East Meets West, Rice Style

So we tried Glynne's omuraisu a while back and despite my sub-standard omelette skills it turned out pretty well and we all really liked it.

Fast forward a couple weeks and I'm getting ready to make barbecue rice, which is pretty much southwest-style fried rice. It's got corn, kidney beans, onions, bell peppers, and (of course) barbecue sauce.

And I realize I could totally combine these two recipes, so I did. So I made barbecue rice without the kidney beans and shredded some colby-jack onto it, then I topped it with omelettes. I'm still a fairly crappy omeletteer, but it turned out pretty tasty anyway.

Avocado-blueberry-grapefruit salad

We had some people over tonight, and I wanted something to serve with the taco soup, so I kind of made up this recipe based on what I felt like eating. I surfed some recipe sites for ideas, and that's where I got the grapefruit, but the rest was me. I'm kind of proud of it: people had seconds and thirds.

Ingredients:
2 pink grapefruit
2 large avocados
1/2 large red onion, or 1 small red onion
4 red radishes
1 cup or so fresh blueberries
vinaigrette dressing

1. Chop the onion fairly fine.

2. Slice the radishes paper-thin with a mandolin.

3. Cut open the grapefruit and cut out the insides. Dice.

4. Cut open the avocados, scoop out the insides. Dice.

5. Mix onion, radish, grapefruit, avocado, and blueberries in a bowl.

6. Drizzle vinaigrette over, mix.

7. Chill for an hour or so.

The vinaigrette I used was Brianna's Champagne Caper Vinaigrette, which is kind of creamy with a hint of grapey sweetness and a touch of salty-sour caper. It was perfect, but I'd be curious to know if a regular vinaigrette would work too.

This made enough for five adults, with some left over for tomorrow. Obviously, you could halve this recipe for a smaller group.