Sunday my hungover state led me to make an unhealthy food choice... a couple if I am being honest. I ate chinese take out for dinner. It was delicious and I did not... and still really do not regret it one bit. Yesterday when considering what to cook for dinner I opened the fridge and saw a little box packed with left over fried rice... it was staring at me saying "eat me". I said "no fried rice I am not hungover and I know you aren't the best decision for my summer body"... and then I pulled the container out of the fridge and decided to stop talking to the food and eat it.
Now I do not know if you have had fried rice from a chinese place lately but they have really let things go in that area. Maybe this is a figment of my imagination but I remember bitching when I was kid about the veggies in the fried rice. It came filled with egg, peas, and onion. By no means was it ever packed with nutrient rich veggies but at least there was something... those days are over. Now you are lucky if it is even actually fried rice rather than some yellow looking weirdo rice.. gross.
This was my fried rice taken out of the box before sprucing.
While I was willing to stoop to the fried rice level I refuse to eat it in its current lack luster state. I decided to spruce it up. This is something I have done before to add a little extra yumminess to boring left overs and it is always a great way to stretch leftovers for one into leftovers for two.
I have done many variations and none of which are really all that complicated... I just open the fridge take a look around and grab some stuff to add to the rice. Easy right?
I usually always add an egg and some onion and I would like to lie here and say some super fancy veggies I get from some farmer on the corner but let me be honest and say... I choose some stuff that might go bad soon. This time the options were limited but I found a couple carrots and some celery.
I chop it all up.
Then I saute those veggies in some olive oil. When they are cooked to my liking I remove them from the pan but don't put them in the rice just yet.
Although you could just add the veggies in and be done, I like to do a little more.
I then use the same pan add a little more oil or butter if you choose.. just enough to keep the pan stick free... then add the rice. When I say a little bit of oil or butter I am for real this is just reheating not cooking so keep it light.
This time the rice was a little dry so I added some ponzu sauce... I don't use measuring spoons but if I could guess I would say it was about a table spoon.
This is when I add the egg I make a little spot on the side of the pan and crack the egg right in... then I just scramble it as it cooks... I prefer it still a little separated.
Once it is basically cooked I mix it with the rice
Now it can all be mixed up
Although the final product doesn't look completely different it taste so much better!! And there are some extra veggies... so a little more bang for your buck in the nutrition department.
I grilled some chicken and the two things together made for an awesome meal... I added siracha of course
Tonight there was still a little of the spruced rice left so I sautéed some diced zucchini and peppers threw it all together in a little chicken rice bowl thing.
I feel like when I am cooking for one or two it is hard to eat leftovers before they become science experiments and same goes for veggies. This is a mini solution to that issue.
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