This is an easy recipe for fried rice. It’s a great side dish for any meal and it’s low in calories! It can be made with either fresh or frozen ingredients and is one that is sure to set your tastebuds tingling.

Prep: 5 minutes
Cook: 10 minutes
Serves 4

Directions:

Heat 2 tsp canola oil in a large nonstick skillet on medium heat. Whisk eggs and then add to the skillet. Cook stirring occasionally to break up eggs until set. Remove eggs from the pan. Add remaining 2 tsp. oil to the skillet and increase the heat to medium high. Stir in frozen vegetables and cook until 5 minutes or tender.

Add stir-fry sauce and crushed red pepper to the skillet. Stir in rice and heat through. Mix in the cooked eggs. Add the lime wedge for a bit of extra flavor.

Nutritional Value

This dish has only 252 calories per serving and only 483mg of sodium! This dish cuts calories and sodium by nearly 50% compared to a takeout version.

This is one of The Food Networks top recipes, shared by Alton Brown. They rated it at “easy” with a cook time of 45 minutes. This recipe serves 6-8 people, just adjust the ingredients slightly for more or less people.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make surethere are no lumps. Stir in the milk, onion, bay leaf, and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes and remove the bay leaf.

Temper in the egg (add the hot liquid very slowly so you do not cook or scramble the egg). Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.

Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.

This recipe was found from Aaron McCargo JR, the Next Food Network Star. His show is actually pretty decent. After watching it I attempted this Macaroni Salad.

Please remember that 2 pounds is a lot of noodles, which I found out the hard way. If you want to make the recipe as is, I would suggest two pots for noodles, and a lot of refrigerator space to cool the noodles.

Mega Egga Macaroni Salad Recipe

If you just want to try the recipe, I would suggest using half of everything. The full two pounds will serve a lot of people, and then some!

Directions

In a large pot with salt, boil pasta for 12 to 15 minutes until cooked. Stir often. Drain and cool. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Cooking Tip: I would try putting the pasta on a large cooking sheet or something similar. Keeping it in a bowl will only cool the noodles on top, the ones at the middle and bottom will stay warm.

In a large pot with a dash of salt, add eggs on medium high heat. Bring to a boil. Cover and remove from heat. Let eggs sit for 6 to 7 minutes. Remove eggs and shock in ice water. Once thoroughly cooled, peel eggs and roughly dice.

Cooking Tip: This is the perfect method to boiling eggs. They came out very well cooked when I did this. I even made more just to eat hard boiled eggs alone.

Place pasta in a large bowl. Add onions, celery, eggs, relish, mayonnaise, salt and pepper, hot sauce and Worcestershire. Mix until well combined.

Grilled Asparagus with Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

Serves 4 to 6

Cooking Tip: To “peel” the asparagus just peel off some of the thick stalk.

Directions

Arrange the asparagus in a microwave-safe dish, cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. (You can also steam the asparagus if you don’t want to microwave it). Brush asparagus with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and set aside.

Toss tomatoes and mozzarella cheese in a large both with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil, parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, red pepper flakes, and black pepper.

Heat a grill pan over medium heat. Grill asparagus, turning occasionally, until tender and lightly charred, about 5 minutes. Cut asparagus in half crosswide and arrange as desired. Place salad in the middle of serving dish. Be creative with it!

Cooking Tip: This is a great appetizer or side dish.

It’s actually difficult to find a good simple white rice recipe. Heres something simple to go along with almost any meal.

Directions

Add the rice to a covered sauce pan. Add the butter, salt, water and stir.

Bring rice to a boil, reduce heat to lowest possible simmer, covered for 15 minutes.

Turn off heat but leave rice covered for 5 minutes longer.

Long grain rice may be fluffed and separated before serving.

Note: Use more or less water depending on humidity and elevation of local where rice is cooked.

Cooking Tip: The more you take the cover off of the rice, the longer it will take to cook. It needs the steam to cook better. I’ve made this mistake.