Fried Rice Heaven

One of my favorite things my mom would make when I was a kid was fried rice.  I remember the electric fry pan she would bust out, and the big pan of white rice she would make ahead of time.  And it was always my favorite when she would you the Chinese BBQ Pork with the sweet red goodness on the outside.  So, with my own twist, I made some fried rice.  It was childhood heaven all over again!

What you'll need:
2 cups Pearl rice uncooked  (then cook it according to instructions,  I just throw it in my rice cooker with 3 cups water, but you cook it however you like)
1 good size chunk chinese bbq pork, sliced into thick strips
6 eggs
2 large carrots diced
1 cup peas
1/4 medium onion diced
1 bunch green onion, diced
1/2 can chunked pineapple

1/2 cup Soy Sauce divided
1 teaspoon Yellow curry (or whatever color you've got)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (if you like spice)
2  tablespoons sesame seed oil
2 tablespoons oil for frying rice (I used olive oil, because thats what I use for everything)
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger (maybe a little more)

Scramble eggs, set aside. Heat 1 tablespoon sesame seed oil and half the soy sauce in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add onion and diced carrot and saute until carrots are tender and onions are just about caramelized.  Next add peas, green onions, meat, pineapple, curry, giner, cayenne and cook for another 5 minutes.  Remove from skillet and set aside.

Add remaining sesame/olive oil and soy sauce to skillet and heat.  Add all your pre-cooked rice and mix until well combined and rice is a brown color from the soy.  Now stirring frequently, fry your rice.  You may want to turn up the heat just a bit.  Allow the rice to sit for about 30 seconds, then fold over.  It will have a little bit of a crispy look to it.  Keep doing this for about 10 minutes.  Mix in meat/veggies and eggs until well combined with the rice.

I guess I added a little Sriracha to the rice too!

Dish up!  Add some Sriracha Sauce if thats your thing, or whatever you like, or nothing.  The mild ginger and curry flavor makes this one dish meal so so yummy.  I have a bowl of leftover waiting for me in the fridge right now.  Enjoy!

Stuffed Turkey Meatloaf

I was more excited to cut into this thing and see how it looked than I was to eat it.  Kam thought I was nutzo, but hey, I'd never stuffed a meatloaf before!  And, not only did it look awesome, but it tasted just as good as it looked!  Double bonus!

What you'll need:

For the Loaf:
1 package extra lean ground turkey
4 medium mushrooms sliced
1/2 onion chopped
1 egg
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup white wine
2 teaspoons mushrooms gravy mix from packet
1/2 cup bread crumbs (I used Italian Seasoned)
1 cup baked potato chunked (Optional. I had it left over from the filling from the hollowed out potato breakfast)
Pepper

For the Filling:
1/2 cup frozen spinach after water is squeezed out (I only had fresh on hand, so I steamed it for 5 minutes, ran it under cold water, then squeezed and pressed it into a fine mesh strainer until all the water was out. Same end product.)

3/4 cup feta

1/2 cup ricotta

Pre heat oven to 350.

First, place onions and mushrooms into a medium skillet over medium high heat, add wine and a splash of olive oil and saute until everything is nice and tender and all liquid has reduced.  Add garlic and saute for another minute or until garlic is nice and fragrant.  Remove from heat and place into a large bowl.  Allow to cool for a few minutes.  Once cool enough, add potato, bread crumbs, egg, pepper and gravy. Mix with a fork until evenly combined.  Add turkey.  I mixed this everything together with my hands, use whatever tool you prefer, just make sure it's well combined.

In a smaller bowl, combine spinach, feta, and ricotta. Set aside.

Grab your favorite loaf pan and spray with cooking spray so you loaf will come out easy and not fall apart.  Place half of you loaf meat in pan and press down, working meat up the sides about 1/2 inch and flat in the middle to form a moat for filling.  Next, scoop filling into center, and spread out evenly.  It's ok if its a little heaped.  Next pile the remaining meat on top and evenly distribute to cover filling.  Make sure you take you time pushing the meat around the edges to try and seal the two halves together.  This well help you remove the loaf from the pan without it falling apart. Cover with tin foil and place in oven for 40 minutes, then remove foil and continue baking for about another 20 or until meat is fully cooked.

Remove from oven and let set for about 5 minutes.  Use your favorite method to remove the loaf from the pan.  I ran a knife around edges to loosen it, then was able to place my hand over loaf and quickly flip the pan over so the loaf was in my hand, then set the loaf on a cutting board.  Done. Slice into 1 inch pieces and serve with some steamed veggies and a salad, or a baked potato, or whatever you feel like.

This thing turned out awesome.  I was thinking that beef meatloaf filled with sautéed mushrooms and onions would be heavenly too.  Enjoy!

(Update: Had the left overs tonight, better the second day!!)

Breakfast Hollowed Out Potato Goodness

This was fun, tasty, and looked like a lava flow of egg yoke.  Could anything be better? Nope.

What you'll need:

Before you start, depending on how many potatoes you are filling, will matter how much filling you will need.  It doesn't take much, so keep in mind that I filled 3 potatoes for this recipe.

Pre-Baked russet potatoes (I baked the night before, so they were cool when I was ready to scoop out their guts. You can figure 1-2 per person.  Kam ate two, I had one.  Also, try and get larger spuds.  I would consider the ones I had large size.  If you had extra large potatoes, you could probably fit two eggs inside, which would be cool for the boys)

Breakfast meat (pick your favorite.  I used bacon today for Kam.  About 4 slices.  Next time I would probably use sausage.  Even ham lunch meat would work great!)

1/4 onion chopped

1/2 red pepper chopped

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 clove garlic minced

1 cup grated cheese

1 tablespoon blue cheese (optional, but highly recommended)

1/4 cup fresh copped cilantro 

Fresh  cracked pepper

Eggs, one for each potato

Bake your potatoes the night before.  First, cut the ends off each potato, one end you will scoop out the insides, the other end you will stand the potato up on.  Take potato and a spoon and slowly start removing insides, being careful not to get too close and beak the skin.  Make sure you try and not get too close to the bottom, and don't squeeze too tightly because the skin cracks easily.  Set potatoes aside.  Brown your meat.  Remove from pan, leaving some of the grease and saute your onions,  red pepper,  mushrooms until everything is nice and tender, add meat back in.  Add garlic cook until nice and fragrant.  Turn off heat.  While you are sauteing your veggies, place your potato cups in the oven at 375 to warm them so you are not cracking eggs into a cold potato.  Once your potatoes are warm, remove from oven.  But leave the oven on.

Filling the potato:  First add a pinch of cheese to the bottom of each.  Then add your filling.  You want to fill them until they are about 3/4 full. Keep lightly pushing down on filling to fit the most in you can.   (You are still going to crack an egg inside, so just make sure you still have room for that.)  After the filling, add a good size pinch of blue cheese and cilantro.  Next crack egg into each potato.  If the potato cracked anywhere in the skin or on the bottom, you will see a bit of the egg white seep out.  Just be quick with this part, so you can put them in the oven and set the egg.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.  Start checking at about 15 minutes.  If the white is about set, but still a little jiggly, add another pinch of cheese to the top, and turn of the broiler.  Watch them closely now, once the cheese is melted, you should be good to go.  

Viola.  Potato lava flow.  I'm all ready thinking how I can morf this into Shepard's Pie.  Enjoy!

I cried...

from laughing, after watching this little video...

Swedish director Johannes Nyholm 

Comfort Food thought...

Have you ever thought that Comfort food, which is the most tasty and wonderful to cook, isn't actually comforting food but Guilt food. Ohhhhhh life...I just came across a recipe that provoked that thought.  I'll share....


Beer Bread Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Just the beer bread alone is enough for me.  You can get the recipe here, at this great food blog!!  

Tomorrow is friday and today is sunny.  Have a great thursday!!!

Frilly Lamp Shade

I love this lamp shade.  I made it a while before I started this blog, but I really wanted to add it to my DIY so I thought I would do the same layering to this little glass light that I have on my night stand.  It's a cheapie that I got from Ikea a long time ago, and during some move it got cracked.  So, why not spruce it up a bit.

What you'll need:

Parchment or wax paper
Glue (plain ol' Elmer's works perfect)
Lamp shade
Ruler
Pen Knife

First, you want to cut out your pieces of paper.  For the first project, I took my metal ruler and used that as my width guide as well ad straight edge to cut along.  I just laid the ruler over the paper and lined it against the edge of the paper and ran the knife along the other side of the ruler.  Then I cut those strips into 2 inch long pieces.

For the second lamp, I couldn't find my pen knife, so I tried just folding the wax paper in half, then half again, and agin until i was about an inch wide, then I folded that like an accordion into 2 inch sections, to give myself a guide for cutting with scissors.  It wasn't nearly as neat.  But I will post the step by step photos anyways.

Once I had a good size pile of cut paper, I ran a line of glue along one edge of a strip, and starting from the bottom and working around, I over lapped each piece half way. I let the first layer hang over the lamp shade about half, so about 1 inch was hanging over the shade. When you get all the way around, you will have to lift the first piece up and slide the last one underneath.

Make sure you pay more attention to the bottom of the paper than the top that it is lining up.  The top line (where the glue is) will get covered by the next layer or paper.  The bottom shows.

For the second row, you will want to start it so it covers half of the first.  Glue the second row all the way around, lifting the first strip and sliding the last underneath again.  Continue this all the way to the top.  The second to last row should be flush with the top of the lamp shade.  For the last row, cut the strips in half again, so they are one inch, and glue them around the top flush again with the top rim of the lamp shade.

Here was my last full sized layer, but I didn't stick it flush with top.  I should have, because you can tell when the light is on that they layer under the last top layer doesn't go all the way.

Done!  Isn't it cute!!!  Kam says it looks like a skirt.  Its probably a little too frilly for him (or any guy) but I love it!!  This is Dexter while I was working on the lamp, he was snooze'n in his favorite position.

Yarn Balls

I just sat here for a full 2 minutes and tried to think of something other than balls to call these, but they're balls, made from yarn...so yes, the title of this post will be yarn balls.  And, they are really cute and fun to make.  You could make a bunch of them and fill a bowl or vase.  I'm thinking I might make some really big and hang them inside the big tent at our wedding.

What you'll need:

Mod Podge

Different colored yarn or twine or any kind of string
balloons
Some sort of contraption to hang them from
close pins
pie plate

Mix 1 part Mod Podge to 2 parts water in your pie plate.  Unwind your yarn into the glue mixture.  You will want about twice as much yarn as you think.  For my first one, I probably had about 10 feet and it wasn't near enough to wrap around my balloon as many times as I wanted.   Besides, if you have too much, you can always cut it off once you have the desired look you want.  Blow up your ballon to the size you want and tie the end.  Make sure your yarn is fully soaked in the glue, then start wrapping.  Just tuck the ends under the layers of yarn.  Now, hang your yarn ball from your hanging contraption and let dry for about 24 hours.  You will want to place paper towel under the yarn because it will drip and splatter.

After they are dry, just lift the knot up and put a little slit in it to let out the air.  Try and hang onto the end, so that way you don't have to try and fish it out from inside the ball.

My hanging contraption (invented by Kameron). A long plastic spoon, shoved under a box in the cupboard  above our washer.  I could only fit two at a time, but it worked!!

Pretty fun little decoration, you could even mix yarn colors.  That is above my kitchen sink.  Have fun!

(update, Kam just suggested I call then Yarn Spheres. Balls is way classier, ha)!