Monday, Monday

As a postscript to Sunday's cooking and drinking, here's a picture of the rosé that won my heart this past weekend. I bought this bottle and a bottle of Clos du Bois Rosé and, just for me (no libel intended), I found the Marqués de Cáceres to be the better wine. When chilled, it's crisp, dry and has a good clean finish with no dodgy aftertaste. And it's under $10 per bottle, which is always a good thing!

The chicken came out great but not as good as Kirby's (or so I was informed by my 16-year-old -- it's a tough crowd at my house!), and I made extra rice so tonight I'm going to make chicken fried rice to accompany whatever fish filets I'm planning to pull out of the freezer. To make chicken fried rice, you need cooked chicken chopped into small pieces, a scrambled egg, chopped carrots, onions, and garlic, soy sauce, salt, pepper, a dash of sesame oil and, of course, rice. The secret to a nice fried rice is to chill the rice at least overnight so that some of the moisture departs from the grains. Pour a little canola oil (you don't want a heavy oil for this) in a frying pan or, preferably, a wok, heat it up, and scramble the egg. Remove the scrambled egg to a bowl, add a little more oil to the pan or wok, and then add the chopped carrots, onion and garlic. Swish them around for a minute until you smell the garlic and onions cooking, and then dump the rice in. (NOTE: Before you put the rice in, use a fork or your hands and separate the grains so you don't end up with rice clumps.) Stir the rice, turning it over to toast it a bit and, when it's hot and well cooked with the oil, add the chicken and scrambled egg, and sprinkle salt, pepper, and a generous helping of soy sauce (enough to make it a nice light brown fried rice color) and mix it all together. When it's the temperature and consistency that you like, drizzle a few drops of sesame oil on it, stir again, turn off the heat, and you're done! You can, of course, put whatever vegetables you like into the fried rice, like peas, broccoli, green beans -- it's all up to individual tastes. You can change up the meat, too, or make it all vegetarian, depending on what you have in the house.

Whatever I do to the fish will be a subject for another blog, because I haven't decided yet! So many choices, so little time (this is a Jackson-to-taekwondo night).