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(Not the actual product, which I neglected to take a photo of, though my rice looked just like without the peas)

Tonight I made fried rice. It was my first time making it, though I’ve tried much more ambitious things before (marinated parmesan steak if I remember correctly) which is probably a common mistake for newbie cooks. Recently I’ve been trying simpler things, which works out better. The other day I made Stuffed Cabbage Rolls, and while next time I would definitely tear up the cabbage leaves to make smaller dumplings, they were delicious – flavorful and filling.

Today I used this recipe (Allrecipes is pretty reliable in general), except I’m an impatient cook so I stirred in the eggs with the rice at the very beginning. Heated the oil, added the rice, heated it then added the eggs, added salt and pepper (too little of the former and too much of the latter, I concluded later. For a girl who doesn’t like things spicy, I have an odd propensity to add too much pepper to things I cook).

It took a while, but the rice gradually turned golden brown, while I cut up the onion and played around on Itunes listening to Sam Tsui and David Choi. I then added carrots (should have added them earlier since carrots take a little while to cook, but I forgot), half a leftover tomato, and a little oyster sauce (only a few dollops since this was frankly my first time using oyster sauce, and in future I’ll add much more, the flavor didn’t really come through).

After frying it some more, I added the onions, then taste-tested it and found that the rice was still a little cruncy and that it tasted too dry. So I added water until it softened, tried it again and decided it was too bland, and got impatient and added soy sauce and lemon juice (have no idea why I added the latter except it seemed like a good idea).

And voila! Fried rice with carrots, tomatoes, and onions, seasoned with a little oyster sauce and a fair amount of lemon juice and soy sauce. It’s still not quite as flavorful as I’d like – the pepper I’d say is still one of the strongest flavors – but it’s good (I think the lemon juice did the trick).

Moral of the story: you can add anything and everything veggie-wise to fried rice, just make sure you add enough seasoning of some sort that it’s not too bland.