Crockpot Shrimp Stir-fry

Holy Moly, what a week.  I've missed you guys!  Sorry I didn't post, like, at all.  Yeah, super sorry.  We're still trying to recover from no sleep with baby.  He's fiiiiiiinnnalllly on a better schedule.  Yep, between 10 and 11 at night he's down.  And that's WAY better than the 2, 3, or 4 am play-fests we used to have. I pretty much laid around and tried to rest last week.  I felt like I had a newborn again.  My husband and I were staying up late even after the baby was asleep, just to hear the silence.  Well, and a little Super Mario - just like the old days - for Wii was played until 12 or 1:00.  We're to the LAST castle, round 2.  We've already beat the game once and we're about to beat it again.  Ahhh, the old days.  My DH and I have finally realized that we need some more sleep.  Ha.

So, needless to say, last week I didn't make it to the grocery store.  My kitchen sink was overflowing with dishes.  We ate out more times than I'd like to admit.  And one day I had the exact same salad for lunch AND dinner.  It did, however, make me realize how much I like the new schedule on the fridge.  It makes everything run like a smooth operation.  Tomorrow, we're headed to the grocery store!  Annnnnnd, we're baaaaaack.

On tonight's menu:  Shrimp Stir-fry
1 lb carrots, peeled and cut diagonally into 1/2 inch slices
1 medium-size sweet red pepper, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch slices
3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup low-sodium teriyaki sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
1 lb shrimp, peeled and devained
8 oz snow peas, trimmed
1 can (8 oz) bamboo shoots
Sliced scallions (optional)
3 cups cooked brown rice


Place carrots and red pepper slices in a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker.  In a small bowl, blend broth, teriyaki, cornstarch, oyster sauce and sugar.  Pour into slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 1 3/4 hours or LOW for 3 1/2 hours.  Stir shrimp, snow peas, and bamboo shoots (drained) into the slow cooker for the final 20 minutes of cook time.  Sprinkle with scallions and serve with brown rice.

I definitely was rereading this recipe to see what ingredients I needed to get out and saw that you needed the 5 to 6 quart slow cooker.  Mine was in the dish washer and so I had to halve this recipe on the fly.  Just now, writing the recipe over on the blog, I discovered that I didn't put enough cornstarch and I put too many peas in for the recipe to be exactly halved.

I cut up half a bag of baby carrots and half of a red pepper and poured in the sauce.  I usually try to buy organic when I can and the quick grocery store run I made last Thursday - we were desperate! - to the small, local grocery store didn't yield any whole carrots so I snagged a bag of baby carrots instead.  It ended up working out great because I didn't have to peel them, I just cut the big ones in half along a diagonal.  I tried to cut up the red pepper into similar sizes as the carrots.  One note about the sauce - the cornstarch got clumpy.  I had to whisk it very well before I poured it in.  And then there was even a little cornstarch clump when I poured it in that I mixed in the bowl.  In the end, it didn't affect the outcome at all and the cornstarch melted into the sauce.

With 20 minutes left, I poured in the peas and shrimp.  Now here's where the recipe started to divert.  The grocery store didn't have any snap peas, so all I could find were snow peas in the frozen section.  The recipe didn't say whether the snap peas were fresh or frozen, but after fixing the recipe I'm guessing they were fresh.  The frozen peas didn't allow the shrimp to cook evenly in the crockpot.  Next time, I will either use fresh peas or let the peas thaw out before I use them.

I stirred everything in and left it on high for the last 20 minutes.  

I checked the crockpot at the end of 20 minutes.  Some shrimp were looking done, but others still looked a little translucent.  I let it cook another five minutes, but wasn't satisfied with the results.  Again, adding the frozen peas might have adjusted the temperature of the ingredients and caused uneven cooking.  Regardless, I decided to dump everything into a pan and cook it on high for about 3 minutes.  All the shrimp were nice and pink and the sauce was a little thicker.

I cooked a bag of rice and poured the shrimp stir-fry on top.  I cut up one scallion over two dishes and dinner was served.  Yum!  

The Verdict
This was pretty tasty for a healthy treat.  I liked the amount of cornstarch I used because it didn't make the sauce too thick. This recipe reminded me of the kind of stir-fry you get in the freezer that's already pre-sauced and you dump it into the pan to cook quickly.  I will definitely be using this recipe again!  And the best part is, it's so versatile.  You could use as many different vegetables as you like, make it just vegetarian, marinade the veggies first and then finish it off in a pan without even using the slow cooker at all, or even use another meat instead of shrimp.  The possibilites are endless!  It's what's for lunch tomorrow!