One of the beauties of fried rice is that it is actually better if it is made from leftover rice that has been refrigerated, you get a better texture.   But I didn’t have any leftover rice so I got out my trusty free (from freecycle) rice cooker and cooked 2 cups of long grain brown rice in 4 cups of water (should have used 5 though because of the texture that I wanted for the fried rice……ended up adding some water to the skillet to give the rice a slightly stickier texture that is condusive to fried rice).   The beauty of fried rice is that it is FANTASTIC for using up leftover bits & pieces of stuff from the fridge!   Here’s specifically what I did, but please make this your own by using what you have in your fridge!   I would bet that this recipe came from desperation to use up all of the bits & pieces of leftovers in a Chinese Momma’s fridge

Lori’s Vegetable Fried Rice

Serves 7 a good sized portion (1 1/2-2 cups)

• 2 cups long grain brown rice, uncooked (you can definitely use white)
• 4 1/2-5 cups water
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 1 cup sliced snow peas (I cut each snow pea into thirds)
• 1 bunch asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 12 oz. extra firm tofu, pressed to push all the water out, then marinated in a teriyaki sauce (recipe to follow), then diced
• 1 tbsp. grapeseed oil
• 3-4Tbsp. low sodium soy sauce (to taste)

Cook rice and let cool as much as possible or use leftover rice (approx. 5 cups).
Prepare veggies while heating up the skillet to a nice hot temperature.   Once your skillet is nice and hot, add oil, then “fry” tofu (or meat) until nicely browned.  Then add veggies and rice and soy sauce and mix very well.  Turn heat to very low and let the cook for another 10-15 minutes or until the veggies are nice and soft.   Stirring every few minutes to keep from sticking and burning.

This past week in my basket I got a large bag of fava beans, and had some baby zucchini and H wanted some shrimp, so I went searching on the internet for something to included these ingredients.   I got my inspiration (and you HAVE to see the pictures of this dish from this blog….they look wonderful, and since I forgot to take a picture, you’ll have to imagine this in my dishes in my kitchen :)) from this recipe .   This dish was absolutely “to die for”…. (to quote our adopted mom that I also made this for….took dinner to our adopted parents last night….Dad’s recovering from a big back surgery).    We really loved the flavor from the fava beans, but I will not lie, they do require a lot of time….they shelling, blanching, peeling process for 5# of fava beans took about 2 hours, and it was just enough for this dinner to serve 10 people.

Lori’s Shrimp, Fava Bean, Zucchini & Pasta with Lemon/Parsley Pesto

Serves 10-12

• 2 pounds spaghetti (or any pasta), cooked according to package instructions (reserve 1 cup pasta cooking water)
• 2 pounds shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails removed
• 5# fava beans (shelled, blanched and peeled….for instructions go here or here )
• 1-1 1/2 pounds small (I used baby) zucchini, sliced into 1/2 inch slices
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• Lemon Parsley Pesto–1/2 cup lemon juice, 1 tbsp. fresh lemon thyme leaves, 1/2 bunch italian flat leaf parsley, 1 1/2 tsp. lemon zest, 1/2 tsp salt (to taste), 4 cloves minced garlic, 1/4 cup freshly grated paremsan cheese, 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1-1 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes.   Process all ingredients in food processor until all of the herbs are finely chopped, this will be a wetter pesto than normal because it needs to cover a LOT of pasta.
• reserved pasta cooking water for making the sauce “saucier”

Prepare veggies and set aside.   Cook pasta, reserving a cup or two of the water that the pasta was cooked in to help loosen the pesto to cover all of the pasta.   In a large non-stick skillet saute red peppers and zucchini in 1/2 tsp grapeseed oil until just barely softened.  Scoot all of the veggies to the outside edges of the pan and put shrimp in the middle.  Cover and cook for 3-5 minutes over medium high or until shrimp are all a very light pink.   Add fava beans and cook, stirring occasionally for 2-3 minutes until shrimp is completely cooked through, but not overcooked.   In large pan or very large mixing bowl toss pasta, veggie/shrimp mixture and pesto adding more of the pasta water to help work the pasta all the way through as necessary.   Garnish with parmesan cheese and fresh parsley as desired.

Serve with garlic rosemary focaccia bread and a beautiful salad and enjoy these flavors of springtime!

I got

*fava beans (these were a special order item for this week)

*sugar snap peas

*lettuce

*chinese broccoli (gai lon)

*strawberries

*apples

*oranges

*asparagus

*eggs (another special order item)

*kiwis (special order)

*lemons (special order)

*organic grape juice (special order)

What to do when you’ve got more fruit in your fridge than you can reasonably use before it loses all nutritional value? Freeze it and use for smoothies, shakes, sorbets, ice cream, jams & jellies & sauces or to flavor your yogurt. Don’t let your fruit rot on the ground from your fruit trees….bless someone else with it, or list it on freecycle! Your mess is someone else’s blessing!

This was inspired because our middle daughter has been on a smoothie craze lately, but we keep running out of fruit….fresh and frozen!   And I’m spending a small fortune on frozen fruits to keep her smoothie habit going.   When I was looking at different frozen fruit blends the other day I realized that I can be making my own frozen fruits from the bounty of our valley.  As I drive up and down the streets I see so many fruit trees full of fruit with piles of fruit on the ground underneath them that just never gets used.   It makes me so sad!   If only I were brave enough to stop and talk to those folks and ask if I could pick their fruit for them and take some……just not brave enough!

Last night’s dinner reminded me of something my mom used to make all the time for us when I was growing up.   It was total comfort food and brought back some fun memories :)   Last night’s dinner was supposed to be something very different…..I had originally planned on making smothered meatballs over steamed brown rice, but then discovered that M had used all of my eggs to make breakfast so I decided to make a taco inspired hamburger rice skillet dinner.   Think hamburger helper but MUCH tastier, MUCH MUCH healthier, and completely homemade.   SO easy that I got it started and then left the finishing touches up to my 16 year old daughter while I ran an errand with D.   I’m sorry that I didn’t get any pictures of it, but it wasn’t very pretty…..just VERY tasty and very comforting

Here’s the recipe

Taco Hamburger Rice Skillet Dinner

Serves 8

• 1 1/2 pounds extra lean ground beef
• 2 cup long grain brown rice
• 1 cup diced onion (1 whole sweet onion, diced finely)
• 1 cup diced red bell pepper (I used several of the mini peppers, but this is equal to 1 large pepper)
• 29 oz can diced tomatoes
• enough beef broth added to the tomatoes to equal 5 cups
• 1 tbsp. ground cumin
• 2 tbsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. salt (to taste)
• 6-8 oz. finely grated 2% fat cheddar cheese

In a 10″ non-stick skillet soften peppers and onions over medium high heat (adding a small amount of water to prevent sticking if necessary).  Once the peppers and onions are softened, add ground beef and cook until no longer pink.  Add rice, tomatoes, beef broth, cumin, chili powder, and salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil, turn down to low and cover with tight fitting lid.   Let simmer for 20 minutes, quickly stir to check moisture levels and make sure the rice isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Cover again tightly and cook for another 20 minutes or until rice has absorbed all of the liquid (If the rice is still a little crunchy, add more water, cover and let cook another 10 minutes).   Once rice is completely cooked, sprinkle with cheese and let stand for 5 minutes until cheese melts completely.   Serve and enjoy!

So sorry to my friends and family that like to follow our family via my blog!   I’ve been busy and the computer time I do have I generally spend on Facebook.  But I got a facebook message from a friend the other day and she said that she really misses my blogging.   And I have kind of forgotten why I do blog…..I blog for a “journal” of sorts for my children to be able to look back at to remember different things of their growing up years.  Since I’m bad about taking pictures, I generally limit my blog to my cooking adventures, but that is important too, because my mom was an incredible cook, but she totally cooked by taste, touch and smell, and never followed a recipe (some of you are saying  “Gee, that’s where Lori got it from”  :)….and you’re right!  BUT I do try to write my “recipes” down so that my children can recreate them (and me too :)).

This past couple of days I’ve been making some new things, and I wanted to share them with my blogger friends!   For the sake of my archiving and searching purposes (yes, I come back to my blog to look up recipes too :)) I’m going to post them separately, but I did want to write a post letting you all know that I am back, and am planning on spending an hour or two each week keeping up with my blog…..helps me too