Chicken Fried Rice

Okay. If you need to feed the troops. And it's Thursday night and you just don't care anymore, you do this. Chicken Fried Rice. Since we have one or two self-proclaimed vegetarians banging their forks on the table, we keep the chicken separate. But if you like to get all the good gristle in there, keep it together and use one frying pan.

Here is last Thursday's version.

First we got 1 cup of rice cooking, fried up a few boneless chicken thighs in a little bit of olive oil and with a good bit of salt and pepper, and

sliced and chopped up 2 carrots and half a big onion.

Next we sautéed the carrots for a good six minutes or so.

When the chicken was done and nice and crispy on the outside we pulled it apart with two forks.

We added the onions to the carrots for a few minutes and

then 1 drained can of corn and 2 handfuls of frozen peas.

Lastly came the fun part. We added the rice and placed 3 eggs in the center.

We stirred the eggs into all the goodness until it was all over, clinging to every last spec of rice and veggie. We added a little salt, pepper, oregano, and soy sauce to round it all up.

Voila! The chicken people added chicken to their delight. And we all dug in. Let's just say there were no leftovers.

An All Green Orzo Risotto

This was a total winner. Everybody loved it. And best of all it was a 30 minutes of easy cooking.
We started by placing two pots on the stove. One with 1.5 liter of veggie broth and the other with water. While we waited for those to cook we washed and cut up a big bushel of green asparagus, keeping the tips separate. We cut the tips and halved 2 handfuls of green beans, found a small bag of frozen peas, and scavenged for a handful of fresh parsley and mint in our garden.

When the broth was boiling we added 1 pound of orzo pasta and started grating a good pile of Parmesan cheese.
Then we added the beans and asparagus stalks to the boiling water. After about two minutes or so, when they started to slightly soften, we

added the asparagus tips and frozen peas. We let them all warm up for another minute or so, always testing for what seemed to be the perfect point of crunchy softness.

The broth by then had all been absorbed by the pasta. We drained the greens and mixed them with the orzo, a couple good chunks of butter, a good couple handfuls of the cheese and some of the mint and parsley, which we had chopped. A little salt and pepper and we were ready to sharpen our forks.

Everybody fine-tuned their plates with extra cheese, mint, parsley, and seasoning.

The 'For Some Reason The Girls Like This Soup' Soup

This was about as down and dirty as it gets. Perfect after a day of driving and no will to cook.

The girls got a liter of vegetable broth to boil and chucked in a pound of tortellini (It's all about the tortellini; we'll try to find real good ones the next time around, it'll be worth it).

When the pasta was ready to eat, we added a couple handful of peas,

washed and chopped up fresh spinach, salt, and pepper.

That was it. Some crusty bread and eatin' time.

Worm in a Hill - Lena's Birthday Sleep Over Party Dinner

Lena wanted to make this dish to serve her sisters and four friends for her birthday party and sleep over. There weren't very keen at first to eat worms.

For "Flowers" we sliced up a big load of carrots and lightly fried them in butter and a little salt. When they started to soften we added 3 tbls of sugar and ground coriander seeds to taste.

To shape the "hill" we boiled with 1 tbls of salt a medium pot worth of potatoes that we had peeled and cut into chunks. When they were done, we smashed them up and added about 4 tbls of butter and a carton of heavy cream enough to make the mashed potatoes all smooth.

We fried up the "worms".

For "bushes" we got a pot of water to boil and tossed in a bunch of broccoli for just a minute. Then we coated them we the juice of 1 lemon.
For "grass" we chucked 2 bags of frozen peas into another pot of salted boiling water till they were soft.

When everything was ready we prepared seven plates with a hill and worm working its way through and a lovely garden arrangement all around. Landscape Architecture 101.

(2 girls politely nibbled around the edges, 1 pushed the whole plate aside, 2 girls dug in with curiosity, and Lena chomped away, beaming from cheek to cheek.)

Peas Pasta

Bam! That was a whole bunch of yummy in 30 minutes. Lily was all over it, cooking it up.

First she got a pot of water going with a good bit of sea salt.

Then she cut up some bacon,

melted a chunk of butter, and fried up the bacon.

When the water was boiling she added a package and a half of bowtie pasta, got them all cooked up and drained, saving the water.

In the meantime she added cream to the fried bacon and when the pasta was almost done, she added a small package of frozen peas. The trick was to just warm them. Too long or they would have resembled raisins.

She added the juice of a lemon.

Tossed in some grated parmesan. A bit of pepper. And then several ladles of the pasta water to get it all nice and creamy, almost runny. A hungry girl's dream.

That's Lily's thumb ...

and her picture.

The recipe came originally from a Jamie Oliver dish out one of his cook books. No telling which one.