Whip Up an Easy Dinner

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For a hurry-up evening meal, it’s hard to find a food that’s faster to fix than eggs. Making dinner in a flash is especially easy when you put a skillet scramble on the menu. To make one, simply cook up your family’s favorite flavoring foods, then pour on eggs and scramble.

In Stir-Fry Shrimp Scramble, green onions, garlic and ginger add Asian flair to egg-enrobed shrimp dotted with pea pods and water chestnuts. Interesting contrasts are the highlight of the dish’s appeal. The texture contrasts of the crunchy pea pods and water chestnuts and softer scrambled eggs and shrimp are enhanced by the contrasting colors and flavors of the ingredients, too. Making this special dish more economical, the eggs stretch the protein of the more expensive shrimp. Along with their high-quality protein, nutrient-dense eggs also provide an assortment of other essential nutrients, all for a relatively low calorie count.

Stir-frying itself is a cooking method that requires little fat. For this scramble, you need only one tablespoon of oil to cook enough food for a family. The end result is a dish supplying needed nutrients without a lot of calories. In addition to good nutrition and speedy preparation, clean-up is quick, too, because stir-frying requires only one pan.

Stir-Fry Shrimp Scramble

4 to 6 servings

1 tablespoon cooking oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 package (8 oz.) frozen pea pods, thawed

4 ounces medium to large fresh or frozen raw shrimp

1 can (8 oz.) sliced water chestnuts, drained

1/4 cup chopped green onions with tops

6 eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt, optional

Green onion fan, optional

In 10-inch omelet pan or skillet over medium-high heat, cook garlic and ginger in hot oil until garlic is lightly browned, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add pea pods, shrimp, water chestnuts and onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, until shrimp turns pink, about 5 to 6 minutes. Beat together eggs and salt, if desired, until blended. Pour over vegetables and shrimp. With pancake turner, gently lift and turn mixture until eggs are thickened and no visible liquid egg remains. Garnish with onion fan, if desired.

Nutrition information per serving of 1/6 recipe using corn oil and fresh shrimp without optional salt and onion garnish: 145 calories, 8 gm total fat, 241 mg cholesterol, 96 mg sodium, 186 mg potassium, 7 gm carbohydrate, 12 gm protein and 10% or more of the RDI for vitamins B12 and C, riboflavin, iron, phosphorus.