If you want to make use of vegetable odds and ends, or ensure several easy meals throughout the week, do yourself a favor and keep a bottle of this sauce mixed up at all times.  Also, the spiky little plate in this picture was a gift from my mother, and it’s the best way to prepare your ginger for sauces.  It breaks down the pulp and releases the juices so they can saturate your mixture, and you can toss out the fibers when you’re done.  I made double the recipe for this picture.  You’ll make 1 1/4 cup of sauce, but it keeps for a week in the refrigerator and we go through it fast in this house!

Mix in a bowl or in a jar with a lid if the opening is convenient for adding ingredients.  In a bowl, you’ll be whisking the ingredients together (which is tougher with the honey), and in the jar you can just toss everything in and shake it up.

Combine:

• 1/2 c soy sauce or tamari
• 1/2 c vegetable broth
• 2 Tbsp corn starch
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
• 2″ piece of ginger, peeled and minced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced

Whichever container you’ve chosen, mix until the sauce is uniform.  It will feel watery, but the cornstarch with thicken it up when you’re ready to cook with it.  The original recipe called for 1 tablespoon of corn starch, but it just wasn’t getting thick enough to coat the vegetables.

Place the sauce in a sealed container in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.  The ingredients settle, so I reuse a glass jar from my tomato puree, this way I can shake it all up.

When you want to use the sauce, I recommend starting your rice while you chop your vegetables.  Chop up a nice assortment of things like carrots, zucchini, onion, green beans, whatever you like.  I don’t have a wok, but a large pot or pan is workable.  You’ll want enough vegetables to cover the bottom of the pan without spilling out when you stir.  Set your burner heat to medium and heat a tablespoon of coconut oil in the bottom of the pan.  Once the oil is hot, pour in your vegetables and set a timer for 5 minutes.  Stir veggies frequently.  At the five minute mark, shake up your sauce and pour it into the pan.  I estimate I use between 1/8 and 1/4 cup.  Set the timer for 3 minutes and continue to stir.  As the sauce heats up, it will thicken and start to cling to the vegetables.  At 3 minutes, test your veggies.  If you prefer a tenderness on the outside with a fresh crunch in the middle, this should be perfect.  If you like softer veggies, keep stirring until they are nice and tender.

I serve my veggies in a bowl with rice, so be sure to get all the sauce you can into the bowl.

This sauce takes about 10 minutes to make if you prepare your own ginger.  I buy my garlic minced in small jars, and it works just fine.  You’ll get several meals out of this sauce.