One recipe leads to another...

I feel like I've started some sort of recipe chain reaction. First I made the Thai steamed snapper and then after that I realized I had most of the ingredients for Thai Lemon Shrimp. All I needed was some coconut milk and dinner was made!

And a tasty dinner it was! So incredibly simple to make. I just thawed out some shrimp, tossed it into a baggie with the marinade ingredients to get happy and then the actual cooking time was just a few minutes. Waiting for the udon noodles to cook was really the only time consuming thing but it was still just about 20 minutes to make dinner. Kev fussed over the shrimp tails but I told him if it mattered that much he could take them off before I cooked the shrimp. He didn't, so he can just shut his trap.:-p

Anyway, back to this chain reaction thing. So now I've got this coconut milk hanging out in my fridge that needs to be used up. It's tasty stuff and a fairly expensive ingredient so I definitely need to do something with it. I'm thinking maybe a curry since I have red curry paste now thanks to the steamed snapper. I've never made a curry before so this could be interesting. Thai was easy enough so maybe I can handle curry.

In other recipes that I've tried, this recipe from Martha Stewart via Serious Eats is pretty awesome. I'm mostly talking about the cauliflower. The salmon was fine, but the cauliflower blew me away. I'll never be afraid to cook with anchovies ever again. Try it, it'll make you really love cauliflower if you don't already.

Thai Steamed Snapper

Tonight's dinner was one of the better weight watchers recipes I've had. Tonight wasn't the first time that I've had it. My friend Jen made it last weekend when we came over for dinner and Kev and I just gushed over it. Spicy, flavorful, super filling and only 8 points! Nice!

I added some mushrooms to it when I made it. Mostly because I just like mushrooms but it added some extra bulk so there'd be enough for lunch tomorrow. Jen originally used Mahi Mahi when she made it. I used the snapper that's called for but I think I might've liked it with the Mahi Mahi better. I forgot the onion but I don't think that made much of a difference. I'll definitely make this more often. It's a easy way to make a tasty, healthy fish dish which I've been trying to eat more of lately.

ramen upgrade

Couple weeks ago I spotted this entry over at Serious Eats re: Ramen Hacks. It has never occurred to me to tamper with the salty, unhealthy goodness of ramen before, but why the hell not?

I sent the b/f to the store with a very specific list, snow peas, scallions, flank stank, soy sauce and beef flavored ramen. He came back with sugar snap peas (so very very sweet and tasty) and cup o' noodles. Not the ramen in a bag... erm... okay! Make it work time.

Quickly steamed the sugar snap peas, marinated cut up steak in soy sauce, and barely fried it. Let the cup o' noodles hang out for one minute with some hot water, drain, stir together, dash more of soy sauce and presto! Not ten minutes later (including prep time) dinner was served.



One minor change I would have made would be the cup o' noodles. Since those come pre-seasoned (whereas the bag o' ramen has a separate seasoning package) I couldn't control the salt, plus I got a little soy sauce happy, and everything came out pretty intensely seasoned. Now I've got to start planning my next ramen hack... chicken? Ramen n' cheese?

Also sorry for the bad photography. I assure you it looked much more pleasing than in the photo.

Adventures in Ice Cream Part 2

Kevin and I took the ice cream maker for a spin this weekend and made our 2nd batch of home made ice cream.  This batch would've been considerably less expensive than the white chocolate ice cream if it hadn't been for the burnt butter pecans. The instructions weren't great for making those and Kev over toasted them in the oven at 350 for 10 minutes. He never toasted nuts before so wasn't aware that they need constant vigilance and coddling otherwise they go from golden brown and delicious to burnt in about 2.5 seconds. So we wound up spending like $12 on nuts for one batch of ice cream. Ouch. At least we have some left so I can make more of those tasty spicy pecans from Macheesmo. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, ice cream.

It's butterscotchbrandy pecan ice cream. (We didn't have any scotch.) It's rich, buttery and almost a little savory. Definitely a little salty, but I like that. Not quite as smooth and creamy as the white chocolate ice cream, but it's still really darn delicious. Kevin certainly doesn't have any complaints.  Next up on the list will definitely be a chocolate ice cream. There's no way home made chocolate ice cream won't be twice as delicious as this.

No nuts in a Haystack

I was recently chatting with a friend and recalling the un-sophisticated palette of childhood - boil bag rice with butter, fried bologna sandwiches, StoveTop stuffing, potato bread by the fistful. Who's the sick twisted soul that thought, 'How can we get more carbs into a piece of white bread? I know! POTATO!'

Anyway, this conversation gave me a powerful hankering for Haystacks. Super simple, super delicious, these definitely bring back tons of memories for me. I phoned up my mom and got the recipe. I didn't realize it but the recipe actually comes from her mother! I think there's something really adorable about keeping a 60-year old recipe going in the family.


Ingredients.

• 3 cups oats


• 1 cup coconut


• 1 cup nuts


• 1/2 cup margarine/butter


• 1/2 cup milk


• 1 cup sugar


• 1 large package semi-sweet chocolate chips(16 oz)

Steps.
- Mix dry ingredients
- Bring to boil milk, sugar and butter
- Pour wet ingredients over dry and mix until chocolate melts
- Drop onto parchment paper and let set in fridge (two hour minimum)

My mother has always detested nuts in any sort of dessert (she firmly believes they have no place in baked goods and shouldn't come in to contact with sugar ever). Point being I've never had haystacks with nuts, so I always go heavy on the oats and coconut. I didn't remember just how decedent and rich these could be! Next time, I think I'm going to go easy on the sugar...

Taking the meat grinder for a spin.

Kevin's parents got me the meat grinder attachment for my kitchen aid as a birthday present this year. I finally got it out this weekend to take it for a spin grind. We had a vague notion that we wanted to make burgers but this notion came to us when we were already at the store so we weren't sure what the best cut of meat would be to use. We picked up a pound of sirloin and decided to give that a shot. I kept the seasoning very simple, just some kosher salt on the chopped up meat and a grind of black pepper once the patties were formed.

Grinding the meat was easy and fun. We got 4 good sized patties from the mix (2 5oz and 2 4oz).

(aren't they pretty?)

We served the burgers along side roasted veggies (baby gem potatoes, yellow pepper, onions and mushrooms). The burgers turned out pretty tasty. Very beefy. Kevin feels like we should add more fat next time so we'll pick up a more fatty cut of beef or perhaps toss in some bacon (I read that suggestion somewhere and I really like it). All in all though it was fun to grind up my own burger meat and we'll definitely do it again. Next up on the list is sausage.

Shrimp and Grits for Dinner.

It's official. I'm a true southern bell. I've been turned into a grit lover.

This dish is so good it'll make you wanna slap yo momma.




Seriously, do your mouth a favor and make this recipe. I promise, you'll thank me. It's bacon and cheese and shrimp and lemon and it's a party in your mouth. I'm pretty sure I'll make this for dinner tomorrow night. And maybe the night after that too. Hell, I might have some of the left overs for dessert. It's just that awesome.