A friend last year showed me a nice and easy recipe for fried rice. The two key things I'd say are day old rice (a little dry makes it fry up better) and peanut oil (lots of flavor!). For veggies this night I chose some very flavorful mushrooms, a green pepper, snow peas, and a couple of celery stalks. I also threw in some tofu and garlic, of course! This is going to make a lot of food, but like all my cooking recipes, there's no measuring!

Start with two eggs, which I forgot to put into the picture of the starting ingredients. Whip them together with some soy sauce. The mix doesn't look all that great, but it fries up nice with some sesame oil. The green (spring) onions are also briefly added, and the mixture is set aside till the end.

Next the rice and the peanut oil. Throw it in the pan and get started!

This is gonna take a while, so be patient. You want to start browning the rice a little, but don't expect to much color change. The rice I used this time is a mix of white and wild. I'd never tried wild for the frying before, and was surprised by the way it popped (a lot) in the pan.

Once the rice is ready start with the veggies. They're added in the order of cooking time. Longest cooking time first, shortest last, this way they all finish cooking at the same time.

For the magic color change, we use some more soy sauce. This is the delicate part. We don't want to get the rice all wet again, we used day old stuff so it would be dry. So add it slowly, splash some on and really mix it up well before more splashes. I go light with it, out of personal taste.

Lastly the egg/onion mix is put in. This mix is already cooked, and the egg will get tough if it's overcooked, so keep in mind this is just to add it in and heat it up.

I had more food than could fit in the pan, so I split it up for cooking, but mixed it all together for serving.

That's a big bowl of rice!

Okay, kidding. This is my real spread. I use the sriracha for a little color.

P.S. - Here it is with the sriracha. A little kick can be a lot of fun!