Unloved Veggies Become Sesame Fried Rice


Dear unloved veggies,
I'm so sorry I've neglected you in my fridge drawer. There you sat, silverbeet stems, while your leaves became a tart. And beetroot stems, ditto. And cabbage - well, you've been hanging around for a long while, watching your companion leaves become sauerkraut. Alas, I have mistreated you.

So, I'll make it up to you all. You will not be thrown out, unused. You will become magnificent. You will become ...

Sesame Fried Rice.

Veggies, I would like to introduce you to ground toasted sesame seeds.

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Unloved Veggies Become Sesame Fried Rice 

Serves 2-4
This will probably take 30-40 min including the chopping/rice-making time. Unless you use brown rice, in which case add on another 10-20 min.


Ingredients
The ground toasted sesame seeds
Fry 1/4 c sesame seeds (+ optional 2-3 Tbs pumpkin seeds) in a skillet over med heat (no oil) until nicely browned. Take them out of the skillet, add 1/2 tsp salt and grind them to a fine powder in a spice or coffee grinder. Set aside.

NOTE: I ground the sesame up because I find in my stirfries/fried rice that they always fall to the bottom and I lose half of them before they hit the plate. This way, the sesame flavour sticks to the whole dish. It's everywhere. In a good way.

The rest
1 Tbs coconut oil (use virgin if you want a hint of coconut taste, refined if you don't)
5 c mixed minced veggies - I use a mix of cabbage, carrot, celery, silverbeet or beetroot stems, bok choy, spring onions. This can be flexible, the idea is to use up the veggies that need using up. But remember that some flavours can dominate, so go lightly on those ones.
3 c cooked rice
2 Tbs tamari
2 Tbs ground toasted sesame seeds

+ sesame oil, tamari and ground toasted sesame seeds to taste, for each portion.

1. Heat up the coconut oil over med-high heat in a large skillet or wok. Add the veggies and saute until they are softened (but still crispy). Keep moving them around so they don't stick to the pan.

2. Then, add the cooked rice and stir to mix through. Add the tamari and mix. Then take the pan off the heat and mix through the ground sesame seed mix.

3. Serve into bowls and drizzle each serving with sesame oil, tamari and a sprinkle of the ground sesame seeds. Done!

HANDY TIPS:
Make extra rice - you can use it over the next few days for any number of things!
Make extra ground sesame seeds - it'll be so yum on salads or rice ... and I wonder how it would taste on vanilla ice cream?
Make extra fried rice - it's so good for lunches!

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How much did this cost me?
Ooh, not much! My organic white rice was about $3 and the veggies needed to be resuscitated ... so I elect not to count them ... The rest would've been less than $1, so this use-it-up fried rice would come to about $1-$2 per portion. Not bad, for all-organic ... and it kept some good veggies from the bin.

Have a lovely weekend!
Amanda xx

Comments

  1. Love the sound of this recipe. Can't wait to try the ground sesame seeds - genius. No more unloved vegies! (the worms are going to hate me).

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  2. timely post! i have a huge big cabbage in the crisper that has been neglected for a few weeks now.

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  3. Poor worms!! And Jen, I tried making sauerkraut - only a couple more weeks till I can tell you how it went :)

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  4. i used half the cabbage for a pasta earlier in the week and the other half went in this recipe tonight! all the unloved other veggies too - a poor 1/2 cabbage that has been sitting in the crisper for two weeks! the crisper is all cleaned out for the grocery delivery tomorrow!

    i didnt realise that the ground sesame mix was going to taste so delicious! i've eaten half of it before its hit the rice/veggies!!

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Thanks for commenting! Amandaxx