Fried Rice Recipe

Fried rice is super easy to make and I usually have all the ingredients I need just laying around the kitchen.

Ingredients:
2 cups uncooked Jasmine Rice (You can use long grain if it's all you've got)
1 egg, beaten
2 cups of frozen peas and carrots (or you can use your favorite fresh veggies)
3 links of Chinese Style Sausage (You can use other meats- Beef, Pork, Chicken, etc)
2-3 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
Cooking Oil

Cook your Jasmine Rice in your rice cooker or pot according to package instructions.

Pour a tiny bit of oil into a wok, just enough to grease the bottom. Pour in your beaten egg and move your wok around so that the egg spreads out into a thin disc. Once one side cooks, flip it over to cook the other side. Then take it out and cut the disc in half and then slice it.

Set the egg aside in a large mixing bowl. Now dump your frozen peas and carrots into the wok along with 1/2 a cup of water. Cook until the veggies are heated all the way through and all the water is absorbed or evaporated. Dump the veggies into your mixing bowl. Now take your Chinese Style Sausage and cut about 3 links into small slices.
Dump those into the wok next and cook them for a couple minutes until both sides are crispy and browned. Remove from wok and add to the mixing bowl.

Now add about 2 tablespoons of cooking oil to your wok. Drop in your minced garlic and let it brown up a little bit for about 30-45 seconds. Then dump in all of your cooked jasmine rice. Stir it around thoroughly to give the rice a nice coating of the garlic oil. Drizzle the rice with about a tablespoon of soy sauce and continue to mix so that it has a light brown coating. Dump in all the cooked ingredients from your mixing bowl and continue to mix thoroughly. Once it's all mixed serve it and enjoy!
Hint: If you want to serve the rice in the mound shape pictured above, place 6 sausage discs at the bottom of a small bowl and then add the fried rice to the bowl and pack it down tightly. Put a plate upside down on top of the bowl and then flip it over and you'll get a pretty nice mound of fried rice ready to serve.

Vietnamese Egg Roll Recipe (Cha Gio)

I've had a couple of requests for my egg roll recipe so I decided to go ahead and blog it. This is how I make it- some other Vietnamese people may make it differently. :D

Ingredients: 
Filling
1 lb. Ground Pork
approx. 5 large carrots, peeled and shredded
4 bundles of the bean thread rice noodles (Package is usually wrapped in bright pink netting, 8 bundles per package), cooked, drained, and chopped.

1/2 a bag of dried woodear mushrooms, soaked for 15 minutes and then finely chopped

1/2 onion, finely chopped (optional)
1/8 tsp. Garlic Salt
1/8 tsp. Pepper
1 tbsp. Fish Sauce

Combine all the ingredients to make the filling.

Other Ingredients
1 egg, beaten
1 package of egg roll wrappers (25-30 count)
Cooking Oil

Make sure that you buy the thin egg roll wrappers. This is a good brand:Or this one is good too.
I have only found these kind of wrappers in Asian markets, NOT in local grocery stores. The regular ones in the stores are thick and doughy like this:

Do NOT use these thick wrappers for this recipe because the wrapper will begin to burn while cooking in the oil before the filling has a chance to cook all the way through.

Drop about 2 spoonfuls of the filling into the wrapper and use these instructions to roll them up. The beaten egg is used to seal the outside flap of the wrapper to keep it closed. Just dip your finger in the egg and run it along the edge of the flap to seal it:

Once your egg rolls are wrapped, heat up a pot of cooking oil to medium-high heat. If you want to be healthy, safflower oil is a great choice. Otherwise vegetable or canola oil will do. Make sure there is enough oil in your pot so that your egg rolls will float. Cook for 7-10 minutes or until they become golden brown. Drain them on paper towels and once they cool enjoy eating them!

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Cham)

• 1/4 cup Fish Sauce
• 2 cups Water
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 minced Clove of Garlic
• 1 tbsp. Lemon Juice
• 1 tsp. Crushed Red Pepper

Combine ingredients and feel free to alter measurements to taste.

Our Crazy Weekend in Vegas!

Haha, it actually wasn't crazy at all. Except for when we drove to the gas station to get a slushy and Bret saw a drug deal go down. :D Other than that it was pretty mellow.

We went to the Mandalay Bay Aquarium and Kien was excited to see all the fish. Here's the little guy all ready with his ticket:
What an adorable little angel....


Dad showing Kien how to pet the sting rays:
And Kien not being able to quite make the reach:
We went with Tonia to Bass Pro Shop so the kids could see all the animals. Here's Kien with his cousins Bailey and Sadie:
Me and Bret posing in front of the waterfall.
Tonia captured Kien's new favorite facial expression:
All in all, it was a great weekend.

The Kien Update

So the in-laws are always asking to see pictures of Kien and its about time I satiated their thirsts. Here are some pictures of my little guy from over the past couple of months:

Christmas Morning- I love the expression on his face, like "CHRISTMAS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!!!"
One day the little man woke up from his nap and came out to the kitchen to find me looking like this. I pretty much freaked out but was relieved to find that it was just a messy bloody nose.
Kien always looks so handsome on Sundays for church. He gets a lot of compliments on how he dresses (which is really a compliment to me since I dress him ;)
These are my boys. Oh how I love them.

Nomesick, There's No Place Like Nome, Nomegrown, etc.

Today I am feeling a little homesick for Nome. I grew up in such a unique place and there are just some things that I miss about it like the fishing, Alaskan king crabs, berry picking, the ocean, the aurora borealis, and the people... namely my family. So I've been spending the morning watching videos from Nome and wanted to share them.

This one is an advertisement to increase tourism. I know most the people in this video.


This one follows journalist Steve Lopez on his trip to Nome. (Steve Lopez is the guy who's story got made into the movie "The Soloist". We watched it on Christmas eve at Bret's parents house and we all gave Jan a hard time for picking such a cheerful movie for us to watch.) I know EVERY PERSON that he interviews. I grew up with their kids. :D


And here's a video from 2008 when Bret, Kien, and I visited with my sister's family. Sean (my brother-in-law) shot the video of my nephew Jeremy catching a fish.


Kim (my sister) posted a bunch of video's on YouTube from Nome if you feel like watching more:
http://www.youtube.com/user/fireweedjelly

New Moon Premiere

Well I said I wouldn't blog about Twilight again until New Moon came out in theaters and that's happened so here we go....

First there was the midnight showing of New Moon that some of my pals went to go see. Understand that I am such a lover of all things Twilight that I made myself wait until the following Monday to see it in hopes that the screaming girls would have had their fill by then and so that when I went to see it- no one would be screaming and drowning out the sound of my Edward's voice. However, I didn't want to miss out on the fun so I went in line and waited with them just to hang out and talk about Twilight. Yes- that is exactly how nerdy I am.

Here are the girls who went opening night. We are standing in front of the "Clock Tower in Volterra" (it was set up in the Theater's lobby) but whoever took the picture didn't realize that we wanted it in the picture (which is why we stood in front of it) so you don't get to see it. Oh well.

Then Monday finally came and I threw a Bella-Themed-Birthday-Party before we went to the movie. Here is the invitation that I made:

In the book Alice has a pink cake for Bella so that is what I made. It was strawberry flavored and delicious.
These are the girls who went Monday night with me. Notice that we're all holding "The Forbidden Fruit" like on the cover of Twilight?
Here we are at the Theater in front of Jacob Black's house. There was even a mailbox with the name "Black" painted on it. Kudos to the theater staff for being so creative!
I thought the movie was really great and much better than Twilight. I think having a new director really improved things and I also thought the acting was better- perhaps the cast took some acting lessons between movies. And I must admit that while I will always love Edward- Jacob Black sure caught my eye in this one. Can you blame me?!?

And that is the end.

My Handsome Boy

We took Kien's 2-year pictures and I'm a pleased with the results:
This is his sultry GQ pose:

PS- finished reading Life As We Knew It, The Host, and Graceling. All very good books. By far The Host is my favorite. I think I might even like it more than The Twilight Saga! (Yikes! Don't tell Edward!)