recipe: CHICKEN & RICE STIR FRY

First recipe on the blog, here it goes:

You will need (for about 3 people):
300g chicken cut into strips, 2/3 cup rice, 6 spring onions chopped, 2 carrots thinly sliced, 1 handful of snow peas trimmed, 1 handful english spinach, 1 garlic clove chopped, 1 teaspoon grated ginger, 1 tbs olive oil, 2 teaspoons sesame oil, 1 tbs soy sauce, 1 tbs mirin, 1 tbs rice wine vinegar, salt & pepper


1. Boil the rice and season with salt (You can boil it in water or stock, as you like);
2. Heat the olive oil and half the sesame oil in a wok or large frying pan, add the garlic, ginger and cook the chicken until browned. Reserve the chicken.
3. Add the carrots and most of the spring onions to the wok and cook for about 5 minutes. Add soy sauce, mirin, vinegar and stir. When the carrots are soft, add the chicken, snow peas, spinach and stir for about 3 minutes. Add the cooked rice (make sure its dry of any water) and mix all the ingredients.
4. Season with salt and the rest of the sesame oil to taste. Serve, topped with black pepper and the remaining spring onions.

WEEK 1

ok, so I cook a lot...for 2 people. my husband works full time and I cook his lunch as well so we can save some money. I lived in Japan and got the habit of cooking lunch everyday to take to work, the so-called "Bento Box" that my husband takes everyday unless there is a change of plans.
We also try to eat healthy so all of this involves a huge amount of planning from both parts in order to plan, buy and cook all these meals.
This week the menu is as follows:
Monday:
lunch _Mix bean & tuna salad
dinner_Chicken & rice stir fry
Tuesday:
lunch_Chicken & rice stir fry
dinner_ Minestrone
Wednesday:
lunch_ no lunch
dinner_White fish fillets grilled with lemon caper sauce
Thursday:
lunch_Lamb & burghal salad
dinner_Salmon with sesame, mushroom & asian vegetables
Friday:
lunch_Chicken and Soba Salad
dinner_ out

INTRO

I am an architect or at least I was educated to become one. Education was a big part of my life, I studied architecture, urban design, music, I used to play the piano, and I can speak fluently 3 languages and other 3 in a quite funny way.
I grew up in the 80s and learnt that I would be able to do anything that I could or wanted. I travelled around the world, got scholarships and lived in 3 continents. But nothing prepared me for work life and shortly after I started on my first big job, a recession took over the world and I lost not only my job but a lot of the faith I had in the world and consequently in myself. Since then, I havent made it as an architect, at least not finantially, I got married to the love of my life and moved continents again to be with him.
But nothing had prepared me for this year.
I moved from Portugal to Australia, which is a fairly big move. Amongst waiting for a visa to come through and struggling to adapt to a new place and to a newly wed lifestyle I went through so many ups and downs in a year that I found it really hard to keep my sanity (and although I seem like a normal person most of the time, I feel like I am always walking on a tight rope) and the only person who has been there for me was my husband.
Now, this blog is an attempt to document my life through this process and somehow try to accept that whatever I have done and keep doing with my life has a meaning and a purpose.
Now, for more pragmatical introductions, I am still not working oficially, and most of my time is spent at home doing things, mostly cooking. I have always loved cooking but never really put this much time into it and I realized its imensely therapeutical. I paint, design virtual buildings and even learnt how to sew by myself this year so in a way, I have survived this tough year of bureaucratic b***s**t through experimenting and creating things with the few resources available around me.
Hopefully, from now on I will be able to document future projects being them architectural, artistic, culinary or in a fashion sense, otherwise you'll know I finally got a job and became an active part of the world. (fingers crossed!)