Veggie Fried Rice

This is not a picture of my rice, of course, it's what I see when I open my back door... the girls are always trying to get into the house and if I don't go outside, they knock! HAHAHA    Their names are: Chicken, Alouette, Martini, Peck, Sunny and Edna.

But, as per usual, I digress.  Today is about food for other people, food that can sit and wait for them while I escape for an evening of fun and giggling. 

On Friday night I had a date, well, a date with 9 girlfriends, to watch a movie (Magic Mike of course!), eat snacks, wear jammies and drink wine.  Really, is there a better kind of date?

I made Ciabatta and my new favorite onion/cheese dip as a snack to take and then I made a chocolate meringue pie because there are few things that will delight a room full of women in jammies than a chocolate meringue pie.  

Anyway, I knew the boys had to be fed as well and I wanted to make something that I could leave and they could simply reheat and eat.  Enter my quickie go-to meal, veggie fried rice.  I had veggies left from my Greenling (Austin) local farm box so it was an easy set up. 

TRACY'S QUICK VEGETABLE FRIED RICE
*I can't write this as a recipe, it's a method, so this is the only version...  

I DO realize that I put chicken in my vegetable fried rice.  I like chicken and I had poached a chicken in the pressure cooker earlier in the week and had a little left over.  You do not have to use chicken of course.

I had 1/2 (or a bit more) cup of cooked basmati rice in the fridge so that went on the island. 

I put 1 cup of brown rice in my pressure cooker with 1 3/4 cup water and a bit of salt and locked and loaded for 18 minutes. 

I cut up all the veggies I could find in the fridge, in small, evenly sized, pieces.

When the rice was cooked, I combined the white (basmati) and brown and put it on a sheet tray to cool.  

When I was ready to cook, everything else was ready too, we love that.  

Here's the long winded, loads of pictures, play by play: 

The best rice for fried rice is day old rice.  On the days I make this and don't have "old" rice, i cook it and spread it out on a tray to cool and dry out.  In today's case, I had both so I simply combined them.  I chopped up veggies and lined them up (this isn't all of them but I wanted to grab a picture).  I also had broccoli and peas and green onions.  You can add ANY veggie you like.  

I get a local farm box delivered to my house and I think this is a great way to use up the second halves of any vegetables you get and want to finish up.  You absolutely can add cooked vegetables too, just toss them in at the end and cover for a minute or so to warm them through, no one wants overcooked, soggy veggies... euwww.

This is my $7.99 Ikea wok, I love it but they don't sell it anymore at my local store.  It's well used, can you tell?  :)
  
I whisked 3 eggs with a drop or two of sesame oil, my condiments, soy, chili paste, oyster s sauce, mirin and sesame oil.  That's my garlic slicer (I love that thing!) there's a couple of cloves in there. First off I heated some oil, threw my eggs in , scrambled them and tossed them into a bowl to wait for me.
  
Then I heated more oil and threw in garlic and ginger paste... fry fry fry. 

Then I threw in the veggies... fry fry fry
  

then I threw in more veggies... fry fry fry

I removed them to the same bowl as the egg and added the chicken to the pan and fry fry fry and dumped the chicken in the bowl too...  I'm not authentic but I'm fast and it's good so keep reading.

   

A little more oil in the pan and in goes the rice... fry fry fry  Add some oyster sauce and spices and toss around then dump all the veggies, chicken and egg back in. Toss it around for a few moments.  Add your spices of choice, oyster sauce, mirin, salt and pepper, chili... whatever you like.

  
It's looking like dinner! Not bad for 10 minutes work.  Add some peas! Cover it for a moment or two...
  

open it up...and you have DINNER!  Transfer it to a pretty blue bowl and leave it there for your men to help themselves (this looks wetter than it really was, it wasn't soggy and yukky... it was absolutely delicious!)

  

it's quick.

it's easy.

it uses up everything in your fridge.

it's healthy.

it's delicious. 

it freezes beautifully.

go make yourself some everything fried rice!  you'll love it.

/enjoy

Cinnamon CRAZY bread loaf , yeah, I was bored

I was making bread.  Regular white bread.  The loaf I make every couple of days.  Just the one, over and over and over again.  The loaves are gigantic, light, flavorful, make great sandwiches and are generally the hit of any function that requires I bring sandwiches.

I made a loaf and put the dough aside to rise.  I stared into the kitchen aid mixer.
"I wish I had cinnamon buns but I don't want to mess with cinnamon buns."  (My committee speaks to me frequently)

I looked at the proofing box with the delicious white bread loaf inside.  Rising.

DING! DING! DING!

KITCHEN ALCHEMY BRAINSTORM MOMENT!

I quickly made another batch of white bread dough. I put it in a second proofing box and stood back... poured a glass of wine and waited. I was brilliant and I didn't mind waiting.

TRACY'S CINNAMON LOAF

1 recipe single loaf white bread (recipe and link to follow)
a lot of butter
a lot of cinnamon sugar
powdered sugar.

There are NO measurements. Look at what I did:

When the dough had proofed, I rolled it out to a super large rectangle.  I slathered it thickly with butter and then sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar.  I used a pizza cutter and sliced it three times...  four pieces!  I STACKED them!!
  
I sprayed my extra long, thin, loaf pan (any will do) and then used the pizza cutter to slice the stack of 4 into about 20 pieces.  maybe 1 1/2 inches wide?  then I STACKED them in the loaf pan!  HAHA  Seriously, this stuff comes out of my head.

  
I squashed them in, next time I won't do QUITE so many but I was totally in experimentation mode here.  LOOK at how adorable they look all squashed in together!!  Just to gild the Lilly (what a weird phrase?!)  I sprinkled more icing sugar on top, covered it loosely with a dry towel and left it about 20 minutes.
   
AHHAHAHA  LOOK!  It was crazy wonky and I figured, "what the heck, bake it!"  So, into a preheated 375 oven for about 30 inutes and look  AHHHAHAHAH  It looks CRAZY!
   

I stared at it a momentm, not sure if I'd messed up completely and then it dawned on me, I COULD pull slices off!  HOLEE COW!
  
I decided it needed powdered sugar.  I would have made icing but I didn't have enough.  NEXT time, it'll be iced with a drizzled icing that can run down the sides and into the grooves... yeah, I'm there with you!  I pulled it out of the pan and it stood there...  looking like a VanGogh and then we started pulling slices off... and eating them, then eating some more.  It's like the very middle piece of the cinnamon bun, each slice!  Super thin slices that are buttery and cinnamony and sugary and I rolled each one up as I pulled it off.
   

This is one of my more brilliant alchemy moments.  Other than the icing, I wouldn't change a thing.  I may make one for girls movie night tomorrow night.  I think a room full of women, escaping for the evening from husbands, children and work, with bottles of wine strewn around the room will HAPPILY devour this in record time.  EXACTLY what it was meant for.

 

Do this... go play with dough.  If you don't have your own single loaf recipe, I suppose you can use frozen dough although don't tell me about it, it's easier to make some.  I'll do a tutorial of that in the next day or so.  I just had to get this out...  crazy.good.

Play with your dough... next time I'm putting butter and citrus sugar, lemon and orange, between the layers and will drizzle lemon icing over it... oh yeah baby! 

/enjoy

Oh and not to be left out, here's the single white sandwich loaf... perfect! :) 

LOCAL BOX Roasted beets

LOCAL BOX

INGREDIENT;  BEETS 

Side dish, Oven roasted beets

Cut the tops off the beets (save, wash, chop for use in other 'greens' dishes)
Wash the beets.  Lay them on foil and drizzle handily with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
Seal them tightly in the foil package and roast at 375 for about 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and leave, sealed until ready to use.

  
They look sad without their tops or tails... wash them!
  
Now, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and seal them up, tightly
  
Ok, into the oven!  375 for about 30 minutes.  Oh look.  They smell great, are cooked and tender.  I'm a big fan so I snuck a slice out of the middle before they were cool enough to handle.  Yummy!  When they cool down a bit, I run them under warm water to slip their skins off and wash my hands at the same time.  If you're quick, you won't wash flavor out of them.  Just don't dawdle.
  
Now, you have beets ready to use, warm or cold in anything!
  
I sliced them up to go with the sausage and pasta tonight, tomorrow I may put them in a sandwich, I do love a beet sandwich!


/get some beets
make this