"What, you don't like rice?" or Leftovers

My mom was a scientist in the kitchen.  She had a degree in home economics from the University of Minnesota.  Recipes were followed with precision.  It irritated her when measuring spoons were dispensed with and approximations were made.  To my taste, my mother's cooking was very successful.  But again, to my taste, there were a few notable exceptions.

One such dish was Tuna Rice Patties (click and cook at your own peril.)  Something about the tinny, canned tuna combined with rice and egg that made me gag.  It's a recipe that is made for leftover rice, but I am pretty sure my mom made rice just to make the patties.    One night, when I was around the age of 12, I refused a dinner of the tasty treat.  Nothing else was available to me and I knew it.  It was house policy to eat what was put in front of you.  I had great pleasure telling my grandmother the next day that they didn't give me anything to eat.  She didn't fall for it.

One of my sisters loves tuna rice patties to this day.  The other sister won't touch any rice based on The Lost Boys.  This is a scar she has carried with her since she was a child and a quick Google search reveals she isn't the only one who walked away from that movie feeling less inclined towards the white, fluffy staple.  I'm not sure why most people, including her, don't have the same feelings about noodles.  (Awesome, do click this link.)

Other dishes my mom made that I could not stand at the time include egg foo young (seriously, what is that slimy crap that is served with those?) and chow mein (gag, again--cooked celery.)  After I came back from college I actually requested the chow mein and pushed aside the celery and asked for more crispy noodles to have with the ground pork, water chestnuts, and sprouts and more rice.  Still cannot stomach any egg foo young.

Something else that I was always pretty suspicious of was fried rice.  Mom made it on occasion.  Rice and soy sauce and ham and egg?  Leftover vegetables?  Ugh.  Salty and otherwise tasteless and what I still see as a coward's way out of a Chinese restaurant. 

Which finally brings me to my point.  I made this for dinner:

It's kim chee fried rice!  It was so good.  I checked out a few recipes, but basically it is meat of your choice or no meat at all (I used my lo bulgogi), kim chee, whatever veg you may have around, a little soy sauce, and LEFTOVER rice.  Dice up the meat ( I saw lots of recommendations for Spam), dice up the kim chee, throw in the extras (I had diced green onions in the fridge), and then stir-fry it up in a little butter.  (I blinked when I saw butter since I am so used to using olive oil for everything, but I could taste the difference.)  When it's good and hot, throw in the rice and the soy sauce (other recipes also used a red pepper paste--had to Google that and will be putting it on a future shopping list.)  Crisp up the rice to taste, making sure everything gets incorporated with everthing else and the whole thing turns lovely colors.  Finished with a little toasted sesame oil and sesame seeds.  I added some chopped garlic chives too.  Tasty.  Some of the recipes called for a fried egg to be served on top, but I was in a sentimental mood and went with the scrambled-egg-in-fried-rice method.  I like my own cooking.  Morgan wasn't home.

I'm a little concerned I am going to be up all night.  I didn't sleep last night and today I did the fall-asleep-on-the-couch-for-20-minutes-after-work thing and have been wide awake since.  I'm making a vegetable stock (for the first time) for a vegetable soup that I am making tomorrow for a vegetarian friend.  It's still got awhile to reduce, then strain, then find a place in the fridge for it.