Easy fried rice: a recipe

Fried rice with chicken and lots of good veggies

As I sat down to write this post, I realized that it's the third rice bowl dish recipe that I've posted in the past month.

If you don't like rice, sorry. Bear with me. There will be other things coming up soon. Like cheese.

If you do like rice, you're welcome. Now go like my Facebook page.

This is another recipe I've adapted from one found via Pinterest. It's becoming clearer and clearer to me each day, based on the memes I've seen popping up all over Facebook, that I'm one of the only people on the planet that actually makes the recipes I pin, rather than just creating food porn boards.

Anyone else out there? Anyone? Perhaps we can form a Facebook group.

But I digress. Back to the recipe at hand.

I love fried rice but it always bugged me that most recipes for it suggest you use "leftover rice." I'm sorry, but who the heck actually has leftover cooked rice? If I cook rice, I cook enough for the recipe or, if there's a little leftover, I give it to the dogs. I certainly don't have cups and cups of it "leftover."

So, if you've read the last few rice bowl posts, you'll know I'm a boil-in-bag rice advocate, because, hey, it's kind of the equivalent of leftover rice: not as good as made-the-first-time rice but certainly quick and easy.

Which is the theme of this recipe. Heck, the theme of many, many of my recipes.

As is my habit, I added some cooked chicken to make it more substantial meal, but you could easily leave it out. I think that cooked pork (leftover from a pork loin, say) would be smashing as well. Or cocktail-sized shrimp. Or even tofu.

Sorry, but this time, there's no room here for bacon.

This does come together very quickly, so be sure to have all your ingredients chopped and ready to go before you begin to cook.

Happy weeknight eating!

PS: If you're into Weight Watchers, the original recipe includes points info.

PPS: This makes great leftovers, reheated for lunch!

Fried Rice with Chicken (adapted from Skinny Taste)
Makes about 4 normal-sized servings (3 if you are me and always starving at dinnertime because you eat at 9pm)

Ingredients:
3-4 cups cooked brown rice (this is 2 bags of boil-in-bag rice, if you are me)

2 eggs
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 green onion, chopped, white parts and green parts separated
2/3 cup matchstick-cut carrots
1 cup (or so) cooked chicken, diced
1 cup shelled, cooked edamame (it comes frozen this way, just run it under hot water to thaw it)
3 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari (I prefer tamari here because I am a salt junky)


Directions:
Assemble all the ingredients before you start, as this dish comes together very quickly.

Whisk the eggs in a small bowl. Heat a large non-stick frying pan or wok over medium-high heat. Add the egg and scramble, stirring just enough to make large chunks. Remove from pan and set aside.

Wipe any egg residue out of the pan. Pour in the olive oil and heat over pretty high heat. Add the onion, white parts of the green onion, carrots and garlic to the pan and stir fry for a minute or two. Next add the rice and stir, heating the mixture thoroughly (a couple of minutes). Finally, add the cooked eggs, chicken, green parts of the green onion, edamame and the soy sauce, stirring for another few minutes.

Season to taste with salt and pepper, if desired.