Vegetarian Fried Rice

I ate a lot of fried rice growing up.

My mom loves to cook, and we ate a lot of different foods when I was young. I don't think I really realized how--varied? international? something like that--our diet was until I went to college.

Still, we did have a few staple recipes in frequent rotation. A lot of them were plays on pasta--pasta with tuna fish, clam spaghetti, garlic spaghetti, even, infrequently, spaghetti with meat sauce.

Another one of those staple recipes was fried rice. And for good reason--fried rice is cheap, easy, and makes a lot of food. Mom's version included ground beef as well as a couple of eggs, so it serviced adequately as a main dish. We ate a lot of it, and with gusto.

So it's perhaps surprising that I don't think I've ever made fried rice in the history of my married career.

For one, neither the DDH nor I are big rice eaters. I am stupidly terrible at cooking rice, and after suffering through one crunchy dish too many, the DDH learned to greet rice dishes with trepidation. Rice isn't cheap if you're ruining it (and all the ingredients you add to it) all the time.

For another, though I remember scarfing down huge portions of the dish as a child, I remember fried rice as being too salty, with a slightly weird sour flavor (sorry, Mom), and generally not interesting enough to attempt to recreate.

But since the DDH has flatly refused to acknowledge the awesomeness of Tuna Fish Pasta, and with the impending arrival of someone who will eventually be a teenage boy, I've decided I need to revisit some of those cheap-and-easy childhood staples.

Then I ended up with a whole bunch of free cooked rice, and I knew that it was time to tackle fried rice. I could attempt the recipe without risking poorly-cooked rice. And since I didn't need to spend forty minutes cooking rice, I could actually get dinner on the table on a Monday evening when I had a Zumba class quickly followed by a church meeting.

I tweaked my mom's recipes in a few ways.

First, I eliminated the ground beef, not because I don't like ground beef in fried rice but because I didn't have any defrosted and didn't really have time for the extra step of cooking it anyway. Eliminating that and the accompanying beef broth turned this into a vegetarian recipe, but I'll report back with a meaty version one of these days.

Second, having eliminated the beef, I needed to punch up the protein somehow. The bites of scrambled egg are my favorite part of fried rice anyway, so it was a no-brainer to increase the egg in the recipe.

Third, I cut back on the soy sauce, since I remembered it being too salty (though cutting the beef broth probably also saved some sodium).

And finally, I added some other sauces and spices to give it a more interesting flavor. Adding sambal oolek gives it a touch of bite--not what I think of as a lot, but you do taste it. In retrospect, it's possible that Mom's fried rice was mild-flavored because we were kids. Specifically, I'm the kid who liked everything bland and hated spicy foods. So, umm, keep in mind that it's probably entirely my fault her recipe wasn't perfect to begin with. I bet when she makes it for just herself and Dad it's deliciously seasoned. Ahem.

Vegetarian Fried Rice

Vegetarian Fried Rice
Adapted from my mom's recipe.

As I mentioned, I started with pre-cooked rice leftover from an office lunch. If you did not have the opportunity to rescue rice destined for the trash can, you should cook it first. Cook 1 1/2 cups rice according to package directions (to yield 3 cups rice, cooked). Set it aside and allow to cool. If you're really on top of things, you could cook the rice over the weekend and refrigerate it so it's ready to go for a fast weeknight dinner. I have never actually been this on top of things, but I pretend I am all the time.

Rice courtesy P.F. Chang's and my boss.

Once you have some nicely cooked rice ready to go, proceed with the recipe:

Chop 1 medium onion and 4-5 cloves garlic so they're ready to go. I speed-demoned them in the food processor:

to:

They never knew what hit them.

Heat 2 Tbs. oil in a large wok or skillet (if you know me, you know this is coconut oil, but clearly you can use whatever fat you'd like).

Add the onion and garlic

and sautee until onion is translucent.

Transluscent onion.

Add 12-16 oz. vegetables. The fastest and easiest is to use a bag of the small mixed veggies (peas, cube-cut carrots, and the like), but you can use any kind of frozen veggie mix or fresh vegetables. Almost any vegetable will taste good in fried rice.

I cut the bag open with scissors and still managed to spill
veggies all over the counter.

Cook until soft (aka thawed, if using frozen). You can stick the lid on the skillet to speed up the process.

Meanwhile, if you promise not to get distracted, scramble six eggs. I got distracted measuring out the ingredients for the next step and semi-burned the eggs. Luckily I sort of like semi-burned eggs, and the DDH didn't seem to notice. It's best if you don't get distracted, though.

Eggs.

Once your eggs are off the heat and your vegetables are done,

add 3 cups cooked brown rice and a scant 1/3 cup soy sauce (between the 1/4 cup and 1/3 cup lines).

Or more, if you like soy sauce.

In a measuring cup, spoon out 1 tsp. fish sauce and 1 tsp. sambal oolek/chile paste/hot sauce. Fill the measuring cup with water to make 1/4 cup liquid.

Add to the rice mixture.

Stir to combine and cook until rice is heated through.

Add your scrambled egg

 and mix thoroughly.

And there you have it. I was worried the DDH wouldn't find it filling enough without any meat, but six eggs seemed to add enough protein to satisfy him. Plus, brown rice tends to be pretty satisfying, fullness-wise, versus white rice. And then there's the fact that that particular combination of frozen vegetables is his favorite. At any rate, it got two thumbs up from him.

Quick, easy, cheap, tasty--it even tastes just as good the next day. Huzzah for fried rice!

Vegetarian Fried Rice

Lemony Orzo-Vegetable Salad with Chicken

I am obsessed with orzo.

I mean, not really. But I love it. It's pasta, but pasta in funny little rice-sized pieces. The texture appeals to me.

Orzo is perfect for pasta salads. It cooks quickly and tastes good hot or cold. Which, of course, makes it an excellent summer dish, as well as a great make-ahead meal or potluck supper option.

This recipe is fast and easy. But though it comes together quickly, it tastes best after it sits awhile. I ate my portion hot off the stove last night and was a bit disappointed.

"The DDH is going to hate this," I thought. "It's bland and boring." (The DDH often thinks my food is bland. I tell him this is because I have a more refined and sensitive palate than he does. He and my mom both say it's because I like bland foods. I argue that I like bland foods because my refined and sensitive palate distinguishes flavor nuances unfathomable to boors such as they. They disagree. Etc.)

The DDH came home and ate his portion of the orzo salad an hour or so later. And the DDH did not hate it. The DDH told me it was delicious. So did our friend, who came sniffing around and asked for some even though it was after dinnertime, because twenty-something boys are a lot like teenage boys and are always hungry. One of the DDH's co-workers asked for the recipe based on the smell alone (hi, coworker!). Obviously, the marinated-for-awhile salad was not at all bland, but instead delicious.

So here you go.

Lemony Orzo-Vegetable Salad with Chicken

Lemony Orzo-Vegetable Salad with Chicken
Adapted from Cooking Light, July 2010

Orzo.

Cook 3/4 cup orzo according to package directions. Drain, rinse with cold water (to help keep the pasta from clumping together), and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat about 1 Tbs. oil (I used coconut, but olive oil or butter would work, too) in a large pan.

It was actually finally cool enough in the house that the
coconut oil started out semi-solid!

Cut 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast into bite-sized pieces.

Chicken.

Toss your chicken into the hot pan. Cook on high for two minutes or so until browned, then turn heat down to low and cook until chicken is done, about five to eight more minutes.

For the dressing, combine 1/4 tsp. lemon zest*; 3 Tbs. lemon juice*; 1 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil; 1/2 tsp. salt; 2-3 cloves garlic, minced; 1/4 tsp. honey, and 1/8 tsp. black pepper

Dressing ingredients.

in a small bowl or dressing container.

Layers.

Whisk or shake until emulsified.

No layers.

Now, for veggies, you have some options. One is to cut up any delicious fresh veggies you have on hand and toss them in raw. This works with tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini, cucumber, peppers, etc. For crunchier veggies (carrots, broccoli, etc.), you should probably steam them first to soften them.

However. Honestly, I steamed up a bag of cut mixed veggies from Sam's Club. The one with the green beans and peas and little cubes of carrot. The veggies are already conveniently bite-sized and will mix well with the orzo and dressing.

Use whatever you have on hand, but obviously a tomato-cucumber version (perhaps with some feta or goat cheese?) will be sort of a completely different dish than a green bean-carrot-corn version.

Put your orzo in a large bowl.

Bowl o' orzo.

Drizzle the dressing over the pasta and toss well.

Admittedly, you can't see a difference in the picture.

Then add your cooked chicken

Lots of beige.

and veggies

Color!

and stir to combine.

Finito.

Ta-da! You can eat this now or let it sit, at room temperature or in the fridge, for an hour. Reheat or eat cold. Serve with a spoon (word from the wise: orzo is hard to eat with a fork).

*Note: In a raw application like a salad dressing, fresh lemon juice and zest will taste miles better than bottled juice. This doesn't mean bottled juice won't do in a pinch, but it will not taste the same! I suggest always buying an extra lemon or two each time you buy some for a recipe that calls for a lot of lemon juice (lemon squares, for example). Squeeze the extras and freeze all your juice in ice cube trays. Once frozen, pop them out and store in bags or containers in the freezer. It's not quite as good as fresh juice, but better than bottled. I freeze extra zest, too.

Taco Salad

I wanted M&M's for dinner. All the M&M's in the world.

"I'm going to the store," I told the DDH. "I'll be back with however many M&M's $105 will buy me."

I didn't buy a single M, as it turns out. I bought sour cream and kidney beans and other things the pantry needed and made taco salad for dinner instead.

Taco Salad.

Taco Salad
Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book Special Edition..

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Theoretically, you can make tortilla-shell bowls for your taco salad, just like you get in a Mexican restaurant. All you need to do is take your oiled tortillas and fold them into little individual baking dishes and bake them.

But honestly I don't like getting taco salads in those bowls at the restuarant. The tortilla bowl gets soggy and weird tasting and you never really end up eating it anyway. So I left my tortillas flat.

Either way, you'll need six tortillas. Lay them out on a cookie sheet

and brush one side with water, butter, or oil. You need to get them a bit wet so they don't set on fire or burn, basically, and just water will do the trick. Butter or oil (I used coconut) will add flavor and give them a pretty browning.

Just enough to give them a nice sheen.

Bake your tortillas for 10-20 minutes or until browned on top and a bit crispy. Remove from oven and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a large pan, brown 1 pound ground beef and approximately 3 cloves garlic, minced.

Cook until the beef is done; drain off the fat if desired. One benefit of grass-fed beef is that there's rarely enough fat to be worth draining off, only enough to be flavorful. Saves on paper towels and dishes!

Add 2 cans kidney beans (Two cans of beans equals about three cups cooked and drained beans. One cup of dried beans makes about 2 1/2 cups cooked beans. So if you were starting with dried beans the night before, you would prepare about a heaping cup of dried beans, soak, cook, and then add to the recipe here. Or, if you cook bulk batches of dried beans and freeze them, you'll want to grab about three cups and take them out to thaw when you first start the tortillas. Got all that?),

When using canned beans, drain and rinse to help remove

excess sodium.You can reserve the drained liquid of canned and especially home-cooked beans and add it to the salsa for additional flavor and nutrients.

1 1/2 cups salsa, 

Roughly. You can always add water or bean juice to

stretch a smaller salsa supply.

1 1/2 cups corn

You can definitely get away with less or omit entirely.

I found the sweet corn notes to be disconcerting, but to other people that's the best part.

 to cooked beef.

Beans and corn.

With salsa.

Bring to a boil.

There should be enough liquid for it to boil. If not, add 

some water.

Turn heat to low and simmer, covered, for ten minutes.

Serve on lettuce with a tortilla. Delicious garnish ideas: cheddar cheese, sour cream, tomatoes, avocado, and green onions.

With cheese and sour cream.

Verdict? Delicious. The salsa you use will greatly affect the final flavor, making it spicier or sweeter. You could use all beans for a vegetarian version or change the meat : beans ratio to reflect your preferences or the supplies you have on hand. Black or pinto beans would be a good substitute for kidney beans.

The DDH and our dinner guest both loved it, even getting seconds. It made excellent leftovers, as well, though the DDH opted to skip the lettuce and make a burrito instead. The meat mixture makes an easy, tasty, and filling Mexican meat for a variety of uses: tacos, burritos, and nachos as well as salads.

Egg-Free Cookie Dough

I like cookies.

I do. I prefer them to cake, for instance. There are few things more indulgently delectable than a chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven, served with a tall glass of milk (or bowl of vanilla ice cream).

But do you know what I honestly sort of like more than cookies?

Cookie dough.

Yes. My cookie recipes never make quite as many cookies as advertised, because I eat several cookies' worth of dough.

I do not discriminate in my love of raw baked goods--my brownie pan is never quite as full as it should be by the time I'm done spooning tastes out of the batter, and cake batter is far, far superior in every way to finished cake.

I tend to pooh-pooh my way past raw egg warnings. Doughs and batters, fresh Caesar salad dressing and homemade mayonnaise--I enjoy them all with nary a thought to spare for food poisoning.

Now that I'm pregnant, however, I have resigned myself to a more cautious approach to food. Goodbye, alcohol; goodbye, sushi; goodbye, cookie dough.

Until the internet graced me with a recipe for egg-free dough, of course.

Yes, please.

Egg-Free Cookie Dough
Adapted from this recipe at DisneyFamily.com; this recipe from Love & Olive Oil is similar, but requires more ingredients and I haven't actually bothered with it yet. Note that normal people use these recipes to form adorable little cookie dough balls that they drizzle/coat in chocolate and serve on fancy platters at parties. I just stick the bowl of dough in my fridge to eat as the mood strikes me.

Soften 1 cup (two sticks) butter by leaving it out on the counter for an hour, or hacking at it with a knife for fifteen minutes, or, if you like to live life on the edge, microwaving in 5-10 second intervals.

I bought a one pound block of butter from a local dairy,
so it wasn't in neat little sticks. If you, too, lack stick butter,
remember that 1 pound = 2 cups = 4 sticks.
So this is a half pound of butter (aka 1 cup aka 2 sticks)
 in pieces that I hacked apart and weighed on my kitchen scale.

You should be able to easily leave a thumbprint in softened butter, but it should not be in any way melty or liquid.

Thumbprint.

Put your butter in a large mixing bowl, one that will happily accommodate a beater. A deep bowl is a good idea, as butter and sugar in a wide, shallow bowl will go flinging about your kitchen and into your hair. Not that I know this from personal experience or anything.

Add to your butter 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar.

Sugar and butter.

Cream your butter and sugar together. This means beat it with your beater until it's a creamy, coherent substance. The DDH is exceptionally good at this, and the batch he made was smoother and more delightful than the one I did. I tend to get impatient and stop before everything is really and truly creamed, leading to a grainier (and, after being refrigerated, harder) finished dough.

This is okay, but another two minutes would make it better.

Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Vanilla.

and 1 1/2 to 2 cups flour. I add a cup, mix it in, then add more until it's the consistency I like. When you're making dough to bake, you want to be careful not to overmix the flour, as this will make for tough cookies. But if you're just eating the dough, it doesn't matter as much.

Flour.

Once your dough is mixed and the consistency you like,

Dough!

add 1 to 2 cups chocolate chips. In other words, add chocolate chips to taste, or according to how big your chips are or how many you have left.

This is a bit less than a cup of chips.

Mix together and enjoy!

No need for baking.

The dough will keep in the fridge for a week or so, not that it's ever stuck around that long at my house. To help keep your leftovers soft, press plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the dough.

You can of course form this dough into balls, drizzle and coat with chocolate, and take them to a fancy party.

But I won't tell if you just eat it all with a spoon straight from the bowl. ;-)