Saturday, October 22, 2016

Easy Fried Rice and other Favorites

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I've got a super easy dish for those nights when you need to go grocery shopping but don't have time. But first... the weather has changed!
                                             
Which was tough when we got up at 4AM to help out with the hot air balloon festival. They moved it from May to October and I was NOT ready for 1) the dark and 2) the cold. Nothing like trying to find the tabs and straps in the pitch darkness!
                                              
When the sun finally rose, it didn't really warm things up. Crunchy field grass.
                                 
But my kids were troopers (I was the one whining, as usual) and here they are waving off Mr. Tick Tock. (Yeah, we know he's sort of creepy looking but the school kids just love to see him flying over their schools.)
                                     
They also had tethered rides for kids who could come before school. Here are our friend Ingrid and Rorique and Bill giving little rides to the kids. After helping inflate, the volunteers help act as "balast", pulling the balloon down and weighing down the basket so people can get off and on. Maybe the only time when a few extra pounds works in your favor!
                                           
Oh, and we celebrated Halloween early because our old friend Mindy came to visit from Montana! Here are Edward (skeleto man) and Ana (as our dear Miss Jane Austen) getting ready to run through the corn maze.
                                         
So, I've been running toward a deadline so I'm not putting as much thought into cooking as I usually do (which isn't much, hahaha). I've just been grabbing items from the pantry and throwing them together. This is what we made a few nights ago and it was delicious! I realized that although I've posted about quick shrimp stir fry, healthy low carb egg rolls, California sushi,  , I hadn't posted anything about fried rice, which we eat pretty often. Missy posted about fried rice  but hers looks way nicer so... don't follow the link!

 So, I didn't take pictures of every step, which is BAD, BAD, BAD blogging! But I'll explain what's happening in this shot. We chopped carrots and celery into teeny tiny pieces and sauteed them for about five minutes with a TBS of oil. Then we scrambled three eggs into the veggie mix.
 This is the rice I made for the stir fry and I am VERY proud to say for once, I did not make sticky rice! Hooray!
 Add four cups of rice to the veggie mix and fry on medium high with 2 TBS of oil. Turn lightly and carefully with a spatula because it's really easy to make a big pan of mush at this point. (Don't ask me how I know.)
Oh, here's one of our sweet new kittens! They are so playful and into everything, we really have to watch out for them under foot. The other night I was removing a pan of chicken from the oven and one of the kittens puts its paws right on the inside of the door! Poor kitten. All it was thinking was the delicious smells, not the 400F heat. It didn't seem to be hurt but scared me to death, so now we're extra careful when we're cooking.
She's my new editor... So hard to please. So critical! All she wants is stories about tuna and tummy rubs. *sigh*
 Add two packets of fried rice seasoning an gently combine. I told you this was easy!
 Someone has come to inspect dinner... Here we added chopped chicken.
 One more shot of the sumach in the yard. SO pretty. I want to bring it inside!

Until next time! Be sure to stop by my author pages at Mary Jane Hathaway and Virginia Carmichael, or my blog at The Things That Last! 

14 comments:

  1. Of course Jane Austen would be represented in your Halloween costumes. Love it!!!!! I do hope no one got lost in the corn maze!

    Love that ballooning event. We have one like that up here but over the Labor Day weekend which usually means much friendlier weather. I'm kinda jealous of your autumn though. Though the leaves in the countryside have been turning pretty colours our citified trees have been somewhat reluctant 'cause of the warmer temps. They are just starting to turn now.

    I think today will be a throw together kind of supper as well. No rice in the house though so we'll see how creative I can get without it.

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    1. I just made chicken rice soup and so now we're out of rice! I'm never out of rice, pasta, flour, sugar, oil, yeast, baking soda, baking powder and spices. If I run out, I feel nervous! What will I COOK??

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    2. And the corn maze was a success! The kids are old enough I let them go through together/ alone now. I'm BAD at those things. They get through twice as fast without me!

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    3. I'm glad I'm not the only mother bad at those things... and with our record drought, the corn mazes are short... so it loses the whole concept of getting lost in the maze. When the corn is only 4.5 feet tall, everyone over age 11 is visible!

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    4. HAHAHA! That is so funny! Ours is impenetrable. One year I finally lost patience after two hour and busted through a wall to lead everyone to safety. It's several acres and always in the shape of something cool, like a spiderweb. This year it was a pirate ship.

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  2. Oh! Poor kitty. I'm always worried the dog will do that when I'm checking on the hamburger or chicken. Fortunately, he seems to sense it would be bad, but it takes a lot to override their natural reaction to food smells.

    I love your photos. Wondering why they switched the balloons to October. brrrrrr

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    1. I never would have thought it a million years that the kitten would do that! Our dog is pretty hyper but he's pretty cautious, too. I was not prepared. It was SO scary! But lesson learned for all, I guess. :P

      I think they moved it because the man who headed the festival for 25 years passed away last year. The new head has a previous commitment at Disney World in May, so... Thirty nine balloons, but they only launched twice that week because of the typhoon/hurricane/storm that rolled through the coastal areas and gave us the tail end of the bad weather.

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    2. That's the problem with October things. The weather is on the cusp of dicey and so much can be affected.

      But how beautiful this must have been!!!

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  3. Love your editor. Wish all mine wanted was tuna. LOL Would make life much easier.

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    1. Heehee! I like dogs but I'm a real cat person. I just think they're so fun. :)

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  4. Oh, a kitten! We've had no kittens in months, so I'm living vicariously through yours!

    Fried rice... Mmm........... Must make this. I just bought a monster-sized bag of Basmati rice at Sam's and it will need to offer up a couple of cups to this deliciousness, but I didn't know there was such a thing as fried rice seasoning!!!! How did I not know this? #mustfind

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    1. It's right next to the stir fry seasoning! I'm sure not anything near authentic, but it's QUICK.

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  5. This looks so good! And I never knew about fried rice seasoning, so thank you for mentioning it! I'll have to grab some this week at the grocery.

    I can't believe your have frost already. We're having a cold snap this weekend, and I'm not ready for this!

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    1. The days are still pretty warm 65+ but the nights and early mornings are BRRRRR.

      And the seasoning I bought has no MSG so I was excited to find a shortcut packet that didn't give me a migraine. :)

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