Any Pei Wei Lovers Out There?

I LOVE Pei Wei. I love their fried rice. I shovel it into my mouth like I am not going to eat again for days. Then I swallow huge amounts of it at a time and wonder if its all going to make it down. Oh, its so good.

Yesterday I came across this recipe on allrecipes.com

Colorful Fried Rice.

Colorful.Wonderful.Flavorful.Easy-ful. The last one is a made up word, but seriously this recipe was incredibly easy to follow.

I wanted to share with all of my millions of blog readers. So, consider yourself lucky if you are one of those millions.

I doubled the recipe and thank goodness I did. Between the 2.5 people that I feed in this house, we ate it all. So here is what I used.

Colorful Fried Rice

 Ingredients:

3 cups cold cooked rice

3 green onions, chopped

1 large carrot, diced

1/2 cup frozed peas, thawed

2-3 T soy sauce (I used low sodium)

2 T fresh chopped parsley

2 T olive oil

2 eggs, beaten

salt & pepper to taste

1. Cook rice ahead of time and refrigerate. (I guess its less mushy this way)

2. Thaw out the frozen peas

3. In skillet, cook and stir the rice, green onions, carrots, peas, soy sauce and parsley in oil until the onions are tender and rice is heated through. 

4. Add the eggs. Cook and stir until its completely set. 

5. Season to taste and ENJOY!

Country Potato Soup. Make it now. Then eat it.

I know, I know... Potato Soup is not healthy. Especially this version. But it is too yummy to not share. I made it last week after I was given a bag of potatoes.

It is a copycat recipe of La Madeline's Country Potato Soup. For real, it tastes like the potato soup from La Madeline's. Favorite. Scrumptious. Delightful.  

Country Potato Soup

you will need:
1/8 cup butter, unsalted
2 leeks, thinly sliced (white part only)
1 large yellow onion, sliced 
1 1/2 quarts of chicken stock
4 large peeled potatoes, sliced into 1/4 inch slices
salt, to taste
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1/2 cup heavy cream
cheddar cheese, grated
bacon, cooked and diced


what to do with it:
Melt butter in large pot. add leeks (I had to ask a grocer what the heck leeks were the first time I made this soup) and onion and cook until just translucent. no not brown the poor things.

Add the chicken stock, potatoes, salt and fresh thyme. dont skimp on the thyme. its what makes this soup awesome.

Cook over medium heat for about 40 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid scorching. Add the cream slowly and bring to a boil.


Voila! Toss some cheese in you own bowl, sprinkle some crunchy bacon pieces on top and enjoy.

Quinoa Vegetable Soup

Hi Folks,

I made Quinoa Vegetable Soup on Monday for lunch. Key ended up not coming home for lunch that day to try this yummy soup.  But that night, he came home, "doctored" it up, and loved it. Right honey? Right.

He pan seared ribeye steak, cut it into small pieces and added that.  Also, he seasoned it up.  Men. I cant help you out with what he seasoned it up with, because I was outside giving riding lessons. So, go with whatever tastes good to you.

I used the box of Ancient Harvest Quinoa.

It's the box second from the right. "Traditional" Quinoa.

The recipe I followed is on their Website.

I did some tweaking. But the recipe is as follows:

Quinoa Vegetable Soup

4 cups water                                            2 cloves garlic, chopped
¼ cup quinoa                                           1 Tbs safflower oil
½ cup carrots, diced                                 ½ cup tomatoes, chopped
¼ cup celery, diced                                   ½ cup cabbage, chopped
2 Tbs onions, chopped                               1 tsp salt
¼ cup green pepper, diced                            parsley, chopped    

Sauté quinoa, carrots, celery, onions, green pepper and garlic in oil until golden brown. Add water, tomatoes and cabbage and bring to a boil. Simmer 20 to 30 minutes or until tender. Season to taste and garnish with parsley. Serves 4-6.   This is a very basic recipe for quinoa vegetable soup. For variations try adding some of your other favorite vegetables, chopped and sautéed.   Quinoa can be a welcome addition to just about any type of soup

I had most of these veggies in (my mom's) garden, so it was super yummy using home grown tomatoes and green pepper, especially.  The quinoa expands and fluffls up in the soup almost like barley or rice would.  So the measly ole 1/4 cup that you use, goes further than you would think.

I also added peas to my soup. Key does not like peas, but I did not have cabbage, So I figured that I needed to add something in its place.

It was super duper easy to make, light on the tummy, healthy and most of all, yummy.

Enjoy!