WFMW- Fried Rice

Several years ago, my husband's work was having a potluck. So being a dutiful employee, he signed up to bring a main dish... Then he came home and filled me in, because- since J doesn't really cook, guess who was going to make the actual dish?

Yep- that would be me.

It really wasn't a big deal, though- after all I can throw together a pretty good casserole on any given day. And I make a mean gumbo... Then I found out that he had specifically signed up to bring homemade fried rice. That was when I flipped.

Fried rice?!!

J honestly didn't understand why I was so upset- after all my family loves my fried rice... That was when I calmly pointed out to J that many of his co-workers are Asian. And while I do make a decent fried rice, for a white girl, I was not comfortable serving it to his co-workers. It would be like making a batch of spaghetti and serving it to a family in Rome. I guarantee that their worst effort would beat my best effort any day.

So I did what any self respecting wife would do.

I went to our favorite Chinese restaurant and bought 4 family sized orders of shrimp fried rice. Then I transferred it all into my biggest casserole dish and delivered it to my husband's office.

They loved it.

So much so that for the next year's potluck- J's secretary took the initiative to sign me up to make fried rice again. Remembering that the restaurant had since gone out of business, J redeemed himself and saved the day by insisting that I really wanted to make a dessert this time.

So there you go- my deep, dark secret is out. Buying restaurant food and passing it off as my own worked for me once. But in case you prefer to make it yourself, here is my fried rice recipe...



Fried Rice (serves 6 adults as a main dish)

3 cups short grain rice uncooked
6 eggs
1 ham steak
1 bag frozen vegetables (peas and carrots work well as do the 'Asian blends')
garlic
soy sauce
salt and pepper

Cook and cool rice (I usually do this earlier in the day).

Cube ham and brown in large frying pan. Remove with a slotted spoon. Beat eggs and cook omelet style in same pan. Remove from pan. Throw frozen veggies in pan with 2-3 heads crushed garlic. Heat veggies through and remove from pan. Add a little oil to bottom of pan and add cooled rice. Stir constantly and heat through. Return ham, eggs, and veggies to pan. Add soy sauce to taste while mixing all ingredients (and breaking up cooked egg) in hot pan. Salt and pepper to taste. Obviously the ingredient proportions are variable- add more egg if you like, skip the meat if you want vegetarian, etc...

So there you have it, fried rice (restaurant prepared or homemade!) works for me. Now head on over to Shannon's for more WFMW tricks and tips...