Shrimp Stir Fry Rice

Boy oh boy do I have a yummy dinner for you! It's hard for me to contain my excitement on this one... you see, I used to make stir fry's pretty often in my single gal days. Then once I was married, they sure tapered off.

I decided I was craving stir fry and shrimp too. If you decide to make this dish, I can assure you that you will not be disappointed. Mr. VS said that is pretty yummy, I would not mind it again. That is his way of telling me he liked dinner and I can make it again.

If he does not like it? He doesn't say much and if I ask how dinner was? He will reply it was "O-K". Do you know how irritating that one two letter word is when you slave over the stove making what you hope will be perfection? Yeah... I may get a little irked at that word and hope I do not hear it again, until the next time I hear it and I cringe!

I thought back to how I made stir fry in the past, and grew from there for a new recipe since I am not able to use the premade mixes anymore. Wheat is often times hidden in the ingredients and since we cannot seem to get along anymore, I just avoid them all together.

What you will need:

1. Shrimp (I used a prepackaged shrimp cabob and removed the tails, I also ran them under water to clean them before I started)
2. 1/2 cup real butter
3. 2 T (divided) + 1 t garlic powder
4. 1 T gluten free cornstarch (if you are GF, if not, no worries, use what you have)
5. 1 fresh head of broccoli (washed and chopped)
6. 1 onion (chopped)
7. 1 can of baby corn (save the liquid from the baby corn, you will use it later for your sauce)
8. Water chestnuts
9. Rice (prepared per the package instructions)

What you need to do:

1. Chop onion and place in skillet on medium heat with a tablespoon of olive oil to coat your skillet
2. Wash and chop up one head of broccoli and place in skillet with onion
3. Open can of baby corn, drain liquid into small air tight lidded bowl from the can, set aside
4. Place baby corn in the skillet along with water chestnuts
5. Wash and remove tails from shrimp, set aside
6. I created a butter mixture for the shrimp by melting 1/2 cup of butter, adding in 1 tablespoon of garlic powder, sprinkling in salt, and pepper for taste (this is to your liking, I just did 2 shakes of my shakers each)
7. I used a basting brush to brush the butter mixture over the shrimp as I grilled them in on our Ninja Foodi, shrimp does not take a lot of time to cook, when they turn red/pink, you will know they are ready- I kept basting them as I cooked them until I used all of the butter mixture
8. For the stir fry sauce, I added in 1 tablespoon of garlic powder plus one teaspoon of garlic powder, one tablespoon of cornstarch to one of our small air tight Lock and Lock containers with the liquid from the baby corn and shook it until it was all mixed well together, this prevents your sauce from being lumpy
9. Add sauce mixture to your vegetables, if you choose, you can also add red pepper flakes to your stir fry, if it was just me, I would have added it, but Mr. VS has requested no more spicy foods for a while
10. Mix sauce well with vegetables, you will see your sauce begin to thicken and coat all of your veggies, turn down heat once it has thickened
11. Prepare rice per instructions on package and amount of people you will be serving
12. You can plate this as you wish, either add the rice to the vegetables, and mix well, or place rice on plate and add vegetables over rice and then place your shrimp by your veggies and rice (this is what I chose)

TIP: I have made this a few times now, you will see in the picture I did not remove the tails from the shrimp, but have found it is easier to remove them before you grill the shrimp, saves on burned fingers. The tails will slide right off if you pull from the very end.

Despite all of the steps (at least for me and my recipes anyway), this was a really easy meal to prepare. The shrimp grills pretty quickly and the veggies do not take a lot of time to prepare either. The rice, I have down to a science, 7 minutes in the microwave and call it d-o-n-e.

When mixing the sauce up, I really encourage you to use a lidded air tight container, I do not care for lumps in my sauces and it will be so smooth if you shake it up before you add it to the skillet. At first you think this will not become a sauce, what in the world Cara? But once it begins to heat up a bit, it really begins to thicken, the cornstarch really does it's job.

I like creating my own sauces because there are a lot of hidden ingredients in packets. If you are on a restricted diet you may miss an ingredient you cannot have. I have even done it myself before thinking there is NO WAY there will be wheat in this, why even waste my time looking. I have gotten in the habit of looking at everything before I make something now.

Do you see where the tails were removed after the fact? Yes, you will burn your fingers if you wait to remove them. The shrimp does not come out as cleanly either, so I tried it before grilling them, an it was a win.

Doesn't it look yummy? I am thinking I need to make this again for dinner tonight! The water chestnuts were perfectly crunchy, the shrimp tasted like Red Lobster's scrimp scampi (OH MY GOODNESS, do I love that!), the broccoli and baby corn was flavored to perfection. I cannot tell you enough how much I enjoyed throwing this recipe together.

I am glad I decided to throw in a stir fry for dinner and switch things up for Mr. VS. If you ask me, he needs a bit of variety in his dinner selections.

Searching for more dinner options? Click to read:

• Meatloaf recipe gravy
• Sweet potato shepherd pie
• Honey mustard chicken with curry
• Mahi Mahi recipes baked
• Nachos with chicken
• Gluten free haddock fish recipe