Pork Fried Rice

This dinner was inspired by Robin Miller on the Food Network.  If you've never seen her show, it's all about weeknight convenience meals and streamlining the process by using the same components in multiple dishes. 

I had quite a bit of pork left over from the apple cinnamon feast the night before (see last post!).  Since I cooked the apples separately, I was left with simply flavored meat - olive oil, salt and pepper - that was just just asking for a new do.   I actually saw Robin Miller make this dish as a way to use leftovers, and I made a completely spur of the moment decision last night to give it a go....thus leaving the chicken sausage I had planned to make perching lonely on the second shelf of the fridge.  (Don't worry, little chicken sausage, I won't abandon you.)  Anyway, in addition to creatively using leftovers, the dish was tasty and satisfying! 

I've never actually made fried rice before, so I was excited to try it.  Having said all of that stuff about Robin Miller, I actually didn't use her recipe because of its mediocre reviews.  (I love reading reviews!  What did we do before the Internet?!)  I found a different recipe on Epicurious.com and used it as a guide.   http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pork-Fried-Rice-237524   I loosely followed it with a few changes/enhancements: 

• The meat was already cooked, so this changed the strategy slightly.
• I swapped malt vinegar and sugar for a few splashes of rice vinegar because (omg) I didn't have malt vinegar.  Guess who will be going to the store this very day to purchase malt vinegar?!
• I decided to double the sauce (all the liquid stuff) figuring the more flavor, the better, and this ended up being a great success. 
• I used a vidalia onion instead of a red one, as that's what I had around.
• I added shredded carrot and sauteed it at the onion/ginger stage for sweetness...and vitamins.
• At the last minute, I added steamed hericot verts for some more green since we had some leftover in the fridge.

The fun part of all of this is that this dish occurred, more or less, by accident.  But you can make the practice of "cook once; use twice" an intentional one as well when it's time to plan out your week!