Pineapple Fried (Brown) Rice

My friend/neighbor’s girlfriend moved in next door (yay!), so we made up a new name for our complex. (My friend commented that it looks like a gigantic house. This is true. The “complex” is made up of 4 2-bedroom apartments.) I randomly noticed the other day that if we throw all our first initials together, it spells out “DEAF.” Or as Elise pointed out, “FADE.” “The fade complex” sounds a hell of a lot better than “the deaf complex” (I’m sorry, what did you say?), so we’re goin’ with it!

Since I still have something like 50 pounds of rice left, I decided to make something out of it. Surprisingly enough, I still haven’t actually restocked my fridge yet (this was one of the things I was most looking forward to when I got back here, but there hasn’t been a need to so far because the school’s been feeding us breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past several days).

It was “1st Friday” last Friday, so I went with a couple friends to explore the downtown area. There’s a literary art festival this weekend (that I was signed up to volunteer at on Saturday), so we went to check out all the displays. I wish I’d taken pictures! We stopped over at a friend’s apartment to hang out for a bit and got slightly scared/paranoid because we heard footsteps coming closer/rustling/creaking steps that would stop whenever we stopped talking. Two of our friends curled up on the couch and tried to hide while another friend and I headed for the door. I was all set on punching out the person that appeared, but then I noticed he was holding a bunch of flowers and was actually my friend’s boyfriend.

Oops.

Good thing I didn’t hit him. Anyway, I caught a 10 p.m. showing of Wolverine with a couple other friends and went to sleep. Woke up early to report to duty (it was our “Day of Service”), went to the gym, then to church, then to volunteer. The Literary Art Festival featured artistic pieces by several artists (mostly local) and were paired with pieces of flash fiction written by [mostly?] local authors. I was at station #1.

The artist is Emily Coleman. I talked to a friend of hers and apparently, it only took her 6 weeks to finish this? It’s painted on wood. The necklace (barely visible in this picture) is made of crushed glass and her bracelet is made of pieces of a mirror.

The author is a suspense novelist named Laura Benedict (and coincidentally happens to be Emily’s aunt). I got asked a couple times whether or not I was the author since I was standing next to it.

Here’s a close-up!

My view across the street.

The weather ended up not failing us, so we did have our bonfire. :]! From a distance, I guess it looked really unsafe.

We used a bunch of old boxes/junk mail for kindling.

Overall, super fun times and we had a great turnout. :] I hope everyone had fun/enough to eat. We will probably host much smaller gatherings from now on. >_>

Alright, on with the recipe! I decided to test out my 1st-world rice cooker with this highly adaptable recipe. (As usual, I adapted it here and there in accordance to what I had on hand.) Since I was going to be gone for most of the day, I set the timer to have the rice ready by the time I came back. It worked out really well. :D

Pineapple Fried Rice

• 1 small can of pineapple slices, drained + cut into chunks (or just get a can of pineapple chunks)
• 4 cups cooked brown rice, preferably day-old rice
• 1/4 cup vegetable stock
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 of an onion, diced
• 2 eggs
• 1 bag frozen vegetables, thawed
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup roasted, unsalted cashew halves
• EVOO

(Sauce)

• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp mild curry powder
• sprinkle of brown sugar

Instructions:

1. Mix a little EVOO with the rice and separate the chunks. Set aside.
2. Stir soy sauce, curry powder and sugar together in a cup.
3. Drizzle a little EVOO on a gigantic pan over medium-high heat and add garlic and onions. Crack eggs into it and stir quickly (kinda like making scrambled eggs).
4. Add vegetables and stir. Add a little vegetable stock (or chicken stock) if it dries out.
5. Add rice, pineapple chunks, raisins + cashews. Drizzle sauce over and stir-fry to combine.
6. Remove from heat and taste-test for salt/flavor. If it’s too salty, add a squeeze of lime juice.
7. If you want to be all fancy, serve it in a carved-out pineapple. :O