Happy Chinese New Year!

Here is Dylan trying out his new chopsticks, one of his stocking stuffers from Christmas.

You can find these kid friendly chopsticks at Hog Wild. They have many fun designs!

"Pineapple" Soup

Delicious for when you're craving a sweet & sour soup.

Start with a Tamarind soup base from Knorr's. Add fish sauce, pineapple, sugar to taste, cilantro, fresh tomatoes and fish of your choice, I used shrimp (cod is good too). Serve over rice and garnish with bean sprouts, cilantro and a squeeze of lime. Easy peasy!

A childhood favorite of mine!

Dinner at Le Colonial (otherwise known as my most favorite restaurant of all time!)

What a gorgeous couple!

Grilling Season is upon us!!

Check back for my review of the new McCormick Grill Mates seasonings and marinades. The Tuscan Sun Dried Tomato marinade will be perfect for all our grilled veggies! Can't wait to grill. Now if it would stop raining on the weekends!

Sushi 101

I tried making sushi again. Refreshing my memory with tips and recipes from the Education Center at the Food Service Warehouse site.

Instead of making sushi rice from scratch (always a daunting task for me!) I cheated a little and used some leftover brown rice I had. Just added sushi vinegar to it and it was acceptable. Not easy to work with but I thought it tasted great.

I also tried shrimp and vegetable tempura. Super yum. Joe really enjoyed it.

My mis en pas. All the ingredients ready to go.

Prepping the brown rice. Using a wooden rice spoon and wooden bowl helps absorb excess moisture from the rice.

California roll ready to be rolled on the sushi mat.

I used crab with a "k". My apologies. But fresh crab isn't in our budget!

California roll.

Tempura batter and panko crumbs ready. I read once that the chef at Nobu suggests making the batter as cold as you can so that your tempura is light and crispy. Martha Stewart actually adds ice cubes into her batter. 

The batter recipe was basically:

- 1 cup all purpose flour

-1 egg

- 1.5 cups ice cold water

- 1 tsp Baking soda

After dipping the shrimp/veggies in the batter, I then rolled it in panko.

The panko adds an extra crunch that I love.

Shrimp cleaned and deveined and veggies ready to go. I try to use vegetables that will hold up to frying.

Temperature of the oil is important. You don't want it too hot and burn everything before it has a chance to cook through and you don't want it too cool so that the tempura becomes greasy. 340F- 360F is a good temp. Remember that the oil temp will drop once the food is added to the oil, so keep the thermometer handy so that you can gauge the oil temp.

I love my "spider" spoon. Great for skimming and fishing out food from hot oil. Fry the veggies first then the shrimp. That way your oil isn't fishy, making the veggies fishy.

Shrimp tempura rolls. My favorite maki roll!

Tempura ready to eat. SO good. 

I used a store bought tempura dipping sauce and it was very tasty. So much easier than making from scratch.

Recipe Inspirations

Joe brought home some of these nifty pre-measured spices and recipe cards from  McCormick®  for me to try. So far I've made the Quesadilla Casserole, Garlic Lime Fajitas and Apple and Sage Pork Chops. All were good, very easy to make and a great "go to" for last minute dinners or if you just can't be bothered looking up a recipe or figuring out what to cook. Basically, they are a "cooking for dummies" kind of concept. Perfect for a harried mother of three!

The Garlic Lime Fajitas were really good. Perfect spice with a bit of zing.

The best part is that you can add as much or as little of the spices as you like. I don't particularly like oregano, so I only added half the suggested amount to the Quesadilla Casserole. 

We're looking forward to making Shrimp & Pasta Primavera on Friday.

Get your Irish on..

Here is an easy peasy recipe for corned beef brisket with potatoes and cabbage. A simple dinner that is even better the next day in sammies or a corned beef hash (we went with the latter).

Beef from Welch's butcher in St. John. Throw everything in a crock pot and 8-hours later...voila! Instant Irish soul food. The recipe can be found on the Family Circle website.

And forget the green beer. Make a Bloody Mary with Guinness instead. You won't be disappointed!

Happy St. Patty's day!