Easy Vegetarian Fried Rice

This month is the one-year anniversary of Wok Wednesdays.  I can’t remember how I initially found Grace Young, Matt Lardie (co-founder of the group ), and the Wok Wednesdays crowd, but however it happened, it surely was a stroke of luck for me.  From the moment that I ditched my non-stick wok in favor of a carbon steel one, I knew this was going to be fun.  After learning how to season and care for my wok, I began to stir fry with gusto.

I’ve made vegetables, shrimp (to die for), several chicken dishes and I’m contemplating tofu.  Although I’ve looked at stir-fry recipes by other chefs and cookbook authors, my mentor is Grace and my bible is her book, Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge. 

Now that I've made many of Grace's recipes, I am ready to spread my stir-frying wings (so to speak) with my own stir-fry recipes.   For my first one, I decided to stay with a simple, family favorite.  When our kids were young and we "ate Chinese," my daughter Eleanor would always order fried rice.  Although she usually didn't eat a lot, if dinner included fried rice, she ate like a champ.  Remembering how she concentrated on finishing a huge bowl while the rest of us grazed off of many other dishes brings a smile to my face even now.  I decided that re-creating "Eleanor's fried rice" was the right way to celebrate Wok Wednesday's anniversary. 

Fried rice is simple to cook yourself and you can make it in a large pan if you don’t own a wok.  (Though I hope you’ll consider getting a wok – it’s infinitely better and not expensive.)   In this recipe, the garlic and ginger shine through, but the overall taste is not spicy.  This is really more of a template than a true recipe.  You could substitute vegetables; just keep in mind, that all vegetables should be chopped into small pieces of similar size and that “hard” vegetables (such as carrots, celery and onion) that take longer to cook should go in before those “softer” vegetables (such as mushrooms) that take less time.  If you've never made fried rice before, check out my 5 Tips for Great Stir-Fried Rice.

Easy Vegetarian Fried Rice

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5 Weird Uses for Food

What’s your favorite weird use for a food (ingredient)?

Mine is the tech miracle of drying out a wet iPhone in a bag of rice. 

Here’s another one, from my daughter Eleanor.  Next week, I’ll give you 3 more weird uses for a total of 5.  Do you have other weird uses of food I should include on the list?  If so, leave me a comment here or on the MotherWouldKnow facebook page, or tweet it to me with the hashtag #WeirdFoodUses.

Eleanor wrote this guestpost during her recent visit at Passover and so began her explanation with a quote from Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann of Mishkan Chicago, 

"Passover is about letting go old habits, comforts and crutches, and stepping into the unknown, wide open expanse of possibility."

I did this in the simplest way:

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My 15 Pantry Essentials

When I'm invited into a friend or neighbor's home, I always notice that the books and knicknacks tell much about their owner's personality and preferences.  Of course my favorite room is the kitchen, and that's where you really see how people live and what they are about.  

On the theory that I should let others look into my life if I want to look into theirs, I'm taking you on a tour of my pantry.  Rather than just aimlessly wandering though, I decided to figure out which pantry items are essential to the meals that I regularly prepare.  Initially I tried to limit myself to 10 items, but ended up with 15.  This list does not include my favorite herbs or spices (covered earlier) or refrigerated items, which I’ll cover soon in a separate post.  Several of the listed essentials are categories rather than single ingredients, but the list still gives you a sense for unrefrigerated ingredients I keep on hand for routine cooking and baking. 

My 15 Pantry Essentials

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