birthday cake stir-fry!?

My birthday was 8 days ago so to celebrate, I made a stir-fry using the last of my 12-pack of birthday cake soda, with the protein source being cake batter-flavored egg whites. It's basically combining Chinese take-out and a birthday celebration, literally! 

This recipe has a lot of components, what with the rice, the sauce, the egg whites, and the veggies. But trust me, the effort will be all worth it in the end. 

The interesting thing is is that you don't taste any birthday-cake flavor in this stir-fry at all, save for the party cake bites on top. I chose jade rice for this recipe because it has a hint of vanilla flavor and a traditional birthday cake definitely has vanilla somewhere on it or in it. The rice is green when raw(hence the name Jade rice) but it looks like fried rice when cooked, which I found very intriguing. 

The party cake bites looked a lot like dumplings. Listen, dumplings take a lot of work to make from scratch and sure you can the frozen types at a supermarket, but using party cake bites is faster and it provides a sweetness to the stir-fry dumplings just can't match! On the same vein, you probably could use brownie bites in place of beef stew meat too...

When it comes to stir-fry vegetables, there's one veggie I will never put in it nor place in my mouth and that's the bell peppers. They just taste bitter to me for some reason and when I see that ingredient listed for a frozen TV dinner I want to buy, I just won't buy it. However, if the dinner has jalapenos or some other sort of pepper, I'm game. 

My dad didn't know what to think of this stir-fry when he tried it. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing though.

HELPFUL LINKS: 

Jade Rice: shop.lotusfoods.com/Organic-Jade-Pearl-Rice/p/LOT-00360&c=LotusFoods@Organic

Birthday Cake Soda: www.jonessoda.com/collections/cane-sugar-soda/products/limited-edition-birthday-cake-soda-12-pk

Cake Batter Egg Whites: www.muscleegg.com/products/liquid-egg-whites/cake-batter/9-single-serve-bottles-cake-batter/

You will need: 

For the cooking equipment: 

A large saucepot
A medium saucepot
A frying pan
A spatula
A medium bowl
A large bowl

For the rice:

1/2 cup raw Jade rice(see HELPFUL LINKS)
1/2 cup melted butter
3/4 cup birthday cake soda(see HELPFUL LINKS)
2 cups stock(I used turkey stock)
Pinch of parsley or thyme
Pinch of onion powder

For the sauce:

3/4 cup birthday cake soda
1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
Pinch of garlic powder

For everything else: 

Olive oil
6 oz. Cake batter egg whites(see HELPFUL LINKS)
15 oz. frozen stir-fry vegetables(I used sugar snap peas, carrots, mushrooms, and water chestnuts)
Entemann's Party cake bites for garnish

For the rice: 

1. Put all the rice ingredients into a large saucepot and mix all the ingredients up. Bring the rice to a boil. 
2. Once the rice is boiling, put a lid on the pot and make sure the steam valve is closed! Reduce the heat to a simmer and let the rice cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the liquid has dissolved. 
3. Once all the liquid has dissolved, turn the stove off and move the pot to a cool burner with the lid on for 5 minutes to make sure the rice is fluffy.

For the sauce: 

1. Put all the sauce ingredients into a medium saucepot and mix all the ingredients up. Put the pot on the stove and put the flame on medium heat. Stir the sauce until it coats the back of a spoon. 
2. Once it's coated, turn the stove off and move the pot to a cool burner to let it cool.

For everything else: 

1. Pour olive oil into a frying pan, spread the oil around the pan, and heat the oil up on the stove.
2. Once the oil is heated up, pour the egg whites into the pan and scramble the egg whites until they're firm, stringy, and no longer liquidy. If you don't like stringy egg whites, then you can always bulk it up with some riced vegetables(ex. cauliflower). 
3. Place the scrambled egg whites into a medium bowl. 
4. Pour sesame seed oil into a clean frying pan, spread the oil around the pan, and heat the oil up. 
5. Once the oil is heated up, put the frozen vegetables into the frying pan, in 3 batches. In each batch, stir-fry the veggies for 2-4 minutes until they're cooked. Place the cooked vegetables into a large bowl. 
6. Top the vegetables with rice, then sauce, and then egg whites. Mix all the ingredients up. Top with party cake bites. 
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