KookyCulinary

Today’s lunch: Fiori pasta with mini meatballs, peas and carrots, applesauce and cherries.

Lately Lil’ C is crazy about this flower pasta. I tried using the shell-shaped or penne pasta and she was not too happy about it. She didn’t finish her lunch but when I use this flower shape, she always finishes it with this shape. Kids!! I guess it does prove the fact that even preschoolers care about how their food looks. So if your kids are not good eaters, try playing around with the presentation of the food and you might just see a whole world of difference.

The weather has been awesome this past week. So we have been trying to spend a lot of time outdoors, thus leaving me no time to cook. It’s been lots of one-pot meals or sandwiches lately. Here is one of our favorite one-dish meals - Fried Rice.

Fried rice is so simple yet so versatile. You can just about add anything to it except the kitchen sink! For this fried rice, I’ve added Spam (or luncheon meat), carrots, peas and corn. Served with a side of spicy sambal, it always gets cleaned off the plate.

For me, the trick to getting a good fried rice is to keep all the ingredients dry. So if you are adding chicken, pan fry the chicken, remove and drain it first. Then add it back in to the fried rice later when it’s almost done. That way the rice does not get soggy from the liquid from the meat. Of course if you have a super hot wok like those in the restaurants, forget the above tip and just fry everything together.