Fried Rice

I’ve failed miserably in doing posts about new recipes. I’ve eaten out a lot this spring and summer, and when cooking I’ve relied a lot on repeat recipes. My fellow blogger The Sonny Skye Blog wrote a great post last week about her August Recipe Challenge of making something different and new every night for the entire month. She took the time to search Pinterest and write down her plan for every night.

That’s a really ambitious goal, but I know there’s no way I could do that. So my goal with the blog was one new recipe a week. Clearly I’ve failed, because the last time I posted a new recipe was almost 6 weeks ago. Which is pathetic because I cook at home most of the time. I just got lazy and stopped doing new recipes. Why? Because I fly by the seat of my pants with planning. It’s time to change that.  August is a horrible time to start, because my life is nuts with work until December. But I can’t use that excuse anymore. There’s no reason I can’t commit to an hour of recipe searching on Pinterest each Sunday. Heck, I don’t even have to search right now. I’ve pinned over 1,100 recipes already. Let’s be honest: no chance I could ever do the every day for a month challenge. But 2 new recipes a week is absolutely reasonable. And then I have to do a much better job of photography too. But that’s a whole other issue.

I’ve always been a huge fan of fried rice. For a long time I always got it as my side at Chinese restaurants. Then a couple of years ago I decided to go healthier (or maybe less bad) with steamed rice. Last week my dad and I had Chinese for dinner. I don’t think I’ve been to a single Chinese restaurant that doesn’t give you way too much rice. And I have yet to figure out why. And then they give you a side of rice for each entree. Again, WAY too much.

Normally I would just leave all the extra rice, and of course it goes to waste.  Last week my dad said, “take it, and we’ll make fried rice”.  Well duh.  I’ve never thought of making fried rice.  My mom does it occasionally, but I’ve never tried it. Well, there’s a first time for everything. The next night I got on Pinterest, and found literally hundreds of recipes for fried rice. All different types. Since my dad is vegetarian I wanted to find a veggie version. That way it could be a side for our protein.  I eventually settled on “The Best Ever Fried Rice“.

Here is the official recipe photo

And here is my version

I have to say, I’m extremely proud of my first attempt! This was so delicious and had tons of flavor. For some reason I thought it would be difficult to make, but it’s super easy. It was a large batch, and we ended up eating most of it that night. We did manage to save some for my dad to have for lunch the next day.

I followed all of Ali’s suggestions:

1) use cold rice
2) use butter
3) use veggies
4) use sesame oil and oyster sauce
5) take time to actually fry the rice

I used Smart Balance instead of real butter, to save on some fat and calories. And I used less than the recipe called for. Ali and I are complete opposites on the sesame oil spectrum. She loves it. I used what the recipe called for on a different dish once, and almost threw the whole thing away. It has a very strong, very unique flavor. Definitely an acquired taste. But I did use just a tiny bit this time. To me it was still too much, so next time I’ll try without it. The recipe calls for 2 eggs.  I just used one, because my dad rarely eats them. He said my mom doesn’t use egg at all, and honestly this dish doesn’t really need them. But it’s classic. So I used it. Since this was my first attempt, I can’t say if it’s better to use cold rice. But I have read that many times.

UPDATE

I’ve made this numerous times since I first posted. Yesterday I couldn’t really decide what I wanted for dinner. I momentarily thought about ordering carryout, but I’m really trying to do less of that this year, especially in Stillwater. There’s really no reason to not just go home and cook. So I compromised, by stopping at Sushi House and getting a side order of steamed rice and made a batch of fried rice

 

Recipe found on Gimme Some Oven