Ripped Off Recipes

I follow a number of other blogs, and many of them are focused on cooking & baking. I live vicariously through them, as these ladies' skill in the kitchen far outshines mine. You will see them listed over to the right. Anyway, the other day, Donna made some fried rice, and ever since then, I have been jonesin' for some. I have a hankering, a yen, a craving. I have a fevah, and the only prescription, is more cowbell . . . oops . . . I mean, fried rice. I read through her post and thought about how I would tweak it depending on my preferences, although it is more about what I have in my fridge & freezer at the moment.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in possession of the carcass of a roasted chicken, so I threw in a bunch of additional stuff and made chicken stock. Fragrant, liquid gold. A container came out of the freezer and I turned up the heat. I am going to cook my rice in it for more flavor.

What? I forget to post about that? Oh gee. Sorry.

The stock is starting to melt down.

Is this not a thing of beauty?
Ohhh yeah, baby, I wish you had smell-o-vision.
(That was for you, Buckykatt.)



I have always wondered why the TV cooking people don't remove the hard, tough root end of the garlic clove before mincing it up. They do it for onions, after all. I don't want to end up gnawing on that nasty thing, so I whacked mine off.
(Ooh, that sounded dirty ;-)



My good friend at work gave me this chopper. CanIjusttellyou, I love this thing for chopping garlic.



Now, Rosie, I can't make it with white rice.
White rice hurts me in my heart.
And since I sanctimoniously look down my nose at anything but a whole grain,
I am using BROWN rice!
And since there was about 2 cups of broth, I dumped in a cup of rice & set the timer for 45 minutes.



And when it was done cooking in that beautiful chicken stock, holy cow!
That's some mighty tasty rice.



While the rice was cooking, I got everything else ready.
First, chopped an onion and let it caramelize in some peanut oil.

Pause while I wipe my eyes with a cold, wet paper towel.
Caramelized onions make me weep with joy.
Really. It wasn't the chopping.
I love caramelized onions.



Then I added celery & carrots & garlic & let that work a bit.
I also sprinkled in some ginger & sesame seeds & a touch of 5-spice powder & let it all cook just until deliciously fragrant.



Took all that stuff out & scrambled a couple eggs.



Added the vegetables back in, along with some sugar snap peas that I cut in half.



Lastly, the rice and some tamari sauce.



Be still my heart.
This was good.
It hit the spot.
BS loved it too.


The fever has cooled.

Lesson learned: The scrambled eggs ended up chopped too fine. I would have liked bigger chunks of egg in there. Egg chunks - sounds appetizing, doesn't it?