugees from the fridge and chopped them up.

A frozen chicken breast got the same brutal treatment, plus a little soak in a teriyaki, wine, vinegar, red pepper, ginger, cornstarch marinade.



Then there was a little stirrin' and a little fryin' in the trusty wok.
Some peanuts and two datil peppers jumped in to liven things up.



And ... VOILA!

(That there is Francais, ... I don't know how to say VOILA in Chinese)

Two days later, I'm at it again.
But, this time, I'm feeling Italian.
No one has been to the grocery store, so the pickings are almost the same.
No cabbage this time ... that doesn't strike me as very Italian, so two plum tomatoes agreed to take the cabbage's place.

Before the chicken breast went into the cast iron skillet, I squished it around with a mixture of kosher salt, oregano, basil, and cayenne until each piece had a good coating.

Then the veggies hopped in.

Later, whole grain pasta was conjured from pure boiling water ... yes, it seems like magic to me also.
This went into the skillet too.
A splash of cheap wine, a gurgle of chicken broth, and a healthy toss of romano cheese ... or was it parmesean ... whatever ... they went in too.



And ... VOILA!
That is still French, I don't know how to say "VOILA" in Italian.
Two different meals.
Two different countries' quisine.
Same (almost) veggies.
Same poor chicken ... well, it's possible.
Same white chopstick bowl.

Feels kind of DEJA VU.

That's French for ...