Fried Rice

I love fried rice! Once I figured out how easy it was to make, it became part of our regular rotation of dinners.  It's a great way to use up leftovers too.  The veggies and meat vary depending on what's in the fridge.

Here's all the ingredients I use:

Eggs

Frozen Pees

Leftover sausage and pork pieces

Leftover chopped celery

Carrot

Half used onion

Rice (could be leftover too)

Sesame Oil

Soy Sauce 

Oyster Sauce

Sometimes I used Hoisin Sauce too.

Ok, here we go:

1.  Start the rice.  It will be done just in time to add to your other pan of veggies and meat. If you have leftover rice on hand, this is really a one-pot meal! Note: I do not add any salt to the water because I'm adding soy sauce later and don't want it to be too salty.

2. Heat sesame oil in your skillet over medium heat. (You can also use canola oil.)

3. Scramble eggs (I used 2 here) and cook in the oil.

4. Remove the eggs from the pan and set aside.

5.  Add more oil if needed and start adding veggies.  Cook the onion in the oil first.

6.  Add more veggies (celery here)

7.  Add carrots, keep cooking...

8. Add frozen peas, keep cooking...

9. Add oyster sauce (or hoisin or both)

10.  Stir and cook till veggies are all tender. (Just turn your head sideways to see this picture the correct way.)

11. Add in any meat, here is my left over sausage and pork.  All my meat was already cooked because it was left over. If your meat is not cooked, you might want to do that before you cook the veggies, then just set aside and add back in here.

12.  Your rice should be just about done by now.

Add it to the pan with the veggies.

13. Add in soy sauce and more oyster or hoisin sauce to your liking.

14.  Chop up the eggs (spatula works just fine).

And add them into the rice.

Mmmm, dinner is ready!

My little girl loves this dinner! 

Of course, she eats all of the peas out of it first.

This dinner usually requires some post dinner rice pick-up.  

Homemade Vegetable Stock

If you thought the Homemade Chicken Stock I shared the other day was easy, homemade vegetable stock is even easier! And takes less time to make!  And once again, costs next to nothing because you use vegetable parts that would other wise get tossed (into the compost of course! which is also not a waste in my mind.) 

So for the ingredients: next time you buy asparagus, keep the bottom of the stocks that you cut off.  Through them into a bag in the freezer for the day you decide to whip them out to make stock.  My husband also wisely added some broccoli stems to the bag.  I think celery would be good too.

Here we go!

1. Empty your bag of frozen veggie pieces into a pot.  I also added some ground pepper only because I was out of pepper corns.  Use whole pepper corns if you have them.  Just a few.

2. Cover with water.

3. Bring to a boil then simmer for 20-30 minutes. Cover slightly so it doesn't all just evaporate on you.

I just knew you would want to see what boiling veggies looks like! 

I was right, wasn't I?!

4. Take out all of the veggie pieces and you're left with what looks like dirty water. But it's yummy stock!

5. I let mine cool over night in the pot because I frankly didn't feel like dealing with it the night I started making it.  That's just how it is sometimes. I get a great idea on a Friday night then end up wanting to go to bed before I finish what I started.

6. Now it's time to strain! Take some cheese cloth and ladle the stock throw it into a glass measuring cup.  

Move the cheese cake cloth around as little pieces of veggie clog up the area you're straining through.

You can see the pieces of pepper and some veggie pieces getting strained out.

 I poured a little over 1 cup of stock into plastic cups (I used plastic cups again because I like how easily they fit into a freezer bag once frozen). Into the freezer they go until frozen solid.  Then I take them out, invert the cup onto my hand, run warm water over it and put my homemade vegetable stock into a gallon freezer bag.  Homemade vegetable stock ready at a moments notice!

Homemade Chicken Stock

This is one of those things that is so easy, it just seems silly not to make your own chick stock.  You don't need to buy anything special for this recipe.  Just make use of what would otherwise be waste.

So here we go - make your own chicken stock!

(If you're not a fan of seeing chicken carcasses, you'll want to scroll through the next few photos pretty quick.)

1. Whenever we have a roast chicken or I buy a whole chicken and cut up the pieces myself, I save the carcass in the freezer until I'm ready to make stock. Each one just gets wrapped in plastic wrap then put in a large freezer bag.  I had accumulated 5 chickens so it was definitely time for some stock!

* Some (2) were roasted/cooked and some (3) were raw (the ones I just cut the meat off of to use). I like using at least one that was roasted because it still has lemon, garlic and herbs stuffed inside from roasting.  Not necessary but I love the extra flavors it adds.

2. I take my biggest pots and load up the chickens.

Hello chickens!

3.  Then each pot gets filled with water until the chickens are mostly covered.  Mine aren't covered completely because my pots aren't deep enough, but I get as close to covered as I can.  I'd love to one day have a HUGE stock pot that I can toss all the chickens into at once, but this works just fine.

4. If you're chickens weren't stuffed with anything, you might want to add some flavors. I like garlic cloves and herbs, like a bunch of thyme and sage.  A few bay leaves never hurts.  Whatever you have on hand.  I don't think you could go wrong here.  I also drop in some pepper corns for a little more flavor.

Bring the pots up to a boil and let them simmer for a LONG time (maybe 4-5 hours) with the lid semi-on - leave a little room for steam to escape.  If the liquid reduces too quickly you can always add some more water.  If the chickens were stuffed with things from roasting, it all eventually comes out.  See the lemons and garlic cloves? I think there's some sage floating around in there too.

Mmmm....your house will start to smell REALLY good - like you're making a delicious dinner! My husband's always a little disappointed when he comes in to see this is what I've got going on and not something he can sneak a taste of.

See the thyme? Oh and more sage.

Here it is a while later - nice color developing!

I stir it around a little from time to time.  Flip the chickens over if one side is above the liquid level.  The chickens eventually get really soft and completely break apart.

You might see some gel-like substance form on the surface.  That will get strained out later. 

5. After it's gone long enough that I'm satisfied with the flavor (try it!) and the color, I start removing the chicken pieces and everything else floating in there.  A mesh strainer works really well for this.  Don't worry about getting everything, you're going to strain it again once it's cooled.

Look at that color!  Doesn't it look delicious!

My pots are different colors which is why it looks so different in the two pictures - but both look equally nice!

 

Gorgeous rich color!

You could leave it in the pots to cool or remove it to measuring cups or bowls. I put some in a glass measuring cup so you can see how the good stuff separates with the gel-ish stuff.

I moved it all into bowls and covered with plastic wrap to cool over night.

 If you want to scrap off some of the top layer, go for it.  I always do but I'm sure it's really worth the effort.

6. When you're ready to strain, grab some cheese cloth, a big rubber band and a glass measuring cup. All the stock then gets strained through the cheese cloth removing all the various particles of stuff and the guck (yes, I'm pretty sure that's what it's called) and leaving you with beautiful stock!

 

You'll find that you will have to keep moving the cheese cloth to a new area every now and then because of all the stuff that will accumulate on the cheese cloth that you're straining out. Just keep moving it as needed.  

Once I've filled the measure cup with 1 cup of stock, I pour it into a plastic container that will go in the freezer.  I thought 1 cup was a pretty standard amount of stock for the recipes we use it for.  You can always do more or less, depending on how you plan to use it.

Keep straining, pouring and stacking in the freezer.

* I've also frozen it flat in a quart freezer bag before but found it much more difficult to defrost in the microwave that way. I'd rather not microwave anything in plastic and it's pretty hard to get out of a plastic bag when it's frozen.

I quickly ran out of plastic containers and had to resort to using plastic cups.  Turns out the plastic cup shaped frozen stock fit into freezer bags more easily.

Once everything was frozen solid, I turn each container/cup upside down onto my hand and run warm water over it to pop the stock out. Load up some gallon freezer bags with all your stock and you've got amazing, flavorful, organic (if your chickens were organic) chicken stock ready to go whenever you want it!  This batch made us 16 cups of stock!  Should last us a while!

That's a pretty easy use for a chicken carcass that would normally end up in the trash, don't you think?

And why throw that turkey carcass away after Thanksgiving?  Make some turkey stock!