One Pound, One Pan

I have seen many recipes and cooking experiences posted on many different blogs, but I have never seen one so bold and daring as what follows. Prepare yourself for the shocking expose on dinner in America.

Here is the culprit: a boxed dinner. Actually, I suppose the true culprit is Stater Brother's Market for having a killer sale in their circular a few weeks ago where if you bought 10 of a group of certain items, it only cost five dollars. That, combined with recent rice and wheat shortages, put me in full hoarding mode. Trust me, I'm from Utah- I can hoard food with the best of them. So several of these boxed dinners are in my pantry. This particular box, for chicken fried rice, seemed harmless enough. In a call to my husband I asked if he would prefer this or Empress Lemon Chicken ( a simple, tasty stir-fry recipe from the back of a bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce). As husbands are wont to do, he said, "You choose." In a rather vindictive moment for making me choose, I chose the box.

And as harmless as the box seemed in my pantry, so began the cooking process. Cooking chicken until no longer pink was no problem. Adding the rice mix was OK, too. Sure, I prefer brown rice to white and fresh veggies to dehydrated; but I also prefer simple to complicated. And on this particular evening I also preferred thought-free to thoughtful meal preparation. I think where things started to go horribly, horribly wrong was in the very next step: the addition of the seasoning packet.

The dark brown granules contained in the seasoning packet seemed wrong to me the moment I laid eyes on them. It looked like dark brown sugar and smelled like the saltiest beef bouillon in the world. They fell out of the packet and formed a small dirt-like mound on top of the uncooked rice. The addition of the called for water resulted in the goopy, mud-like substance at left. Despite the condition, I moved forward in the cooking process. I let it simmer for the recommended time, then pushed it to one side of the pan and scrambled two eggs in the other side.

The finished product is pictured at left. My husband thought the flavor was fine, but the chicken dry. My boys wouldn't eat it. I ate it, but the saltiness was overpowering for me in everything but the egg scrambles. All in all, it was not the worst meal that ever has appeared on my table, but it was far from the best. But, I am glad that I chose to make this instead of the yummy stir-fry because my in-laws came over for lunch later in the week and I served the Empress Lemon Chicken then.