Vegetable Fried Rice – Messin with Perfection
I actually had some interaction with friends this weekend. Wow, that felt good. We don’t do that often enough. Everyone is so busy, it seems there is so little leisure time, and isn’t that when you need it the most? That time to laugh, relax and unwind with friends and family. Blow off the stress of the work week and the everyday worries? That’s what make’s life worth living. It’s not about what you have, but who you have in your life.
Too often I find myself trying to take on too much. Take what could be an easy relaxing get together and stress myself out trying to make the perfect meal, then you add that much more work cleaning it up later. I’m working on that problem….
Well, tonight I found myself with some leftover rice from the weekend and, with only myself to feed and a bunch of leftover veggies in the fridge…what to do but fried rice?
Even cutting up the veggies I had no more than 30 minutes into this, and I believe it was less than that. I had some snow pea pods, cocktail corn, water chestnuts…not typical fried rice ingredients but I love them, and I can put whatever I want in my fried rice. The beauty of this is that it can be whatever you like. Don’t like onions? Leave them out. Love broccoli? Throw some in there! I will present this as I made it, but understand you can substitute just about any vegetable, add more or less of the seasonings, add some heat, whatever!
It is advisable to keep this to one or two servings at a time, otherwise you may be tossing ingredients all over the stove or kitchen…that’s what I do.
This quantity takes about 2 cups cold rice, so you easily get two good sized servings. One of mine is going to work with me tomorrow for lunch.
- 2 cups leftover / cold rice
- 2 eggs, beaten
- about ¼ - ⅓ cup EACH sliced carrots, snow pea pods, diced onion, baby corn, water chestnuts, or what ever you have or like to total around 2 cups.
- 1 slice of fresh ginger, around nickel to quarter size.
- 2 cloves minced garlic or around 1 teaspoon
- 2-4 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
- ½-1 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)
- About 3 Tablespoons soy sauce - I use Tamari
- About 1 teaspoon oyster sauce (optional)
- In a small prep bowl, mix the soy sauce and oyster sauce and set aside.
- In a wok or large skillet, In 1 teaspoon of peanut oil, cook the eggs. Scramble them and, as they are getting solid, cut/shred them into small bite size pieces. Remove the eggs to a saucer or small bowl.
- Add 2 tablespoons of the peanut oil and get it good and hot. Add the garlic and ginger and saute just for a few seconds, then add the vegetables. Saute the vegetables on high heat, stirring frequently, until just STARTING to get tender, 2-3 minutes. Add the rice and stir it around, breaking apart any large clumps. After 1-2 minutes, drizzle the soy/oyster sauce mixture over the rice and vegetables. Stir quickly to coat the rice as evenly as possible. Taste for seasoning, add more soy sauce if necessary. Fry for another minute or two then stir in the eggs. Make sure the eggs are mixed in evenly and coated. Serve hot.