Semi-homemade cooking: Unfried Rice

I came up with this recipe while I was helping out my mom who had been ill with pneumonia. She’d just come home from the hospital, and was only just starting to regain her appetite so I wanted something fairly simple I didn’t want to head to the grocery store. All we really had in the house for quick cooking was leftover rice, frozen veggies, and eggs. And so, unfried rice was born! This was really a thrown together dish, so please excuse the lack of measurements and exact quantities-do what you want, modify, and use what you have on hand! Here’s how I did it:

Ingredients:

Pre-cooked or leftover rice (probably about 3 cups)
½ a bag of frozen broccoli (obviously, substitute whatever veggies you have on hand or prefer)
2 eggs
Soy sauce
Seasoned rice vinegar (we use a brand called Nakano)
Ground mustard
Dried (or fresh) parsley


Basically-I cooked the frozen broccoli by the stovetop method-which involved putting the broccoli in a pot with a small amount of boiling water. I partially drained the cooked broccoli leaving a little water, and added the pre-cooked rice. I scrambled and cooked the egg s, and chopped them up with the spatula before adding them to the pot as well. I turned on very low heat and added the soy sauce, vinegar, and spices. I mixed everything together and cooked until heated through. That’s it!


It came out pretty tasty. Not quite the same as fried rice of course. I think I’ll make this again at home with some changes. I might add a small dash of sesame oil and maybe red pepper flakes or sriracha to make it a bit more interesting. Let me know what you think! What would you add or leave out?

Homemade Cooking: Pasta with Beans and Greens

I’d like to share a recipe I tried out a couple of days ago. I came up with it mostly based on a few veggies that begged me to buy them at the Trader Joe’s. And I love pasta, so of course I had to include some! It’s simple but tasty, and would be really easy to modify further to fit your tastes. The veggies, whole wheat instead of regular pasta, and some beans for protein sound like a fairly balanced and healthy combo to me! As usual I forgot to take pictures before we’d eaten it all.

Ingredients:

1 bag whole wheat egg noodles

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic (minced)

½ of a red onion (diced)

1 bunch kale

1 bunch chard

1 can of white beans (drained and rinsed-I used great northern)

Red pepper flakes (to taste)

Salt (to taste)

Pepper (to taste)

Grated fresh parmesan cheese (to taste)

Directions:

Cook pasta (I suggest undercooking them by about a minute as they will cook more when combined with the other ingredients) while you prepare the rest of the meal. Put olive oil in a cast iron pot/dutch oven-just enough to coat the bottom of the pot.  Add garlic and red onion. Slice kale (without stems) and chard into pieces and add to pot. Cook until tender.  Add beans, pasta, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to pot. Toss together and cook until heated through (5-10 minutes).  Add grated parmesan cheese to each person’s when serving, stir and eat! Yum!

This was a really quick and easy recipe to make. You could probably use any kind of greens (spinach would probably be tasty!)  You could omit the red pepper flakes if you don’t like spice. It would probably also be tasty with zucchini, bell peppers, or just about any other veggies that are good cooked.  You could probably also omit the olive oil, although I think it makes the spices and garlic/onion flavor stick to the pasta and veggies. Even though it’s a fairly healthy oil it should be used sparingly, of course, as a little bit of oil adds a lot of calories. Enjoy!

Copyright 2011. See more at Voyage of the Hyperspace Hippo

Semi-Homemade Cooking: Jazzing Up Store-Bought Pesto

As some of you know, I had my wisdom teeth out not too long ago, and I was eating soft foods for ages. Eventually I got sick of eating mashed potatoes, oatmeal, pudding, and V8 fruit/veggie juice. I wanted to cook something, but I still didn’t have a whole lot of energy. I was craving pesto, so I came up with a super quick veggie meal. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 16 oz bag of pasta
• Small amount of olive oil1 clove garlic-minced
• 1 medium zucchini (courgette, for those of you in the UK!)
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1 container of store-bought pesto

Cook pasta according to package directions. :-p While pasta is cooking, dice zucchini. Remove seeds from tomatoes. Dice tomatoes. Put small amount of oil in a frying pan. Add minced garlic and diced veggies. Cook until soft. Add entire container of pesto to veggie mixture and cook on low heat for a few minutes until mixture is hot. If pesto begins to dry out or stick add a little water (water from the pasta, if it’s still cooking, works well).  Drain pasta and toss with pesto mixture. Serve and eat!

A few notes: I used Buitoni reduced fat pesto with basil, that I found with the fresh pasta in my grocery store. I looked at the ingredients/nutrition info and didn’t see anything weird in there like you sometimes find with reduced fat products-loads of extra sugar or salt for example-and it tasted pretty good even on it’s own. For the pasta, I used Trader Joe’s vegetable radiatore pasta because I love the colors, but any pasta (especially one with nooks and crannies to hold the sauce-like rotelle/rotini) would work.

This meal was from a few days ago, and I’m sorry I didn’t take any pictures. It was actually really colorful and pretty!  We ate it for 2 days.  The first day we tossed in some fresh mozzarella, which wasn’t bad, but I think it was overkill.  The BF did take some to work as a sandwich with some of the leftover fresh mozzarella, and said it was great. It could easily be made without the added garlic if you like, with different veggies, or with homemade pesto. I love modifying recipes to create something a little bit new, and jazzing up prepared foods. Let me know if you like this post and I’ll keep blogging about these recipes when I come up with them!

Copyright 2010. See more at Voyage of the Hyperspace Hippo