If you had to choose one dish to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be? As someone who enjoys a good smorgasbord and wants it all, I have a difficult time answering this question. Without hesitation, Hungry Bear's choice is fried rice, because it's a flavorful, balanced meal. And she can't survive without rice.

The beauty of fried rice is the endless variations that can be made from leftovers or random ingredients in the fridge. In my head, I have a basic shrimp fried rice recipe my mom taught me, but I can't recall the last time I made it. Instead, each time we make fried rice, it's a unique, never to be made again creation, because the combination of leftovers/ingredients is never the same.

Over the last few months, we've been cooking a lot of Vietnamese food. And the word, "vietnamese", in the tag/ingredient cloud (below on the right side) has grown larger, dwarfing the "chinese" tag. That's fine with me, but Hungry Bear wants to end this trend and make sure her peeps' food is more represented on SND. So yesterday, she made beef and broccoli chow fun (chao fen).

We both love chow fun, but rarely order it at restaurants because it's just too damn oily. If you have access to a good Chinese/Asian supermarket and can get your hands on fresh rice noodles (he fen or haw fun), beef chow fun is best made at home. Prepared with fresh ingredients, minimal oil and Chinese broccoli, dare I say chow fun can be a healthy, balanced meal. It's sad Chinese food prepared in most restaurants is greasy, salty and generally bad for you, whereas traditional Chinese cooking can be healthy and flavorful.