Quick Fried Rice

My mom makes the best fried rice; it's packed with flavor. She shared her tips with me, and I built on that to create my own version of FLAVORFUL fried rice. I bought some of TJ's applewood smoked bacon - the bits and ends, so to speak - which is cheaper than the package with the perfect strips. I keep it in my freezer, which actually makes for easier cutting. For this dish, I cut off a bit of the bacon and then sauté it in my wok. First step of flavor-building. Then the next step is from my mom. If you have scallions or shallots on hand, chop them up and add them to the mix. Brown those babies up. This adds tons o' flavah to the bacon fat, as if it needed any more. Then I add day-old rice, which is the other tip. Fresh rice won't fry up quite as nicely. Frozen peas are a must. I add a bit of soy sauce, salt, black pepper, sesame oil and ketchup. Here, I also added some cubed chicken from my bi-weekly slow cooker chicken.

 Then I beat a few eggs and create a well in the center of the wok (which I didn't do in the below picture, as you can see.) Do as I say, not as I do - ha ha!

 Stir the egg around in a figure eight pattern, and then when cooked, stir through. Taste and add more seasonings if needed.

This dish is a fave of the girls and they love having it for lunch. Amanda's preschool is awesome about warming up her lunches, and I bought a bento thermos thing in Little Tokyo for Katie - the next best thing to freshly warmed up lunches. You can do this with white rice, brown rice, quinoa, etc. Yum!

Fish Tacos with Slaw

The girls clamor for tacos every so often, and when I'm in a pinch for time, my fallback has been the pork carnitas at Trader Joe's - so fast and tasty, along with the TJ's wheat and corn tortillas. This time, I decided to honor the girls' request for tacos, but decided to change things up by making fish tacos. Easy and relatively quick - the fish cooked while I got the rest of the fixings ready. I found some frozen hake at TJ's (yes, there is a theme running through my posts - we live on TJ's!) and rubbed some olive oil and salt over both sides. I can't seem to find a photo, but will post if/when I find it. I baked the fish at 400 for about 10-12 minutes. Meanwhile, I washed a bag of shredded cabbage and a bag of shredded carrots. Mixed in some vegenaise and pickle relish, and heated up the tortillas. I used a fork to break apart the fish, et voila, a tasty taco dish that we all loved. Katie was so enamored with the slaw that she asked to have it by itself and for some for her lunch at school the next day. This one will be in our repeat rotation!

Roasted Cauliflower

Here's a simple veggie dish that does the cooking, allowing you to prep the rest of the meal while the cauliflower roasts. This was one of those mishmash dinners, where I had some leftover frozen TJ's pasta with chicken and mushrooms (tried something new to us, and it was passable, probably not a repeat purchase), some homemade chicken and veggie egg rolls from Katie's generous piano teacher, and one dish that I had energy to prepare after a tiring day.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. I took a head of cauliflower and sliced it - some pieces on the ends will break up into florets, which is fine. Place on cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil. I sprinkled salt on both sides, rubbed the cauliflower in some olive oil and also rubbed some dried coriander on one side. You can stop here and roast for approximately 20 minutes, turning the cauliflower over halfway through. This time, I decided to punch up the flavor, inspired by my friend Sokesei, who raved about a dish prepared by a friend of hers. So I added a couple tablespoons of capers. After the cauliflower was done, I sprinkled some slices of honey roasted almonds (TJ's - love!) and the dish was a happy marriage of nutty cauliflower, sweet briny capers, and crisp almond slices. Definitely a repeat in my arsenal of veggie dishes!