Happy New Year | Quick Peas & Carrots Fried Rice

Another year is upon us and so it goes–whether we are ready or not. For the first time, on old year’s night, I did not clean all of my closets and drawers, had a pile of dirty laundry from our week long vacation and heck, I did not even eat black eyes peas or fish for good luck! My mother would be disappointed if she knew. She taught us better than that. I was exhausted from our red eye flight from Trinidad. Slept most of the day(Old year’s), visited my mom, returned home and slept again until 11:45 pm just in time to drag myself down stairs to watch the ball drop with my family.

On New Year’s day, slept in late, woke up and scribbled a few resolutions, downloaded a ‘health book” from Amazon, read 70 pages, sent my daughters a motivational text and made myself some eggs and some sort of roti made with plantain and coconut flour–a recipe motivated by the book I was reading(gluten/wheat free drama). I was adamant that there will be no feast as I ended the year the heaviest I have ever been. Guilt for days. A thought did occur to make some homemade bread for breakfast but I was quickly reminded of the number on the scale the day before.

In the afternoon, the Dah (hubbie) requested fried rice to accompany the fried shrimp my Auntie Toy made for me. I asked him to find me mixed veggies from the freezer and he discovered a bag of frozen peas and carrots–so that would be the star of the dish. ‘Discovered’ being the key word as anything found in any one of my three freezers is certainly a ‘discovery”.

The corn was a special request from my daughter. The eggs happened to be on the counter from breakfast…and little by little it came together. I’ve decided to share this with you here instead of writing it down in my recipe book–which means you may never hear about it–and if this is the only recipe I post this year, then that’s still an accomplishment.

It was indeed remarkable for a 15 minute dish, give it try when you are in a hurry. With the peas and eggs, it’s vegetarian and filling. Corn adds a little sweetness and the sauce kicks it all up a few notches to make it taste like Chinese take out.

Ingredients

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 large sweet onion, chopped
6 large cloves garlic, chopped
2 large scallions, chopped
1 bag frozen peas and carrots, defrosted and rinsed
1 can corn, drained, rinsed–and drained again
4-6 cups day old Jasmine Rice
salt and pepper, to taste

2 eggs with a pinch of salt, whisked and fried in a paper thin layer–(made on a tawa) –then cut in small pieces

Sauce for fried rice
1/4 cup shoyu sauce (light soy sauce)
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar

1. Mix sauce and set aside. Chop onion, garlic and scallions. Fry eggs. and chop into small pieces.
2. Heat oil in a large pot over hight heat, add onion and garlic and cook until edges of onion turn golden brown, about 3-5 minutes.
3. Add scallions and cook 2 minutes.
4. Add rinsed and drained peas and carrots and salt, cook 5 minutes, stirring at a minimum to allow any extra liquid to evaporate.
5. Add corn and cook 1 minute.
6. Add rice, eggs, sauce and stir fry until some become crisp and brown-breaking up any chunks.
7. Taste and add salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.

Enjoy hot alone or with BBQ or fried anything!