The Incredible Edible Pea Pod

I've done the shrimp fried rice a few times now, and I'd say I'm quite getting the hang of it.  This week I found a great deal on a bag of snow peas (I still call them "mange tout" from my days in England), and I was inspired.  I LOVE these things in stir fries!  Basically, snow peas (a.k.a. sugar snap peas) are your regular garden peas just in "baby" form.  In fact, the French term describes it quite accurately, mange (pronounced MONGE with a soft G) meaning "eat" and tout (pronounced TOO) meaning "all."  You do quite literally eat it all, pod and all!

For those of you wanting a bit more in depth discussion, please check out this link here.

So, grabbing a bag of salad shrimp--which were on sale, as opposed to the usual small/medium shrimp I buy--I went with the Minute brown rice (I was in a bit of a time crunch) and threw this together in literally minutes.

Shrimp Fried Rice with Snow Peas

Neither of my boys cared for the snow peas, which mortified me for about 2 seconds, at which point I happily scoffed them.  LOL!  As a backup, however, I did include the peas and carrots for a little extra veggies, since I was skipping the mung bean sprouts this time.  (I know, sinner that I am.)

As usual, my youngest boy ate up all the rice and shrimp, carefully picking around anything that resembled a vegetable.  What surprised me was how, when finished, he proceeded to shovel the peas and carrots into his mouth until there was nothing left!

SCORE ONE FOR MOMMY!!!  <punches the air and mentally yells, "YES!!!">

My oldest boy calmly ate through two helpings of the stuff.  I was chuffed.  That's the beauty of stir fries though, they're so versatile!  You can make them with rice, noodles, or skip the starches and go with meat and/or veggies!  The sauce can be as simple or complex as you like.  And the best part...it all comes together in a matter of minutes.  I'm thinking of doing something with noodles next time, perhaps some of the thin and delicate rice noodles I've seen in many Asian stores or in the ethnic food aisles at the local grocery stores.  The possibilities are endless!

As for the rest of this week, well, we're still trying to get back on track with the cooking.  Leftover grilled chicken from this Labor Day weekend has made an appearance (of course it always tastes better the second time, when there's much less of it), and this Friday will be our recipe exchange dinner, so I'm not sure exactly what we'll be eating.  I'll be bringing the sausage, apple, and cranberry stuffing that's been the highlight of our last few Thanksgiving dinners, so hopefully that will go down well!

More next week, fellow foodies!

Shrimp Fried Rice Revisited

Sometimes, first attempts don't always turn out right.  So this week, I gave the shrimp fried rice recipe another shot.  I increased the eggs from 2 to 3, added some ground ginger and garlic chili sauce to the beaten eggs, and added some frozen peas and carrots along with the shrimp.  I think I also added a little extra soy sauce because (once again) I used a whole bag of bean sprouts instead of the suggested 1 cup.  I also omitted the baby corn and sliced mushrooms because I forgot to buy them and didn't have any on hand.  I also didn't think I had any green onions (hence the peas), but it turns out I did, so maybe I'll use them next time.  Oops!

I have to say I was more pleased with the flavor this time.  The kids ate it up, too, but as usual, I like to doctor mine up with a little extra something.  For that, I like to add a little sweet chili sauce.

This sauce is pretty hot, so start of slow and add only as much as you need.  It gives this wonderful sweet heat that makes stir fry dishes POP!  I suppose it would be pretty good on just about anything, but that's just me.  :)  Hmmm...I wonder how well it would go with a bowl of vanilla ice cream....?  Just a thought.

We had a bit of a hectic week this week, so a quick throw-together meal we had one night was a popcorn chicken salad.  It really is as simple as it sounds: Bagged salad mix, cottage cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, chopped tomatoes, popcorn chicken right from the grocery store deli, Ken's honey mustard dressing (I've found I can get the little guy to eat salad so long as it's drenched in honey mustard dressing), some garlic herb croutons, et voilà!

A pound of ground beef can go a long way, when you're cooking for 1 adult and 2 little kiddos.  I used it to make a taco salad (served over crushed up tortilla chips with all the fixings) and a very simple Cowboy Beans recipe.  Both were received very well, I'm please to say.  In fact, while I was prepping the taco beef for the salad, I had another pot on the stove with the Cowboy Beans bubbling away.

Hopefully things will be a little less crazy this weekend, so that I can get back to some more involved recipes.  In the mean time, here's my version of simple Cowboy Beans...

Cowboy Beans (serves 2)

Ingredients:

-1/2 lb lean ground beef

-1/2 medium onion

- large can of your favorite baked beans (at least 20 oz)

- about 1/4 cup barbecue sauce

- about 1/4 lb bagged frozen spinach (no need to thaw)

- fresh ground black pepper

Brown beef with onion in a 3-quart pot.  Drain excess fat.  Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Immediately reduce heat and simmer until heated through and spinach has thawed (about 10 minutes).  Enjoy!

Comfort Food is Chicken and Dumplings!

On the back of the 4th of July weekend, my menu plans for the week ahead were admittedly a little bit screwy.  We had leftovers, we had people visiting, and we had dinners in restaurants that may or may not have been planned ahead of time.

That's a sure fire way to mess up your routine, let's just say!

However, this past week we saw a few oldies but goodies and a couple of new recipes.  Here's what I fixed:

• Shrimp Fried Rice
• Cheese Tortellini, Spinach, and Meatball Soup
• Baingan Bharta (a.k.a. Eggplant Curry)
• Classic Chicken and Dumplings

The shrimp fried rice recipe came from Allrecipes.com, which happens to be one of my all-time favorite recipe websites.  I like the fact that you can read a lot of reviews and see how people may have changed things up, before you try it for yourself.

I ended up using an entire bag of bean sprouts in my recipe, which meant I had to increase the soy sauce to get it closer to the flavor I wanted.  I also added a little allspice to it, some cut-up baby corn, and sliced fresh mushrooms.  While I felt it lacked a little something in the flavor department, my kids DEVOURED it!  I found that a little sweet chili sauce helps to liven up the dish nicely, too.  If I make it again (and it looks like I'm gonna have to), I will increase the amount of shrimp, given the proportion of shrimp to the rest of the ingredients, and increase the number of eggs from 2 to 3.  Also, I think I will cook my eggs separately and add them in at the end, rather than coating the rice with the egg mixture, which is not something I'm used to.

Next up was the cheese tortellini soup.  This is something I threw together a while back, and my oldest boy told me it was a "keeper."  Basically, start with 2 packets of Savory Garlic and Herb soup mix.  Dump that in your pot and add about 3 quarts of water.  Bring to a boil.  Add in a bag of frozen cheese tortellini and about 1 pound of Italian-style frozen meatballs.  Return to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes.  Taste the soup and season as necessary with salt and pepper (though we tend to leave salt out as much as possible).  Now add about 2 cups fresh baby spinach leaves and stir, just giving it long enough to wilt the spinach.  Ta-da!  Serve topped with grated Parmesan cheese and, if you choose, hot garlic bread.  Oh, so good!

The baingan bharta (eggplant curry) turned out to be a flop for my 5-year-old, but I loved it!  I tried to get him to taste a spoonful, at which time he informed me that he didn't actually like eggplant.  (NOW he tells me?!)  This is not entirely true, however, because he eats it up willingly when presented in lasagna form.  Anyway, no problem, just means more for myself.  It was way too spicy for the 2-year-old critic, so I didn't even bother giving it to him.  My photo here doesn't really do it justice...I took it with my cell phone, and the camera is--in technological terms--virtually obsolete.

I started with 1 medium and 2 small eggplants that I bought from the farmers' market, and roasted them in the oven as described in the recipe.  The recipe, although not entirely authentic in method, produces a good flavor and nice spice.  For this attempt, I simply scooped and scraped the soft eggplant out of the skins after they had cooled, but I would recommend actually chopping up the flesh with a knife, on account of the somewhat stringy and fibrous texture that eggplant usually has.  I used a jalapeno picked from our own garden, and it's a good thing I removed the seeds and veins because it still gave the dish a lot of heat.  Serve this over rice or with pita bread.

Last, but definitely not least, is my chicken and dumplings.  I like to use chicken thighs on the bone because dark meat imparts so much flavor to the dish.  But feel free to use breast meat, if that's what you prefer.  Here's my recipe, which I've put together after numerous attempts (mostly FAILED attempts) at making this classic comfort food.

Nabela's Chicken and Dumplings
(Serves 4)

• 3-4 large chicken thighs, bone in, skin intact (if using frozen chicken, no need to thaw)
• 1 chicken stock cube
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup milk or cream
• 3 Tbsp corn starch
• 8 oz frozen peas and carrots
• 1 can refrigerated biscuits (10 small or 6 jumbo)

1. In a large, heavy pot, add the chicken thighs and enough water to completely cover.  Add chicken stock cube.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 30-40 minutes.
2. Remove chicken from broth.  When cool enough to handle, remove and discard skins and bones.  Shred remaining chicken meat into small pieces.
3. Taste broth and season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Dissolve cornstarch in milk or cream and add to broth.  Return broth to a boil.  Add peas and carrots and chicken meat.  Reduce heat to medium.
5. Using fingers, pinch off small pieces of biscuit dough and roll into balls.  (For my kids, I make the dumplings about 1/2" to 3/4" in diameter, since they will plump up after cooking.)  Drop gently into broth.  Cover tightly and reduce heat further to medium-low.  Allow to simmer undisturbed for about 15 minutes until dumplings are cooked through.  Do not stir dumplings!  Serve and enjoy!

It's Friday already, so I'm going to have to go off and plan out what I'm cooking this weekend for next week.  Seems like the weeks are going by faster these days, doesn't it?  Anyway, I hope some of this was useful to you.

Until next week, happy cooking!  :)