You don't have to always make Fried Rice!

Happy 2013!!

I bet sometime in your life in the kitchen, when you have run out of ideas, you have gone ahead and converted leftover rice into your very special Egg Fried Rice. Aww, come one, I know you have! I used to think that egg fried rice is all you can make out of that leftover rice lying in the refrigerator, until recently, when we made our annual year-end trip to my brother and SIL's place. They introduced a new and very interesting eggs and rice dish to me.

Ever heard of Omuraisu? It is supposedly a Japanese omelette made with eggs of course, and rice, and topped with ketchup. Therefore the name Omu, meaning Omelette, and  Raisu, meaning Rice. Pretty cool concept, I think. Any kind of rice should work for this, though my brother recommends a rice-medley.

Ingredients: 

1. Cooked Rice- any kind- white, brown, green, red..... you get the idea! (2-3 tablespoons for 1 egg)

2. Eggs- beaten (typically 1-2 eggs per person)

3. Finely chopped onion, green chilies. I also like thinly sliced mushroom (Not too much, else the omelette will break....)

4. Oil to cook

5. Salt, pepper, any other seasoning you like

6. Ketchup, or any sauce that you like

Method:

1. Beat the egg(s).

2. Get your pan going on the stove, with some oil.

3. Throw in finely chopped onion, green chilies, and mushrooms and sauté for a couple minutes. I add salt-pepper at this stage.

4. Add a couple tablespoons of rice and sauté everything for another minute or so.

Fried Wild Rice 

5. Pour the beaten egg(s) onto this fried rice. And cook like you would an omelette. Be careful not to break the omelette- it tends to be heavy because of the rice..... if it breaks, no worries! It'll still be good!

Beaten egg(s) poured onto the fried rice

Flipped to complete

Omuraisu Ready! 

I used some leftover wild rice from last night, and the rice omelette, or Omuraisu, turned out real good! Instead of ketchup, I used, yes, my very favorite Ghost Pepper Salsa on the side. And since I have a huge crush on sharp cheddar (I can be crazy that way!), I sprinkled a tad bit of shredded sharp cheddar on the top. The wild rice added a nice nutty texture to the omelette, that I quite enjoyed. And not to forget, it was super-filling. I mean, eggs, veggies, and rice--- now that's a complete meal!

The next time you decide to make egg fried rice, try a little change, and make Omuraisu instead! It'll make you happy!

Celebrate!

We complete 15 years of married life today! Traditionally the anniversary gift for this year would be crystal. A "modern" gift would be a watch or glass. But you know what- the two most precious gifts that we have are our two not-so-little-anymore kids. We love them more than anything in this world. They make our lives important.

For the last 3 years, every December 19th, our kids cook something special for us (well, our daughter usually does all the cooking, and has her brother assist her). This morning they whipped up a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, and olive toast. Not just your ordinary scrambled eggs, but all jazzed up with pesto, ghost pepper salsa, and sharp cheddar cheese- yep, all the stuff that I love! Mm mmm!

Anniversary Special! 

Happy Anniversary, my love! Thanks, sweet children, for all your love. And the awesome breakfast this morning! Wonder what you're gonna make for dinner?! ;)

I'm still here!

Not been inspired lately........ this totally proves that cooking is in fact an art! You know how writers, and painters keep looking for inspiration; it is the same with us "chefs!" (Hey, I AM a chef, even if the rest of the world doesn't know me!)

Anyway, just thought I'd stop by and say hello. Yes, I'm still here!!

Ode to Pasta

My latest hobby is to go on the web and find out what day it is. By day, I don't mean what day of the week, but for instance, you know how we have Mother's Day in May, Father's Day in June, so on and so forth....... that kind of day. And I am surprised that there is in fact a day, for every day of the entire year! Well, at least they have come up with a day for every day of the year! Yes, that was a redundant statement...........

And so apparently, today, October 17th, is National Pasta Day! We had pasta just the other day. My daughter whipped up her special pesto pasta, using sea shell pasta. She incorporated peas, corn, carrots, red swiss chard, leeks and a ton of garlic. It was par excellent!

My daughter's delicious Pesto Sea Shell Pasta

Not sure I want to make pasta again tonight, but I thought it would be fun to put up some of my pasta pictures from the past........ sort of like an ode to pasta!

My "Devious" Penne Pasta

Chicken Soup with Farfalle

My One-Pot Pesto Pasta

My rather tasteless Shrimp Scampi made with angel hair pasta

My creamy delicious Orzitto

So there, that's my little ode to pasta. (Yes, I do notice that I tend to make more of pesto/green pasta that the red sauce based kind!) Pasta is versatile, and you can never have enough of it! If you haven't already had pasta this week, go ahead and make some awesome pasta tonight. It is afterall National Pasta Day! Oh, don't forget to wear some gaudy clothes while cooking, because, it also happens to be "Wear Something Gaudy Day!" Are you going, "Geez!" yet?! ;)

Hot Stuff!

I love hot and spicy food, and that is the ultimate truth. Of late, I have fallen in love with Naga Bhut Jolokia. Yep, the Ghost Pepper- the hottest pepper I have eaten. Well, it used to be the hottest pepper in the world, until the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion took over. I'm waiting to try that one soon.

Since I love hot and spicy food, I of course have a thing for sauces with a kick. Not your ordinary tomato ketchup kinda sauce, but the gourmet kind. And if the sauce has some ghost pepper action going on, I have to get it! I am proud of my little collection of hot sauces that I have going, and I thought I ought to share it with you.

My lovely collection- still counting.......

In the above picture, starting from the very left, we have Dave's Insanity Sauce, Dave's Ghost Pepper Sauce, Mrs. Renfro's Ghost Pepper Salsa, and finally, Melinda's Naga Jolokia Sauce.

In terms of the heat factor, Dave's Insanity Sauce holds true to its name- INSANELY HOT, followed by Dave's Ghost Pepper Sauce, which can literally rip your taste buds off of your tongue. The ghost pepper salsa is pleasantly tongue-burning hot, and the mildest of all is Melinda's Naga Jolokia Sauce.

Dave's Insanity and Ghost Pepper sauce bottles come with a warning, yes, an actual warning! It goes, "Use this product one drop at a time. Keep away from eyes, pets and children. Not for people with heart /respiratory problems. Shake well and refrigerate after opening." And boy, do they mean it! Heck, the ghost pepper sauce even claims, "It also is a great industrial cleaner and grease remover." And the insanity sauce claims something similar, "Strips waxed floors and removes driveway grease stains." Now you can either take that literally, or treat it like Applied Biology, your choice! ;)

I always have Mrs. Renfro's Ghost Pepper Salsa stocked up in my pantry. In fact, ever since my husband discovered this about a year ago, we don't care much for any other salsa available at the grocery store. It is a brilliant super-hot salsa, and for every bottle sold, a part of the proceeds goes to  The Chile Pepper Institute towards research and education. And I'm all for that! We do know that chile peppers actually have medical benefits, right? Ever heard of capsaicin? That's the stuff extracted from peppers that helps alleviate Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis pains, and even helps regulate blood sugar levels in diabetics. So yeah, it's all good stuff!

Melinda's Naga Jolokia is the mildest of this lot, because even though it has ghost peppers, there are other ingredients, such as carrots, papayas, and passion fruit that totally mask the heat that one would otherwise expect from a sauce that so proudly claims that this is their "hottest offering by far." But hey, no qualms about that. It is still quite tasty. Plus you don't have to worry about any waxed floors getting stripped off!

A year ago, my husband's colleague gave us some bhut jolokia achaar (ghost pepper pickle) that he got from New Delhi, India, and it was killer stuff! Here's a picture that I found on this website. Too bad they are out of it, else I'd have ordered it right now!

So there, that's my collection of ghost pepper sauces for now, and I hope to get a hold of that Trinidad Moruga Scorpion one of these days! 

Celebrating Grains

Woo-hoo! I got one more opportunity to guest blog for Full Circle. Thanks, FC!

Last week, I got an email from them asking me if I would like to write on the topic, 4 Other Grains to Eat besides Rice. OF COURSE I'd like to write on this topic, was my response (sans all the caps......)! I mean, what an exciting thing to write about! I could have written a mighty long article on this topic, however, there's this thing called word-limit, and so I had to chop it up. Well, the post turned out decent enough. The pictures turned out pretty good. Oh, and they were nice enough to put my picture up there, too. *GRIN*

Here's my post: 4 Other Grains to Eat Besides Rice.

Like I say in my post, September happens to be Whole Grains Month- so this was perfect timing!

Spicy Tomato Asparagus Noodles

Last evening, our neighbor brought us some tomatoes from her garden. They looked beautiful, and after thanking her like a dozen times, and shutting the door, my immediate thought was ooh, gotta make some spicy tomato noodles!

The tomatoes, freshly picked from my neighbor's very own vegetable garden, were nice, and red, and firm, and simply gorgeous. Oh, and a 100% organic of course!

Gorgeous organic tomatoes, fresh from my neighbor's garden!

Prepping:

1. I first chopped up the tomatoes. Also minced some garlic. You can make it as garlicky (if that's a word!) as you want. And I roughly chopped some beautiful tender asparagus.



Delicious Tomatoes

Psst: While chopping the tomatoes, I ate up one raw tomato- it was the best tasting tomato I've ever eaten! Sweet like heck, with just a mild hint of tang in the background. My son tried some, and he couldn't stop either! In fact, I felt bad to cook those gorgeous beauties. They definitely don't deserve to be cooked, I thought. And so, I decided that instead of really cooking them, I'll just throw them in at the end.

Tender Asparagus

2. I cooked some regular chowmein style noodes from a packet. I thought I ought to take a picture of the instructions on the packet. OK, not trying to be mean or anything--- but, it was quite funny. Very straightforward, but funny!

Very straightforward instructions (disregard the spellings.....!)

Cooking:

1. A wok would have been nice, but since my wok is not all that great (I got it for free from one of those online orders I made one time), I just used a big pan. Put some cooking oil, got the stove running, and then threw in the garlic. I didn't want to brown the garlic, just sort of get the oil infused with the flavor. I then added about 1/2 teaspoon of red chilli powder for some kick.

Garlic and red chilli powder in oil

2. Then in went the asparagus, that was quickly stir-fried for about a minute or so, you know, to retain the beautiful green color as well as the crunch.

Asparagus

3. I added some salt to taste, and also some freshly ground black pepper. And then threw in the noodles that I had previously cooked. Normally I would have added the tomatoes along with the asparagus, but remember, I didn't want to kill those lovely tomatoes by cooking them. Therefore, I added the tomatoes right at the end. And gave it all one good stir, to get the flavors rolling.

Spicy Tomato Asparagus Noodles

My spicy tomato asparagus noodles turned out pretty darn good. Well, it wasn't all that spicy like I intended it to be. Guess I should have added a good couple teaspoons of red chilli powder. But then, I can go overboard with the spice, sometimes!

The best thing was that I finally, after all these years, successfully ate my noodles with chopsticks! Two thumbs up for that!



Mm mm!