Sweet Pea Journey

Family, Friendship, Food, Fun and Everything in Between!

Author: Sweet Pea

Cooking

Cold Day Beef Stew

This is one of the easy comfort food recipes. It’s easily prepared, basic techniques, doesn’t require exotic ingredients. Once you are comfortable with the basic method, you can put your own twist on it.

Ingredients:

2 lb beef chuck roast, cubed into 1 inch chunks.  Doesn’t have to be exact on the weight, a bit more or a bit less doesn’t really make much difference in the final product. Chuck roast is a great cut for beef stew, the connected tissues will break down during the cooking process and the meat will be tender and flavorful.

1/4 c plain flour, salt and pepper to taste

2 carrots, peeled and roughly cut into chunks.

3 golden potatoes, scrubbed clean and cut into rough chunks about 1 hours into cooking process. Or you can cut them early and soak in water to prevent browning.

1 large yellow / white / sweet onion, roughly chopped

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed

1 large sprig of rosemary and 2 sprigs of thyme, perfect aromatic for beef stew. If you don’t have access to fresh herbs, use about 2 tsp of dry herb instead, no biggie

about 3 cups of beef stock, or water (or 1 cup of red wine + 2 cups of stock / water, flavor would be much deeper)

1 tbsp tomato paste

 

Method:

In a large bowl, season beef with salt and pepper, mix to combine. Dust flour onto beef cubes, mix to even coat beef with flour. This will help thicken the sauce in the end. Heat a dutch oven or a heavy bottom stew pot on medium high heat, drizzle about 2 tbsp mild flavored oil until oil is heated up. Drop beef cubes in and brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Brown beef cubes in batches if needed, please do not crowd the pan, otherwise the temperature will drop too much and beef won’t be properly browned. Don’t be tempted to move the meat around, just drop the beef in, and let them alone. Once the beef is browned, they will be much easier to be turned. There will be some darker bits at the bottom of the pan, don’t worry about it at all, it’s all good flavor. Put browned beef cubes into a bowl and set aside.

Drop in onions and sweat in the same pot, no need to clean after browning beef! Moisture released by onions will help loosen up the brown bits in the pan, just scrape the bottom of the pan as needed with your spatula or wooden spoon, while moving onions around. After a couple of minutes, add in garlic. Again, no need to finely chop, the long cooking process will break them down for you beautifully. In about 30 seconds, you can smell the aroma of garlic. Add carrots and cook for a couple of minutes. Push the veggies towards one side, add the tomato paste into the open area and let the heat “wake up” the flavor. Move it around with the spoon, and mix with the veggies after about 10 seconds. Drop in herbs, let them wake up. Add red wine, if you are using it. De-glaze the pan and give the alcohol a chance to cook out. Add the remaining liquid in a couple of minutes. Mix it together. Add beef back into the pot, juices and all. Mix and bring the whole thing to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and walk away.

Return after about 1 hour,  add potatoes into the stew, mix to combine. Lid back on and let it simmer for another 40 minutes or so. Stir every 10 minutes or so to make sure nothing is stuck at the bottom and there is enough liquid. When the stew is done, taste and adjust with salt and pepper as needed.

I’d like to serve the stew over white rice, pasta, or with nice warm tortilla, make a beef stew taco! You can also mop the juices with dinner rolls, use left over beef chunks on pizza, make empanadas or even enchiladas! The possibility is truly endless.

How do you like your beef stew, and how would you serve it?

Cooking

Tomato Soup

I don’t really know why I never made tomato soup before. I love tomatoes, and it’s really just summery goodness in a liquid form, what’s not to love? So I tried to make it the other night, turned out, it is blog worthy. So here it is.

 

Ingredients:

About 4 large or 6 small plump ripe juicy tomatoes, any kind would do really, but apparently the juicier, the more tomatoy, the better. Or you can use a couple large cans of good peeled whole tomatoes.

1/2 of a loaf of good crusty bread, roughly cubed to about 1 inch cubes. White bread or even left over bread would be fine too. I personally prefer plain bread in this case, something that has milder flavor.

Chicken stock, about 2 cups, or 2 cups of vegetable stock, or water and bullion, or even plain water, no biggie.

A few basil leaves, for flavor and garnish. Of course, I had to have some fresh basil in my garden, so that’s easy for me.

1 whole onion roughly chopped, again, any kind would do. But I’d prefer yellow, white or sweet, purple onion may turn the soup a bit darker in color? If you tried it, please leave a comment and let me know!

4 cloves of garlic, smashed and roughly chopped.

1+1 tbsp olive / avocado / vegetable oil, something mild flavor would do

Salt and pepper to taste, and you will need a blender, either a stick blender (which I love and less mess to clean up), or a good counter top blender

Any kind of cheese for garnish, if you prefer. Hint: mozzarella, tomato and basil is ultimate combo

 

Method:

In a large soup pot (larger ones are easier to stir vegetables around, and when blending, less soup splatters outside the pot), drizzle in 1 table spoon oil, heat on medium high. Sweat onions for about 3 minutes or until onions are soften and translucent. During this time, rough chop tomatoes and smash and rough chop garlic, move the onions around every now and then to ensure they don’t burn. Add in garlic and stir around veggies for about 30 seconds. Add in tomatoes, juices and all. If you are using canned tomatoes, use a wooden spoon to break up the tomatoes a bit. I know a lot of major chefs like to squeeze tomatoes through fingers in a separate bowl and dump into the pot, I am not a huge fan of doing that, simply because I can’t seem to ever be able to maintain the cleanliness of the counter or my clothes.

Stir all veggies together, add in the stock. I don’t really fuss about buying boxed stock, or making my own. I am sure it tastes wonderful, but I only do that for special occasion. I like to use water and bullion. Nowadays you can use powder form, cubes, or even refrigerated paste type. They are a lot easier to handle and store. I like to throw in about half of my basil leaves at this point. Once the mixture comes to a boil, reduce the heat to medium low, lid on and let it go for about 35, 40 minutes. Cube your bread and set it aside. Hint, good time to start cleaning up the mess on the counter, or pour yourself a drink and enjoy the amazing smell of the house.

Check your soup, stir it around from time to time, make sure nothing burns at the bottom. Add in bread cubes, and use the spoon to push the bread down and soak up all the goodness. Lid on again and let it go for another 5 minutes or until the bread cubes are all softened. Notice, I still have not put in any salt or pepper. Depends on what kind of tomato you use, you may not even need ANY salt at the end, amazing, right?

Break out your stick blender, or counter top blender. Blend the soup to desired consistency. Now is the time to try a little soup and adjust seasoning, if needed. Be careful not to burn your lips, it’s HOT! Dish up, stick some pretty basil leaves and sprinkle the cheese on top. You will be glad you made this super simple, healthy and delicious soup!

Life and random things

State Capitol

After almost 12 years since I came to live in Houston, I finally made my way to the State Capitol in Austin, Texas, thanks to my daughter’s audition nearby.

It was a super nice day, low 70’s, sunny, light breeze. So, I took my dad and the kids to go visit the State Capitol. We walked into a big park. Immediately, we were wooing and wowing, cellphone was pulled out, selfie time with the kids. Think my dad already wandered off and started taking pictures of random sights.

On the walk towards the capitol visitor center, we saw school buses were around, kids in school uniforms were here for field trips. Some people are having picnics under the trees, some are taking a casual stroll around the park. What a sight! My little goof balls went crazy, they ran up and down the hills, lied down on the lawn giggling, soaking up the sun and chasing the squirrels. My heart melted watching these priceless faces.

So many statues in the park, you can’t help but feel the history of Texas seeping into your bones. Details on each statue are just stunning. I couldn’t resist the urge to snap a few pictures.

We finally made our way towards the visitor center. After security, I looked up, so did the kids. I will save my words here, just share a few pictures. Of course, a short video of my little dancer feeling the music.

For days I kept thinking, what have I done in the past 12 years and what have I missed? I have been so busy with everything I thought was important, have I made the most dangerous mistake of keeping myself so occupied and not doing what I really want to do, but hoping that one day I will eventually be able to do what I really want to do? I have always said that I love to see the world. After I have been in Texas for 12 years, I finally made it to the capital city, which is only a little more than 2 hour drive away? What was my excuse? I have to admit, if I didn’t have extra time on hand now, if it wasn’t for my daughter’s audition, I may quite likely wait for another 12 years before I can make a trip to Austin. But, it’s not too late, I need to do something to change that. I have one life, I want to live it to the fullest. If you know me in person, you would know this doesn’t really sound like me. But I want to be the example for my kids, no matter what happens in life, don’t make excuses, step out of our comfort zone, we can not only make it through, and we can make it a fabulous experience. When they go through a hard time in life, I want them to be able to say, my mom made it, I can too.

Cooking

Tres Leches Cake – Speedy Version

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe. It’s super easy, literally no work at all. And the recipe and process is so easy, that I only followed the recipe the very first time. The best part of it? The cake is SO delicious, my kids prefer this cake over fancy expensive professionally made birthday cakes since 2 years ago! However, before you promise your little one you will make this cake for them, make sure tell them it’s going to be ready tomorrow, because the cake needs to sit in the fridge over night to soak up the milky goodness.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 box of store bought yellow cake mix (yep, that’s a great start, isn’t it?)

Eggs, vegetable oil and water as required by the yellow cake mix box instruction

 

For the tres leches part:

1 can of sweetened condensed milk, any brand

1 can of evaporated milk, any brand

2 cups of any kind of milk you have in your fridge, or a mixture of milk of what you have. Can’t be simpler than that! I used half and half, heavy cream, 2%, whole, fat free, soy, almond, coconut milk…

 

If you want to go fancy and want to cover up imperfections:

1 can of whip cream (or you can whip heavy whipping cream, which I think is actually worth the effort)

2 cans of fruit jam / spread of your choice (I made strawberry jam myself this time. It’s my son’s birthday after all)

 

How to:

Follow the instruction on the cake mix box and bake the cake. Use either 9″ x 13″ pan, or 2 off 8″ pans (especially if you want to gift one and keep one, and you will be GLAD you kept one!) Pay attention to the different time required to bake the cake, based on the baking dish size.

After the cake is done, take it out of the oven, leave on the stove top to cool (I am not a cooling rack person, and always seem to lose mine anyway) for roughly 10 minutes.  Use a wooden spatula, or small rolling pin, poke the cake all the way to the bottom, literally every 1 inch distance or so. Don’t worry about the look of the cake, you will either keep it for your family, in which case, trust me, everyone will devour the cake and no one will pay attention to the look of the cake, or, you can cover it up with the whipping cream.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and whatever milk you have on hand. The third kind, don’t stress too much about the quantity, a bit more a bit less doesn’t really matter. That’s another reason why this is my kind of recipe. Make sure scrape the bottom of the bowl with your whisk, the sweetened condensed milk tends to stay at the bottom, way longer than you may think it would. Have fun with this process, put on your favorite music and dance a little, it won’t hurt! Or, you can recruit your little helpers, they always love this part.

Carefully pour the milk mixture onto the poked cake(s). Divide evenly, if you are baking 2 cakes. It may seem like the cake(s) are swimming in the milk mixture. Don’t panic, the milk goodness will be all absorbed by the cake, and the cake will be so luscious and soft, and melt in your mouth.

At this point, I normally cover the cake with plastic wrap and stick them into the fridge and fight the urge to taste it. Next day, take the cake out of the fridge, slather the fruit jam / spread and cover with whipped cream. I promise you, proper dessert is served!

 

Alterations to the cake:

In the cake mix, add a can of drained and pressed crushed pineapple, use coconut milk as the third milk, you have your piña colada version cake

You can add a can of any sort of chopped fruit, very well drained into the cake mix

At the bottom of the baking dish, sprinkle brown sugar, arrange rings of pineapple and put a cherry in the center, dump the cake batter on top and follow the rest of the recipe – fancy pineapple upside down cake version

The changes are endless, let me know what you did with this, I’d love to try your version too!

Cooking

Chinese Wontons

Yes, these are the authentic Chinese wontons. Nope, they are not the fried tortilla strips in a bag you get from a fast food chain restaurant. And guess what, they are super easy to make, you should try it too!

Ingredients:

1 lb ground pork (you can use super lean, lean, regular, any type you like)

1 inch worth of ginger root, don’t worry about peeling, freeze ahead of time if you can

2 green onions, green part and white part

2 eggs

salt, pepper and chicken bullion powder to taste

1 package of store bought wonton wrappers (I like super thin type, it will say on the packaging, can be found in refrigerated area or frozen area, better yet, check out your local Asian market!)

You will also need a large clean surface to store the wontons. I normally use my cutting board, baking sheet or pizza pan. And I normally make a large quantity, so I choose the pans that fit my freezer. I freeze my wontons on the pans over night, and bag them the next day for a quick and easy wonton meal any time.

How to make wontons:

Take out the frozen wonton wrappers from the freezer, leave them in the packaging, on the counter to defrost, or leave them in the fridge over night to defrost. Do not microwave or heat it up, the wrappers will stick together and you might as well make meatball soup instead.

Dump all ingredients into a mixing bowl, doesn’t matter the sequence, just dump them all in. Please don’t mind my not so clean bowl in the picture, I only remembered to take pictures after I ran out of fillings, so the picture was second batch fillings.

Use a spoon, a fork or a pair of chopsticks (if you feel extra Asian today), mix the filling mixture vigorously in either clockwise or counter-clockwise direction for a good 5 minutes. This is the workout session for me for the day. Normally I would be able to feel the upper body muscles that I didn’t know I had. Take breaks if you need to, I certainly took a bunch breaks. Use a standup mixture if you have one, especially if you are making a large portion of wontons. One thing to keep in mind, when mixing the filling, keep it in one direction. This one directional thing is quite serious, if you ask people selling wontons in my hometown farmer’s market. They say it helps the filling to be soft and it will melt in your mouth.

This is the time to take the wrappers out of the packaging. Use your thumb and index finger to grab the entire stack of wrappers in the middle, shake it to loosen up the stack of wrappers over the sink, you will have some loose flour falling off, that’s fine. Notice in the picture below, I have the stack of wrappers fanned out all pretty on the cutting board. This is easy to do, and it helps when you need to grab one wrapper at a time, because most wrappers would be offset a tiny bit and already separated, but not exposed with a large surface to dry out. What I did was after shaking the stack, I put them on the cutting board, firmly pressing down the stack with the palm of my hand and turned my hand clockwise. You can use either hand, turn either direction. It may take a bit practice to feel the right pressure to apply. If too firm, you can press the wrappers together more, and they won’t fan out, if not firm enough, only the top layer of wrappers will fan out. Another essential for wonton making, a glass of your favorite drink. I got one there shown in the picture too!

Making the wonton is actually quite easy, probably a lot easier than you think. There are multiple ways of making wontons. I do not mean any method is better than others, but I am showing you how wontons are made in my home town. They look like sailor hats.

Grab a wrapper and lay in one hand, grab roughly 1/2 tbsp of filling and put in the center of wrapper. Fold wrapper over towards yourself, offset a bit, so it’s not a perfect rectangle, it will make the wonton look prettier in the end. Dab some water at one corner on the fold, lift middle finger up a bit and push the “meatball center” up a tiny bit, bring the 2 corners on the fold together, with the corner with water on the bottom, pinch the corners together, water will act like glue. Viola! Your first wonton is done! Now based on how your wonton turned out, you can adjust filling portion, add a bit more water on the corner or put on less.

Here is a video of how I made my wontons.

 

Common things to adjust:

Filling portion. Always start with less filling, you really can’t mess up with tiny bit of filling. It’s a good practice. Worst case, you can consider your first ever wonton a cross between flat noodle and wontons. There really is no right or wrong on the filling portion.

Wonton wrapper cracks, this is because the wrappers are dried out. The cracked wrapper you might as well toss it out, not much you could do to fix that. But the rest of the wrappers, you can lay a damp piece of paper towel over the stack for a while, or keep it on until you need another wrapper. I work pretty fast, so I don’t do this. If you are practicing making wontons, you can do this to your wrapper stacks, so you are not under pressure and feel like you are on a timed cooking show.

 

Life and random things

Lay off

Yes, that happened to me, after 10 years, 3 months and 17 days of working in oil and gas industry in Houston.

I knew it would happen because of what I was going through put a strict limitation on my mobility for an unknown length of time. Oil and Gas industry has been really bad in Houston for a good 2, 3 years now, and tons of people have lost their job one way or the other, along the way. I have been pretty sentimental to see people got let go, some expected, some shocking. I have always been sad about the situation, knowing some of them have to leave the country due to visa, some are the only financial support for their spouse and kids. Every time someone I know got laid off, I wanted to reach out but didn’t know what to say really…so days go by and before you know it, someone else is gone.

So it finally caught up to me. It’s such a weird feeling. Even though I knew it’s coming my way, and frankly, been quite surprised how much my bosses have been encouraging me and sheltering me and with my special situation and the fact that I kept my job for almost 9 months in this mess. I feel like my life in the past couple years has been like a crazy terrible movie story, so bad that if you watch it for 5 minutes, you would probably say this is too exaggerated that it can’t be real. I am beyond grateful, that my bosses, coworkers and friends, who know what I am going through, have been extremely supportive of me through this journey. I wouldn’t be where I am today, financially, physically or emotionally without these wonderful people around me.

I am grateful. I am also sad. I knew I had to put an end to a career that requires travel as much as mine did. I knew I had to make a pretty huge change in my life. It’s a scary change. I am in the middle of a divorce, have 2 kids, don’t really know nothing but subsea installation, after all, that’s the only thing I have done for over a decade. What else can be remotely related to laying pipe on the seabed? I have been bouncing ideas with a handful of very close friends recently. My passion lies in culinary, and old lady type arts and crafts. Some encouraged me to just quit my job and jump straight into something I love to do. I was scared, I was afraid of all the what-ifs. My job became boring because I lost the most fulfilling part of it, the part where you get to see all your hard work become reality, or see with your own eyes, what worked, what doesn’t and learn how to improve it next time. I did lose my motivation quite a bit, but I am a person who takes pride in what I do, and no matter what I do, I don’t like doing a bad job. So, at the end of the day, even the expected lay off, made my heart sink. I put on a smile in front of my kids, my parents and my friends. But deep down, I felt like a failure. I do not believe it was my fault, I do not believe I did such a horrible job that my company had to let me go. I believe it was the limitation on what I could do and should be doing that cost me the job and sense of I did a good job. Even though I knew I needed to put a period to the whole decade of “subsea installation”, I didn’t want to end it the way it did. I didn’t get to choose to end it. That’s what hurt me the most.

I cried a few times, after the kids went to bed and my light was turned off, I cried when I was on the phone telling people I care about, I held back my tears when I told my parents about it. I couldn’t let them see me cry. I wanted them to be proud of me all my life. Maybe I was too hard on myself, but the sadness was undeniable. But I was also happy when so many of my friends and coworkers texted me and called me sending me leads of other jobs and setting me up with new connections. I feel I wasn’t as bad of a friend or employee. I feel I still have a reputation. I feel like this isn’t all that bad.

It’s so brutally true, the world will keep on turning regardless what happens. I had to make necessary changes, I had to pick my spirit up and look at the bright side. Now the decision is made for me, I didn’t get to choose how and when to end my chapter, but now it’s ended, and it’s my chance to go all-in on what I want to do and what I am truly passionate about. If this never happened, I would probably still be weighing my options and be scared about making the change, and may possibly never get to do what I love. This is also a good life lesson for the kids, life won’t be all smooth, what matters is, we can get through it together and being sad or blaming others doesn’t help. I get to spend more time with my kids and my parents, either one won’t be forever. I literally have nothing else to lose, the good thing about getting to the rock bottom is, there is only one way to go – up!

Cooking

Wing-it Pizza and Arugula Salad

Pizza and Salad anyone? We made this super simple and restaurant quality pizza and arugula salad the other night. It looked stunning, smelled amazing and made us feel like a million bucks eating super yummy yet healthy dinner!

Here is how we made it.

At the super market, we felt like home made pizza for dinner. So, without searching for a recipe, we just winged it. We grabbed some assorted olives from the olive bar (majority was for snack, shhh), a chunk of fresh mozzarella cheese, an heirloom tomato, a bag of arugula and a can of whole tomatoes (I followed experts’ advice, bought a 28 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes) and we went fancy, bought 4 slices of prosciutto, and a ball of fresh pizza dough (this is a true life saver, I didn’t have to slave myself kneading the dough and spending quite some time letting it rise, and store bought fresh pizza dough is always spot on). I know I have onions, shaved Parmesan cheese, fresh lemon, shallot, garlic, fresh basil from my garden, we are good to go!

After we got home, first thing first, the pizza sauce needs to be made (or you can cut corners even more, and get a good jar of pizza sauce). I diced a small onion, smashed 3 cloves of garlic, and threw them into a heavy bottom sauce pan with a table spoon olive oil heating on medium high heat. Then I moved onto opening the can of tomatoes. I let the onions and garlic sweat in the sauce pan for a couple minutes, I dumped the can of tomatoes, juices and all, into the pot. I was too lazy to squeeze the tomatoes through my fingers and didn’t feel like making a mess. So, I poked them with a wooden spoon and broke them up in the pan. Don’t worry, at the end of the cooking process, the tomatoes will break down beautifully anyway. Immediately, I filled the tomato can with tap water and dumped that into the pan too. I didn’t want to waste any flavor of the tomatoes. Once the sauce came to a boil, I lowered the heat to medium low. I added a pinch of chicken bullion (or instead of the water and bullion, you can add chicken broth, or even good white wine). I loosely put the lid on, and let it go.

I took out the pizza dough, stretched it out to fit the nonstick pizza pan I have, sliced up the onions, mushrooms, pitted black olives, heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese. I gathered my fresh basil leaves. Music was on, a glass of wine was served, life was good! I had a few more minutes to spare while waiting on the tomato sauce, I pulled out the baby arugula and dumped the whole bag into a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, I mixed 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (about half a fresh lemon), 2 tbsp avocado oil (figured it’s a nice alternative to good old extra virgin olive oil, and it turned out I was right!), I put in a finely diced shallot, a pinch of salt and some freshly ground multi color pepper (black is good too, multi color pepper corn was what I had on hand, it does give any dish a nice little color boost, it’s fun). I whisked the dressing until it is emulsified. Here is a mistake I made, I dumped the dressing into the arugula bowl at this point, and mixed it up. The baby arugula wilted a little by the time the pizza was finally done. Even though I had a good time sampling the salad along the way, because the slightly peppery salad was really good, next time, I would leave the dressing separate until the last minute just before plating.

By now, the tomato sauce was done. I turned on the oven to a piping 450 degrees Fahrenheit,  I added in just a pinch of salt and pepper to taste. I ladled some sauce in the middle of the stretched out pizza dough, mirroring exactly what I see on TV from pizza restaurant commercial, spreading the sauce from center outwards, in a circular motion, using the bottom of the ladle. We had fun laying out the mozzarella slices, vegetables, and half of the basil onto the pizza. Can’t forget the prosciutto slices. We hand torn those and laid those pieces loosely on top of everything else.  Into the oven it goes. One thing to pay attention, don’t over load the pizza with veges, it will be too watery and makes it soggy.

We turned on the oven light, acted like little kids, sticking our faces on the oven door, waiting for the pizza to be done. 20 minutes and a facial tanning session later, the pizza is finally done!

A slice of pizza heaven, a handful of simple yet scrumptious baby arugula salad, some fresh basil and shaved Parmesan, dinner is served.

 

Cooking

Vegetable Fried Rice

Fried rice is one of the go-to dishes in my kitchen. No one really needs a reason to enjoy this great dish, but here are a few:

  • It is universal, you can literally use anything in your kitchen.
  • It is quick and easy, you can whip up an amazing one-pot dish in minutes! Did I mention it’s a one-pot dish? I am instantly hooked whenever I see that phrase in a recipe.
  • It is super healthy, kid friendly and you have your protein, carbohydrates and veggies all in one bowl. The combinations are truly endless, and even the pickiest toddler would never realize all the yucky vegetables are actually quite yummy!
  • Come on, let’s face it, who doesn’t like an amazing bowl of fried rice?!

So, I was scratching my head last night, wondering what I should make for my kiddos for dinner. This is what I whipped up in about 20 minutes.

Not the best I have ever made, but the kids loved it, another home run, that is what matters at the end of the day.

A little disclaimer: I am not a professionally trained chef, but I gathered some tips and tricks in my “home cooking career” and frankly, cooking is one of my passions. There are some tips that may be helpful to you at the end of the blog.

Anyway, here is how I made it.

First off, I scoured the fridge for ingredients that caught my eye. I found red onions (ideally, I would love to use yellow or white onions, but red would do. I will explain why later), broccoli crown, half of a red bell pepper in a Ziploc bag (no idea what happened to the other half, don’t judge me), a bag of asparagus, I took out 3 eggs and 3 cloves of garlic, and left on the counter.

After washing all my veggies and shake dry, I laid them on my veggie cutting board. I ran my knife through my veggies, diced red onion, chopped up broccoli, sliced the half red bell pepper and snipped and cut asparagus into inch long sections, and I minced my garlic cloves.

I put my 3 eggs on the counter next to the stove. I have a giant stainless steel wok, you can use non-stick, which is a great great option. Mine wasn’t in the best shape, so instead of using a sticky non-stick pan, I prefer to use my stainless steel wok. At the end of the day, it will not stick on my wok anyway, and you will see it. Wok on the stove, I cranked the heat on high as you can see in the picture below, and squirted some vegetable oil into my wok. You can use other kind of oil, canola, peanut, sunflower seed, grape seed, avocado oil area all good options. I am Asian, I don’t cook with a lot of butter though. Butter will probably burn in this situation anyway.

I left the oil alone for about 30 seconds to let it heat up. I cracked the eggs directly into the wok, one by one, again, because I really do not like doing dishes, especially if I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to use the dish in the first place. Take your time, take it slow, don’t worry about the eggs getting cooked into sunny side up. Trust me on this. The eggs started cooking immediately as they hit the hot oil. But keep in mind, I still had enough time to throw away the egg shells, wash and dry my hands, picked up my phone and snapped the picture. You will be just fine.

Then I took a wooden spatula, or you can use your favorite one (use wood or rubber for non-stick pan though) poke the yokes and stir the eggs around, to me, this looks exactly the same as if I cracked the eggs into a bowl and beat them with a fork first.. what do you think?

Once eggs are cooked, add your uncooked meats or other protein (if you are using leftover steak or pork chop, leave it till later, you want to cook all raw things first), stir fry till it’s cooked. I did not have any meats to add, so I moved on to adding veggies. Onions and garlic first, because most people don’t like raw onion or raw garlic taste in their fried rice. You want to make sure they are cooked thoroughly. I think I cooked onions and garlic for about 2 minutes or so, or until onions are translucent.

I dumped the rest of my veggies from the plastic cutting board straight into the wok. You see why I used the plastic cutting board instead of chopping all my veggies on the thick heavy wooden cutting board now? Yeah, there is a reason behind my madness. Muahaha… I picked up the plastic cutting board easily and curved it up a bit on both ends and all the veggies just slide right onto the wok, again, a bunch less bowls to wash, instantly, I felt like a million bucks!

Nothing fancy, keep stirring, stick the spatula to the very bottom of the wok, and pick up everything from the bottom and bring to the top, give absolutely everything a chance to get kissed by the heat. No rush, take your time. If you need to do something for a few seconds, that’s fine. Lower the heat a touch to medium to medium high, make sure don’t burn your food. After a few minutes, it would look like this. Notice, I lowered the heat a touch. Now I sprinkled in salt and my secret seasoning – chicken bouillon granules. I always have it on hand, it elevates the flavor exponentially. I don’t have a specific brand that I have to have, just whatever is on sale. I have Knorr brand right now. Within a couple minutes, all the vegetables will start to soften and release some juices. Don’t panic, it will be alright. Unless you put tons of cucumbers and tomatoes into this veggie mix, then it could be a soup.

 

Then last but not the least, cold rice goes in. Keep stirring, it takes literally a minute for the rice to evenly distribute throughout the dish, and soaks up the wonderful flavors of veggies and heat through. Final taste for flavor, add in more salt and or chicken bouillon granules, kill the heat. I normally would add a handful of thinly sliced green onions at this point, but sadly I had none in my fridge. You can also use thinly sliced fresh basil or cilantro, or parsley, whatever calls your name.

Dish up and enjoy!

Tips:

  1. Because I am too lazy to wash about 4 or 5 dishes that a lot of other cooks out there would use to temporarily store their prepped veggies, I just pushed them to a corner on my cutting board. So, less mess to clean up for me!
  2. Yep, you probably noticed that I shook dry instead of padded dry my veggies. I am quite lazy about pulling paper towels. And, I’d like to claim, I am a quite frugal person, and don’t like wasting my precious paper towels unless it’s an emergency. A little bit moisture did not hurt.
  3. Prepare all the veggies before turning on the stove. This is crucial. Stir fry rice happens so fast as soon as the heat is on, and believe me, turning off the heat during stir fry and restart again would be a very sticky and wet disaster. So, do yourself a favor, keep all ingredients prepped first.
  4. Mince garlic, some may find it difficult, because garlic cloves may be large, may be small, plump or skinny. It may not be very easy to hold stable on the cutting board and chop with a knife. I would put the knife flat on top of the garlic clove, and smack it with my palm or bottom of my fist first. Once garlic is smashed, it’s a lot easier to quickly chop it up.
  5. I personally like to use yellow or white onion for stir fry, but yesterday I only had red, which I prefer to put in salad and eat raw. But any onion would do. Dicing onions can be difficult. Depends on the type of onions, you may literally be crying a river. There are many tips of slicing or dicing onions or tools to minimize the pungent smell. Here is an amazing video to watch by Chef Gordon Ramsay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCGS067s0zo
  6. Slicing bell peppers, always slice bell peppers from inside out, in other words, put it on the cutting board skin side down. If your knife is not the sharpest, cutting from skin side can be quite difficult and knife blade can slide and your fingers may be in danger.
  7. You can always spend a bit more money and buy broccoli crown already cut into small pieces into florets, but if you would like to save a few pennies here and there like me, I cut it myself. Always cut from the stem side, make a slit from the stem to the base of the crown, then simply pull it apart. That way, you don’t lose a bunch of the tasty green crown, and it will turn out like mine in the pictures. Also, there are plenty YouTube videos on this topic as well.
  8. Rice, always use cooked, cold rice. Leftover rice would be best. Therefore, fried rice is a natural way to give leftover rice an amazing second life! You can always make fresh pot of rice, and stick it into the fridge to cool, but always use cold rice. Otherwise your fried rice would be a pot of sticky mess. Cold rice can be easily broken apart, and final product would have rice and veggies evenly distributed throughout, instead of clunks of rice here and there. Always try to break apart a chunk of rice before putting it into the pan. That’s why I used the back of a big spoon to press down the clunk and made sure the clunk of left over rice was broken up.
  9. Fried rice essentially have 2 components: rice / grain and add-ins. Some ideas for alternatives:
    1. Rice / grain: white rice, brown rice, wild rice ( I personally do not used this one much because wild rice has a much stronger taste itself, and can be over powering), quinoa, barley, couscous, even some other small bite size pasta or beans
    2. Add-ins: meat is one thing you can always play with. Diced chicken, bacon, ham, sausages, shrimp are all very tasty options. If you are meat free, or don’t have any of those on hand ready to go (sometimes, I don’t feel like defrosting, let’s face it, I don’t really always have fresh meats in my fridge), I can make a vegetarian version like I did yesterday. Eggs are always good. Did you know that a very traditional Chinese fried rice has nothing but eggs, rice and green onions in it? Veggie option is endless: onions, leaks, carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, asparagus, mushrooms.. they are ALL very amazing options. However, here is one very important tip: you would want to avoid high water content vegetables, such as cucumbers or tomatoes. You can still use those, but use less than other veggies, you don’t want to have a pot of fried rice soup. I encourage you try different combinations and discover new flavors.
    3. A handful of thinly sliced green onions at the very end is always always always a great ending. I have to admit, I did not have any on hand yesterday, I would take 1 point off my fried rice only because of that. Even if you don’t normally like onions or already had onions in your rice, still throw it in, and you will be happy that you did.