Chinese Fried Rice

This week I felt like having some Asian food. I was kind of craving chicken fried rice. So I made some! Indeed, having some cooking skills has its perks. You feel like having Chinese take-out? You want some sandwich from a fast food chain? You miss your mom's home cooking? Just make your own!

Chinese fried rice is so easy to make too. As long as you have the right ingredients, sauces and and spices you're gonna be fine. In fact, I sorta did mine like whatever. Just threw in what I thought would be right and it   turned out awesome! Even tastier than take-out! A word of warning though, I made a ton of it because I knew that this was all that I was going to eat for my lunches along with a couple of egg rolls. But if you want, you can reduce the recipe by half and serve it as a side dish to any meal you make. Here's how to do it.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of chicken breasts
• 1 can 19 oz (540ml) of diced carrots and green peas
• 1/2 a pack of sliced mushrooms
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 small onion (I used half a large spanish onion)
• 3 stems of green onions
• 1 small red or green pepper (I had left over green peppers from last week's recipe)
• 2 eggs (heck, 3 would've been even better!)
• Some oil for cooking
• Sesame oil
• 1/2 cup Soy sauce
• 1 cup Hoisin sauce
• 2 cups of bean sprouts
• 1-2 tbs Chinese 5 spices to taste
• 2 cups Uncle Ben's converted rice
• 1 box of frozen egg rolls (you know, to accompany the rice)

Directions:

First off, just pop those egg rolls in the oven. Those things'll cook themselves. Put 'em on a baking sheet and stick 'em in there at 375 F. After the first 10 minutes, flip them over, then waint another 10 minutes. BAM! You got egg rolls.

And they even come with the plum sauce!

Also, you may want to cook the rice first since it needs to be cooked by itself before mixing it with anything else. So, go ahead and cook 2 cups of rice according to the instructions on the box. Usually it's about 2.5 cups of water for 1 cup of rice. First, get the water to a boil with some salt and a tablespoon of butter or margarine. Then add the rice and let it cook until it's just about done. Drain if you have to and set aside. 

I cooked one cup at a time because I don't have very big pots.

While those egg rolls are a cookin' and that rice is boilin', let's get a choppin'! While you're doing all this, keep an eye on your egg rolls and your rice. Stir that rice from time to time to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom. Let's get the onions out of the way first because onions are sons of bitches that make you cry... Stupid onions...

I'm not crying...

Then we move on to those... fruits... Fruits? Bitch, please. Do you bite in a Tomato like you do in an apple? Does it even taste sweet? I don't care if technically it grew from a pollinated flower and has seeds. I'd barely even call it a freakin' vegetable. I mean that thing is all weird inside and gelatinous. Like some kind of larvae vegetable hybrid that never quite evolved to full maturity. Anyway, dice those things up.

Same with the peppers. Chop them up finely.

And the green onions.

Finally, cut the chicken into small cubes.

Before we mix all those together in a big pot, lets cook those eggs first. In a bowl, crack open the eggs and add about 1 tsp of soy sauce and 1 tsp of sesame oil. Then whisk them up to mix them.

In a pan, put 1 tsp of regular oil (I use grapeseed oil), and heat up to medium-low. Cook the eggs so that they break up into small pieces. Chop them with your spatula. Then set aside.

Now bring on the big pot and put it on medium heat. Add 1 tbs of oil and brown the onions. Then add the green onions and the chicken and cook the chicken thoroughly.

When the chicken is cooked, incorporate the can of peas and carrots as well as the tomatoes. At this point add half of the Chinese 5 spices and Hoisin sauce and mix well.

Finally, add the bean sprouts and the mushrooms. Then add all the rice, the rest of the spices and Hoisin sauce, the soy sauce and the scrambled eggs. Mix it all up and let it cook until the mixture is hot. At this point, you can add more soy sauce, Hoisin sauce and a little more spices to taste.

Done! Now serve. I hope you enjoy!

Those chopsticks are just there for show by the way.

Flipping the bird to Subway, again

July of last year I got really angry at a Subway employee for not knowing how to prepare a regular tuna salad. So I ended up making my own. I haven't been to a Subway in a long time. The truth is, I've eaten there so many times, simply because it was the only cheap "healthy" option around between that, Tim Horton's and McDonald's, that I simply got sick of it. The very smell of the place, you know that weird yeast-y baked bread smell and overripe veggies, now triggers a true feeling of disgust in me. But, sometimes I can't help but crave a god damn southwest steak n cheese sub. It's their sauce. It's so god damn delicious. Yet, I still didn't want to go to one of their franchise and smell that horrible smell. So, I decided to make my own god damn southwest steak n cheese sub and flipped the bird to Subway once more. And if you like that sandwich too, I'll show you how to make one at home.

Take THAT, Jared.

I went to the grocery store and got myself most of the same ingredients that they use at Subway. Bread, meat, cheese, veggies, sauce, etc. That's right, you can get the "same" spicy chipotle sauce at the grocery store. Ok, it's not quite the same. I think the subway one has more sugar in it. I'm pretty sure it tastes sweeter, which is probably why it's so god damn addictive.

Ingredients:

• Thin fondue beef slices
• Sliced Swiss cheese
• 1 green pepper
• A couple of ripe vine tomatoes
• Red onions
• Iceberg lettuce
• Can of sliced black olives
• Jar of sliced Jalapeno peppers
• Jar of pickles
• Herb & Parmesan sub bread
• Bottle of spicy chipotle sauce

Directions:

First, take apart the lettuce. To do this, just turn it upside down and press down on the core so the leaves break off and you can pull it out. Then just split it in two, rinse the leaves and get rid of the water in a spinner. This is important because, often, some bugs and dirt can get stuck in the head of lettuce. You don't want to eat that. I found a couple of small little beetles in mine. Not to mention that this will rinse off any pesticides that might remain on the lettuce.

When it's dry enough, store it for later use. I put mine in a large ziplock and left it open to dry up a bit so there won't be too much moisture in there.

Next, just wash the tomatoes and green pepper, peel the onions and just slice everything up, just like at Subway's.

Now for the steak. The great thing about fondue steak is that it's about as thin as the one they put in the sandwiches at Subway. Also, even though it is sold frozen, you can cook it right away in seconds. I just cooked mine in a pan over a little less than medium heat with a little bit of Worcestershire sauce and Montréal steak spice. I cooked two packs of frozen beef in minutes and I had enough to last me the whole week for my lunches.

After I was done, I put this all away in the fridge in nice sealed plastic containers. The next morning, I prepared my lunch for work. I sliced one of the breads in half lengthwise and just stuffed it. And then, I covered that sandwich with some spicy southwest chipotle sauce!

That bread was way too small to contain so much awesomeness. Thankfully, I had extra super mega heavy duty aluminum foil to contain it. Any regular aluminum foil would've exploded like dynamite. I even put it in a Ziplock bag just in case. To that, I added a small bag of Mrs. Vickies kettle chips, some cheese, and a couple of snacks. And there, you had my not Subway sandwich lunch for the day. Just as tasty, probably healthier, a heck of a lot fresher and probably cheaper considering what I would pay to eat at Subway all week versus the amount I paid for the ingredients themselves. And I didn't have to go through smelling that godawful yeast and rotten veggies smell. Hooray for home-made lunches!

This would've been a complete Subway meal had I

baked some more double chocolate and walnut cookies!