For Shun:

2-2.5 cups of day-old steamed jasmine rice
4 lop cheong sausages (Chinese sausage) bias sliced
3 whole cloves peeled/chopped garlic
1.5 yellow onion, fine chopped
1 package of dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked overnight and sliced into strips OR
1 15oz can of WHOLE straw mushrooms, peeled
4 jumbo eggs
1 small piece of fresh ginger root, julienned or thick shaved
1 8oz bag of frozen peas/carrots
1 15oz can of sweet baby corn spears
1 8oz can of sliced water chestnuts
1 crown of chopped broccoli (or 8oz bag frozen broccoli)
2-3 green onions, fine sliced
peanut oil
medium sweet soy sauce
powdered garlic
crushed pepper

Heat pan to medium-high heat and sear sausages until they sweat in the pan. Remove sausages from the pan when they are heated through, lightly browned. Add a tablespoon of peanut oil to the pan. Scramble 4 eggs in the peanut oil then remove.

Add more peanut oil to the pan and saute the julienned ginger root. Once they are golden brown, add the chopped garlic. When the garlic is light golden brown, add the onions and saute until translucent. Add the mushrooms and chopped broccoli to soak up some of the flavor. When the broccoli is tender crisp, add the baby corn and water chestnuts; cook until tender. If out of peanut oil, add some more at this stage.

Add the peas and carrots until heated through. Then add the rice. Make sure the rice isn’t cold or it will take forever to separate and stir. Drizzle medium sweet soy sauce throughout the mixture until it is lightly colored. Turn off the heat and continue to stir fry, season with powdered garlic and crushed pepper.

Toss in the scrambled eggs and sausages. Sprinkle green onions over the mixture and stir lightly. Remove from pan and serve warm. You can serve it by itself or with any meat or vegetable dish.

I neglected to post my turkey roasting experience this year, but needless to say, this year the turkey went without much drama. I did add a new ingredient to unify the Thanksgiving meal, and it made a much bigger impact on my gravy and mashed potatoes than the turkey itself. The star ingredient: Swanson’s Chicken Broth with Roasted Garlic.

I attempted to use 5 cans Chicken Broth to brine the turkey, but the flavor got too diluted when I added about 6 quarts of water during the brining process. Therefore the 1.5 cups of garlic salt and 1 cup of brown sugar I added was unable to fully flavor the turkey during the nearly 24 hours that it sat in the fridge.

However, the Roasted Garlic broth added an entirely new dimension to mashed potatoes. I emptied 4 cans into a pot, brought it to a boil, and added slices of red, skin-on potatoes. After they softened, I drained and reserved the broth. I then placed the potatoes in a metal mixing bowl and proceeded to mash them over a low heat. I added butter, chopped rosemary, and shredded cheddar, making sure the cheddar melted into the mash. The result: a fantastic cheesy garlicky mashed potatoes dish.

The reserved broth went promptly into the gravy. Granted, I had to supplement the gravy with more regular chicken broth. I made this year’s gravy with a flour base (unlike previous years in which I used cornstarch as a thickener). My whisk saw plenty of kitchen action this year as I made a roux-based gravy that thickened nicely over low-medium heat. I threw in some mushrooms, eggs, and turkey giblets that resulted in the thickest gravy I’ve ever made. Now if I could only learn the secret to cooking up a translucent gravy…

In a sweep-the-kitchen mood, I set out to make some fried rice from the LAN party leftovers. I intended to make a simple Filipino-style fried rice, all garlicky goodness, yet threw in some unusual suspects, asparagus and roast turkey. The result was good ol’ fashioned comfort food.

1 cup day-old steamed rice (actually 5 days old)
1/2 lb leftover roast turkey
2-3 cloves peeled/chopped garlic
1 bunch asparagus, ends trimmed
8oz package of mushrooms, sliced
peanut oil
medium sweet soy sauce
Lawry’s garlic salt
pepper

Starting with a drizzle of peanut oil in a pan at medium-high heat, toss in some chopped garlic and fry until golden brown. Next, dump the asparagus into the pan to soak up the flavors of oil and garlic…add a little more peanut oil to make sure all the stalks are coated evenly. Pan-broil them until tender-crisp, season with a dash of Lawry’s garlic salt, then remove from heat.

Drizzle more peanut oil into the pan and toss in the rest of the garlic. Mmmm, enjoy the aroma of garlic while it browns, then toss in the mushrooms. Add more peanut oil to coat, if necessary. To this mix add the cold turkey, which was mostly dark meat which I chopped and shredded off the bone beforehand. After sauteing for about five to ten minutes in medium-high heat, add the rice and start tossing. After everything was combined, I drizzled in soy sauce, just enough to color all the rice. Crack some pepper over the mix for seasoning, then remove from heat and serve. Yum!