Craving Veg Stir-Fry & Mooli/Daikon Radishes (GF)

I've been under the weather for the past few days.  During the worst of my illness, my stomach became quite delicate and I was eating rather bland foods.  Now that I am finally on the mend, I find myself craving vegetables.  I love vegetables.  If I were single and had to write a singles ad, I would mention my love of vegetables and say that anyone interested in dating me must eat their veggies!

Anyway, my quick-fix solution for vegetable cravings is usually in the form of a stir-fry.  My stir fries come in many shapes and forms, but this is what I put into mine this time:

• mooli/daikon radish
• carrot ribbons
• green bell pepper
• red cabbage
• onion

I stir-fried all that in sunflower oil until the veggies were soft (I also added a tablespoon of water every time things started looking dry) and then a minute or two before serving it up, I stirred in:

• toasted sesame oil (just a dab'll do ya)
• soy sauce
• Chinese 5-spice powder
• chili powder

Delish!

So, Mooli/Daikon Radish:  when eaten raw, it tastes like a regular old radish.  Very nice shredded in salads or sliced into sticks for a veggie platter.  But I read in The Complete Encyclopedia of Vegetables and Vegetarian Cooking: The Practical Cook's Guide to Every Type of Vegetable, with Over 300 Delicious Recipes* (which is just about the longest title ever, other than that one Fiona Apple album) that it's nice in stir fries, too, so I thought I'd give it a go.  It IS nice in stir fries and, when cooked, has the consistency and texture of an al-dente carrot, but a sort of turnip/potato crossed with the smell of a Chinese grocery store kind of flavour.  It's good!  Next time I get a mooli, though, I'm making kimchi with it!

I made a separate stir-fry for my husband because I prefer my veggies more on the al-dente side and he doesn't like Chinese 5-Spice (I know, right?).  So this is what he got: 

*  The Complete Encyclopedia of Vegetables and Vegetarian Cooking... isn't vegan, but is almost entirely vegetarian (it has a small "Practically Vegetarian" section at the end) and is an excellent and very thorough resource for different veggies (even some of the weird ones) and legumes and -- I really like this in cookbooks -- has a photograph of every single recipe.  I really, really like that in cookbooks.  Classic Vegetarian Recipes is one of my favourite cookbooks and it has a photo of every recipe, too.