Recipe: Fried Rice

 I wanted to share my fried rice recipe with y'all today.  I really love making this because it is a one pot dish for dinner, and I always have plenty of leftovers for lunch the following day.  I originally got this recipe from a class I took at BYU, and it's actual name is "Pineapple and Ham Fried Rice", however; I don't use ham very often, but I generally add pineapple to the pan.  Another reason I like this recipe is that it's so versatile: you can use whatever meat you'd like (although I prefer using chicken most often) and whatever vegetables you like (while mandarin oranges aren't a vegetable I don't recommend substituting them for pineapple as they will most likely fall apart while cooking).  The amount for each of the vegetables I add to this recipe is estimated.

Ingredients:

2 cups short-grain rice
4-5 eggs, beaten
garlic to taste
butter
Soy sauce (I use a gluten-free, properly fermented soy sauce like this brand.)
coconut oil
garlic, salt, and ginger to taste
chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/4 cup water or chicken broth
Sesame seed oil
1 medium onion, diced OR 1 bunch of green onions, chopped
2-3 carrots, chopped
1/3 cup of peas, fresh or frozen
1/3 cup mushrooms
1 can pineapple chunks, drained  
1 cup chopped cabbage

Directions:

Cook the rice according to package direction on stove top or in a rice cooker.  Heat butter in a large pan.  Add beaten eggs and garlic to taste.  You don't want to scramble the eggs, however; but allow the eggs to cook until the bottom has set.  Cook the eggs until they are done, but not dry.  When eggs are finished, cut them into pieces.

For the chicken, I prepare a little sauce by combining water or chicken broth and 2 tbsp soy sauce in a small bowl to pour over after the chicken has been cooked on the outside. Using the same pan, add butter or coconut oil and melt it over medium-high heat.  Add chicken, and sprinkle garlic and ginger over it, and then add the sauce.  Remove chicken from heat once the chicken is cooked thoroughly, and cover.

Add more coconut oil to the same pan and melt it over medium-high heat.  Add vegetables one by one. I generally throw in the carrots first because they take longer to cook.  When the rest of the vegetables have become softer, I add in pineapple and frozen peas.  I season the vegetables with garlic, salt, and soy sauce to the vegetables.

(When I cook with carrots, I don't care about peeling them.)

Above: of the vegetables and pineapple. For this batch, I added mushrooms, pineapple, carrots, peas, green onions, and cabbage.

 Once vegetables are done, turn the heat down low and add rice, eggs, and chicken to vegetables.  Combine all of the ingredients, but be careful to not over stir.

Roasted Vegetables

One of my favorite ways to consume vegetables is to roast them in the oven.  Often times I will roast potatoes and carrots together, asparagus, and broccoli with lots of garlic.  For easy clean up I will place aluminum foil on a cookie sheet and then put the vegetables on the pan.  However, I've found that some vegetables  (broccoli, potatoes, and even carrots) tend to stick when they are roasted, so I've had to kind of play around with fats and oils that'll help the vegetables not stick so much.  I've also added chicken broth that I've made in huge batches because I really like the flavoring the chicken broth gives to the fries and I also think that it helps the vegetables not stick so much.
Last night I made the most heavenly "French fries" by roasting them in the oven.  Here's my recipe.

5 medium potatoes, cut into wedges
3 tbsp butter, melted
1 1/2-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
garlic powder

Combine the melted butter, olive oil, and chicken broth together in a small bowl.  Pour butter mixture over potatoes and add spices with your hands.  Combine the potatoes and the butter mixture with your hands.  Cook at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or so until the potatoes are soft.  Serve with ketchup or eat plain.  Now these french fries were a bit greasier than your average roasted vegetables, but I'm sure you can adjust the butter mixture recipe so that the vegetables become crispier.

Yum!  And removes from the foil so easily!

Side note: As a girl from Idaho, I just want to say don't pass on the potato.  Sure the potato has carbohydrates, but comparing it to other items with lots of carbohydrates (rice, wheat, etc.), the potato looks good.  Potatoes also has a lot of potassium--a little bit more than a banana, Vitamin C, and other necessary vitamins.  And the Incas lived on these bad boys.