Shrimp Spring Rolls

I recently defrosted a bag of shrimp, and after not using as much as I thought I would need. I was thinking what can I do with the leftover shrimp that I might not have to use now. So I decided to make spring rolls. If you don't know the difference between a spring roll and and egg roll the spring roll has a very thin rice paper sheet and the egg roll uses a thicker dough for its wrappers. Both very good but I wanted something that was a bit lighter. 

I've made crab wontons from scratch before but never spring rolls, thankfully I had a package of wrappers in the freezer on hand. I also had a package of dried wood ear mushrooms, which is an asian staple, they are a crunchy sort of mushroom if you can imagine that. I also had a bit of leftover cabbage. 

Ingredients:

Shrimp
Wood ear mushrooms
cabbage shredded
carrots shredded
garlic
ginger
sesame oil
soy sauce
shrimp roll wrapper
canola oil for frying

First thing you need to do is soak the mushrooms, while those soak mince your shrimp and garlic and grate ginger into a bowl. Use as much garlic as you like, I used a bit too many cloves, even though we love garlic it was a bit strong in the spring rolls.

After the wood ears have softened enough thinly slice them if they aren't the precut variety, and add to the shrimp mixture. Add a tablespoon of sesame oil and soy.

In the meantime, sauté the cabbage and carrots in a bit of oil to soften them up. 

When your cabbage mixture has cooled you can start by assembling the rolls. One teaspoon of shrimp mixture and one of the cabbage mixture placed toward the front of the wrapper. Fold the front triangle over first and then the sides and then just keep rolling. Once you come to the end take your fingers and dip them into water and rub the seam before closing. And there you have it, a shrimp spring roll. Now you can do two things, you can choose to fry them up immediately, or you can freeze them for another day. If the shrimp has been defrosted for more than a day, I suggest you fry them up. If you feel that it's still fresh, freeze it and you have a quick snack next time you have a taste for something crunchy and hot.

I like to use ponzu sauce for dipping these, but if you don't have any on hand or don't know what it is you can substitute with equal parts soy and real lemon juice, not the stuff from a bottle. Most of the time thats fine but I tend to think it tastes like windex. 

Shrimp & bok choy on brown rice

Lately the weather has been humid and raining, alternating and I have not felt like heating up the house with the stove going, and grilling outside was out of the question. So the solution was to make some quick shrimp that takes only a couple of minutes to cook up.

The longest portion of this was marinating the shrimp but after that sits for a little bit, the rest cooks up pretty quickly. I paired this dish with brown rice and baby bok choy.

For the Marinade:

Soy Sauce

Garlic (grated)

Red pepper flakes

ginger (freshly grated if possible)

olive oil (sesame oil preferred)

Mix all the ingredients together and rub shrimp with the marinade. Reserve a bit of the marinade for the vegetables, you don't have to marinade them but you can use it when sautéing the vegetables to add flavor. The amount is really a preference thing. If you like more garlic add more if you like it spicier add more flakes if you like ginger add more. It's really dependent on your taste buds. I grate my ginger and garlic for this dish, it tends to coat the shrimp really well and then your not biting into a chunk of ginger while eating. 

Marinate for 20 mins to 2 hrs in the fridge, not longer, shrimp shouldn't sit for too long, even in the fridge. Before cooking take out the shrimp to get room temp for a few minutes. Heat up your pan with a tiny drizzle of olive oil, not too much remember your marinade has olive oil. Your not deep frying them just giving the pan some lubrication, as you need to get your pan smokin' hot.

Saute the shrimp on high on one side till they get a crust, turn over and do the same on the other side. The garlic and ginger help the shrimp develop a nice crust. This should really take a few minutes on each side. I used extra large shrimp so I needed a bit of time on each side.  

Remove the shrimp and in the same pan add the quartered baby bok choy to the pan and quickly saute. You can add some of the marinade into the pan to cook up with the vegetables or you can just add a splash of soy sauce and a splash of water to help the bok choy cook trough. It doesn't take long to get the baby bok tender, so act fast. 

You can serve this with any kind of rice, I like it with brown rice, but have also had it with black wild rice, or change up the vegetable. Either way it's a quick, tasty and healthy recipe that you can make with out too much time in the kitchen.

Naples Florida

One of the days we decided to take a day trip to Naples Florida, its kinda like Naples Italy. In the architecture, that is. Naples is so different from Sanibel, it's fancier first of all. On Sanibel no one dresses up hardly anyone wears makeup, they are a shorts and flip-flops culture. Very laid back. Not saying that Naples isn't laid back. Naples is a little more upper crust, with the boutiques lining 5th ave and the mercedes filling the bulk of the restaurant valets. You get what I mean.

Don't get me wrong, its beautiful and picturesque, with a mix of residential and commercial blending in flawlessly among the flowering trees and palms dotting the avenue. Its more of a destination where people go to be seen instead of throwing on a pair of cutoffs and flip-flops and riding to the beach on your bike.

We walked around to a couple of galleries and boutiques but most everything that I liked was way more than I would ever spend on it.

The restaurants though had great deals on a early bird dinner/lunch, anytime before 6 you can get TWO meals AND a bottle of wine for $20.00 That's Cheap!

We didn't partake of that menu but we did have the best sushi lunch I have probably had EVER!

Sushi Thai Too is on the corner of 5th Ave and if your ever in the area and like sushi, don't pass this place up. We ordered a sushi/sashimi boat with a couple of add-ons and the pieces of sashimi were super thick and duper fresh. I swear they had to be at least a .5" thick. It was the best lunch, everyone came away so satisfied and full that I we skipped dinner that night. 

Yeah go on, I'll wait while you wipe your drool. 

We left Naples pretty late to try and hit up Marco Island, but we weren't able to walk around like we did in Naples. Everything is private property so if your not staying on Marco Island, there really isn't any point in going. Granted the sand on Marco Island is probably the finest sand I have ever felt, it really felt like I was standing in a bag of flour. We were tired and glad to be going back to Sanibel. 

EXCEPT... we had to make a detour and find a Checkers. My sister made us drive around and try and find a Checkers burger joint, but to no avail, we did't find the one that google maps said was there. I get why she was craving it, they used to be all over Chicago but were slowly closed off, probably that they only had drive through or outside seating, and in Chicago we kinda need the indoor concept. You know we're not called the windy city for nothin'. We were all compensated with a Five Guys Burger. Not Checkers but they'll do.

Rick Bayless - Enchiladas Especiales Tecuba Style

Living in Chicago you would think that since Rick Bayless has a restaurant here it would be easy to get into. On the contrary. If you are less than a party of 5 they don't take reservations, and the last time I tried, which was time number 3 the wait was longer than 1 hr. No thanks. I love mexican food but to a busy mom who is getting away on a friday night a mexican restaurant is not that appealing if I have to wait that long to even get seated.

So I bought his cook book (oh btw, I bumped into him in my gym downtown, twice) and I watch the PBS show, "Mexico One Plate at a Time". It's not the same, I know, but it will do.

So the other day I watched an episode on enchiladas, and since I make enchiladas regularly, this one really caught my attention.

I went to his website and wouldn't you know it, it's chock-full of recipes. I searched and found the particular one, called Enchiladas Especiales Tecuba Style and after getting a few essentials, got to it.

I have to say this is one of my favorite enchiladas to date. The spinach and poblanos chiles give it a earthy smokey flavor that I haven't had in the other enchiladas. It's super easy to make the suace is the most work but after you make that the rest is 1.2.3.

The only thing that I will change next time I make this dish is if the poblanos don't have much heat, add some jalepenos along with the poblanos.

I thought about blending this in my Cuisinart, but there is so much sauce that comes out of this that I'm glad I stayed with the blender, plus it was easier to pour from.

You mix a portion of the sauce with your chicken so you have the flavor throughout, not just on top and bottom of the enchiladas.

These enchiladas, paired with some sour cream and beer with lime were a divine dinner, and I had plenty of leftovers that we had put in the freezer for the following week.

Definitely a recipe that I will come back to time and again. Click here for link

Chicken tortilla soup

When your craving something salty, crunchy, creamy, and sour at the same time this hits the spot. I know there are numerous tortilla soup recipes and a majority of them are tomato based but this one is a lighter version, plus my 2 yr old can eat this without screaming "ohh its spicy!!" every time she takes a bite.

I love this soup on a cold winter day or even on a day when you want something thats filling but not heavy.  It has the salty, crunchy texture of the tortilla, which to save calories and time I don't deep fry I coat with  tiny bit of oil and pop in the oven. The creamy of the avocado, the sour of the broth, since I squeeze in a liberal amount of lime into the bowl, and the crispness of the cilantro and spiciness of the tipatio hot sauce. Yum

This soup is based on chicken rosol that I added ingredients to in order to make this tortilla soup.

The foundation of every soup is a good stock

I love to cook and when I first started to cook I was 11 yrs old helping my mom, learning from her. I started out in the kitchen by making chicken in a pot but moved on to more serious things pretty quickly. She has thought me a lot about cooking and the fundamentals of cooking don't change. Take for instance the simple stock, its simple for what it is but at the same time adds a very complex flavor to your food; add it to risotto, stews and of course as a basis for most soups. 

In all polish homes, stock is called rosół (pron: ro souw) Rosół is a traditional Polish meat broth, that is usually made from beef/veal or chicken and sometimes turkey. The more bones that are in the stock the better the stock. Also we add a good amount of vegetables to the stock. Celery, carrots, leek, parsley and some people add garlic and onions too. There is also an element that Polish people add which is vegeta - and can be bought in most ethnic grocery stores, although not necessary. 

Adding vegeta to your rosol adds lots of flavor but I have cooked without it and it was fine except it needed more salt, lots more salt. If your on a low salt diet than leave it out. 

I wanted to post this since whenever I talk about making soup I will most likely start as a base of rosol and add to it, like when making mushroom soup, or chicken tortilla soup, or filipino arroz caldo or my favorite sinigang.  I mean sometimes its ok to have a box or can or stock in your pantry but why when you can make a pot of this and store small containers of it in your freezer for a day when you need stock. 

Ingredients:

Chicken or beef with bones or turkey necks(makes a less fattier but still flavorful version)

pot filled with water

2 stalks of celery

3 carrots peeled

half of a medium sized leek 

small bunch of parsley

vegeta

or salt if not using vegeta

You can't see too well since its a dark pot.

photo credit of Mojegotowanie.com

Directions:

Place meat (chicken, beef, veal or turkey) into pot cover with water. bring to a boil until you see the scum accumulating on top, skim off the scum it makes a cleaner stock. After skimming the scum add the vegetables and a couple of teaspoons of vegeta to the pot. You can always add more so go easy the first time. Then you let the rosol simmer on a med flame for a couple of hours. The trick to getting a clear not cloudy broth is the low simmer. After a couple of hours the rosol will be done and you can serve in a traditional way with fine noodles or potatoes. I sometimes like to shred the chicken, esp. for my daughter and add the carrots from the rosol and sprinkle a bit of parsley on top for flavor and color. 

If you made a large pot strain the vegetable and bits of vegeta that is most likely sunk to the bottom and place in smaller containers into the freezer which you can use next time you need stock.

Next up is my chicken tortilla soup. 

It will change the way you look at dinner.

I'm not a vegetarian, or a vegan or any type of other movement. We are meat and potatoes, and now since I married a filipino, rice family. Although I did not grow up on a farm, we lived in the city while my dad worked in the coal mine, we went back to our grandparents home often. My fathers father had a working farm when I was a child so when we went to visit sometimes for months at a time, we lived on an actual farm. My grandpa Jan was so removed he had no working toilet and no telephone until the day he died. We had sheep, cows, chickens and some pigs. I'm sure there was a horse once upon a time, but not while I was a child. The farm was only to raise livestock, you couldn't grow much of anything since we were in the mountains and the earth wasn't good for growing. We grew the only thing that thrived there, grass. It was harvested and fed to the animals during the winter months, but during the summer the cows grazed the pastures and so did the sheep. 

Not our actual home, but close enough.

What my point is, is that everything was natural. There was no hurry to get the cow super fat for slaughter, it took time to fatten them up. They ate the grass and that was their main nutrition. In retrospect it was delicious, not the stuff that you buy in commercial stores in a big city. I think its hard to eat in a natural way and affordably at the same time. You have to make a choice, to either spend the money and buy grass fed and organic, or eat less meat. 

This movie Food, inc is nominated for an Oscar this year in the documentary category. It's definitely a movie everyone should try and see. Food, inc explores the way that our food comes to the table in America. It is not necessarily how animals are slaughtered, but how they are raised and what they are fed. Since seeing this movie, it has made me think about what I put on table for my family to eat. I have looked into buying grass fed but it's hard. It's not as easily available at most supermarkets except your Whole Foods and other high end grocers and its much more expensive. I figure it's a compromise that I need to make, buy less meat but better quality and try and feed the family more grains and other proteins as the bulk of our diet. I'm not saying we are going full force and convert to organic and all, but maybe the choices we make on the whole will change the food industry for the better. Go and rent this movie and see how you feel about the way you look at dinner.

Let them eat CAKE!!!

About a week or more ago was my birthday. Nothing fancy we didn't really celebrate since it falls close to valentines day I asked my husband to wait afterwards to get me flowers. I help my mom, who's a part time florist so I know the quality of flowers would be horrible around that time. 

I asked him to get me a facial instead, which was wonderful and since it was a real european facial took 3 hrs.   

This post isn't about any of that, its about the cake my girlfriend brought to my house to celebrate my birthday. My 3 closest best friends came over and we had fish tacos and wine and cake. 2 cakes. One was a passion fruit and the other a nut/chocolate/alcohol combo. We all had a small piece of each.  Although I cheated, I gave up pastries for lent, I will buy these cakes again for Easter. Only 30 something days to go.