Fried Rice

After a few days of fundraiser activities, I was completely wiped out.  I was laying on the couch watching Friends (no surprise there) and kept trying to get motivated to get up and go to the store to buy dinner ingredients.  Then I'd wake up a half an hour later....think those same thoughts....and pass out again.  Instead of going to the store, I rummaged around in my refrigerator and found some ingredients to make a quick and easy fried rice.  I was barely lucid when I made this, so I'm sure it'll be a snap for all of you!  Like my vegetable noodle soup, this is a great dish for using up random veggies that you have in your crisper. 
Ingredients
1-2 cups cooked white rice, chilled*
2 tbls canola, vegetable, or grapeseed oil, divided
1 shallot, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 carrot, peeled and chopped into rounds
1 cup broccoli florets, washed and cut
Handful of mushrooms, wiped clean, stemmed, and diced
Soy sauce
Sriracha, optional
2 eggs, optional

Instructions
Heat a bit of oil in a non-stick pan or wok over medium-high to high heat.  Once warmed, add the shallot and garlic.  Saute for 1-2 minutes.  Add your chopped veggies and saute for another 1-2 minutes.  Add a few turns of soy sauce around the pan and 1-2 tbls of sriracha if using.  Stir to incorporate and cook for a couple of minutes.  Remove the veggies from the pan and place in a medium-sized bowl. 

Add a bit more oil to your pan and throw in your chilled white rice, pressing it down to form an even layer in the pan.  Let the rice fry up for 2 minutes or so without stirring.  After 2 minutes, stir the rice around to continue frying for another 3-4 minutes or until it's as fried as you'd like.  Add a bit of soy sauce if desired, just for color (and because I have an obsession with soy sauce).  Remove the rice to the bowl with the veggies.

Put a bit more oil in the pan and add your protein of choice.  I love egg fried rice, so I crack two eggs into the pan and scramble them up.  Add everything back into the pan and toss it around to reheat. 

if you're lazy like me, you can just scramble the eggs in with everything else!

Serve up your fried rice and enjoy!  The best part about this recipe is it can be yours to customize.  Don't like a lot of soy sauce?  Reduce the amount (you crazy person).  Love bean spouts?  Add 'em on right at the end!  Have some extra pad Thai noodles?  Try this recipe out using those instead.  This is one of my personal dishes that I never make the same way twice.  So use this as a jumping off point to create your own version of this delicious fried rice.  If you come up with some great ideas, let me know! 
Makes 1-2 servings.

so easy and SO good!

*Food Tip: I've made fried rice using both recently-cooked and chilled rice.  If you use chilled rice, you get a much better fry on the rice and the rice will taste more nutty and have a bit of a bite to it.  Using cooked rice will be just fine, but it will be a little softer and not as fried rice-y as if you used chilled.  I tend to make a huge batch of rice in my rice cooker on Sunday evenings and refrigerate it so that I can use it during the week for anything that comes up.