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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Pasta Primavera

Last night we came home famished after a fun afternoon.  My growling stomach said “think fast, cook faster.”  Dinner had to be satisfying and on the table before I started snacking.  A perfect night for pasta primavera.

My version is not so much a recipe as a set of tips.  This “recipe” requires only a bag or box of pasta, random vegetables, a few tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper, and a few tablespoons of soft goat cheese.  If you’ve got a container of goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and basil appetizer lurking in the freezer, so much the better, but plain goat cheese works fine too.  (The appetizer freezes really well; I try to keep small containers frozen – labeled and dated of course - to pull out for just this type of occasion.) 

No measurements here – this is about improvising and ratios.  As Michael Ruhlman points out in his cookbook Ratio, the key to much cooking is knowing how to combine ingredients to get the result you seek.  I simply gathered available vegetables and figured out how much pasta to use to make the dish well-balanced.   

My basic pasta primavera formula is 3 steps, 2 of which are simultaneous: (1) cook pasta; (2) sauté vegetables (cooking them quickly in a pan, using a small amount of oil); and (3) when they are both done, combine them, add a dollop of goat cheese, mix and add a bit of reserved pasta water, salt and pepper. Stir again.  Vegans can easily adapt this recipe by skipping the goat cheese. 

Boiling the water for pasta starts immediately; when you begin cooking vegetables depends on which vegetables you’ll use.   If the pasta gets done before you finish the vegetables, drain it, add a drop of olive oil, and return to the pot until you’re ready to add it to the vegetables.

5 Tips for Great Pasta Primavera 

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Have You Ever Cooked Leeks?

If you’re stuck in a rut with onions, how about leeks?  Milder, sweeter, and more complex than yellow onions, leeks are amazingly versatile.  Use them in stews or soups, sauté them with other vegetables, or prepare them as a side dish on their own.  They are good hot, cold, or room temperature.  Although they are big and tough in their raw state (I think they resemble scallions on steroids), when cooked leeks are surprisingly tender. Although they are almost always cooked, you can even use very thin slices of raw leek in salads. 

 

How to Choose Leeks

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