A feast a feast!

Back in the kitchen and just in time. Since we're nearing the end of the month, that also means we're nearing the due dates for all the awesome blogging events I take part in. I can't believe how the list has grown! But since this was the first it will always be near and dear to my heart.

It's time for Platinum Chef Challenge! As you may or may not remember (or may or may not care) Danielle was picked as the hostess for the month. That means she gets to pick all the great ingredients. And the ingredients she picked were SO great, that a bunch of us brilliant chefs all came up with THE SAME IDEA ON HOW TO USE THEM! Impressive for folks to share a brain when they live across the country, no?

And what were these magical, brain sharing ingredients? Bok Choy, Mango, Mint, Panko, and Yogurt. Which was perfect because I was already planning on making Mango and Crab springrolls before she even rolled out the ingredients! The original recipe called for Mango and Mint, so I knew it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to add some bok choy. Then panko always screams SHRIMP to me (and Cara, and Tpox) I thought that adding some panko shrimp with a thai peanut-yogurt sauce would be fantastic.

Which leads me to my entry:
Mango and Crab Spring Rolls with Panko Shrimp and Two Dipping Sauces

The Ingredients:
1 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp Sriracha
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbsp honey
1 lemon (not pictured - he was REALLY shy and chose to stay in the fridge until he made his grand entrance)
1 Tbsp soy sauce (not pictured - he was REALLY hard to find in my pantry)
1 1/2 cans of crabmeat
1 ripe mango, peeled and diced
1 shallot, minced
rice paper sheets
cilantro
mint leaves
1/2 lb shrimp (this time peel it and devein)
panko

1) Combine the vinegar, sugar, sriracha, and 1/4 cup of water (Crap she most certainly did not mention water in the ingredients. Looks like another trip to the store....or the sink...just turn around, fill 'er up and quit complaining). You should probably use a bigger bowl than the one pictured. Mostly because it was hard to stir without making a mess and dipping would be near impossible. But I didn't realize this until too late. Learn from my mistakes.

2) In a different bowl (well duh) combine the peanut butter, yogurt, soy sauce, honey, ginger, and the juice of half a lemon. (Save that other half, you'll use it later - promise). Around this time begin to wonder why you're calling this Thai peanut yogurt sauce since there's nothing especially Thai about the ingredients. Get flashbacks of Chicken Satay Skewers and decide not to focus too much query. Notice how this fits ever so nicely in the little bowl.

3) Saute the leaves of some bok choy over low heat, just until they begin to wilt. Like spinach! Then set them aside to cool.

4) Combine crab meat, mango, shallot, salt and pepper.

5) Fill a pie plate with warm water and throw caution to the wind! Or just throw your rice paper in there for a couple seconds to make it pliable. Transfer to clean, dry workspace and blot any excess water with a paper towel - be gentle because these things are fragile.

6) Now comes the easy part. Place 1 bok choy leaf at bottom of paper, and top with 3 mint leaves and 1 cilantro sprig.

7) Top that with 2 Tbsp of the crab/mango mixture.

8) Fold bottom of rice paper over mixture and tick in sides and roll up. Set roll on plate and cover with a damp paper towel.

You'll find the rolling to be very cathartic and there will be more and more and more of them!

9) Preheat your broiler. Remember that half of a lemon I told you about? The one you were supposed to keep? Well pull that bad boy out and squeeze it into a bowl. Pour your panko onto a shallow dish and dip the shrimp in lemon juice and then panko. Place on your favorite broiler pan and broil those puppies 3 minutes per side, or until golden.

10) Top your spring rolls with your golden shrimp and serve with the Chili dipping sauce and peanut yogurt dipping sauce.

Last one I swear!

Starting tomorrow we'll go back to recipes, and I'll go back to cooking. I didn't make anything tonight anyway since I got to go out to a special event (I really love living in San Diego! We have something super cool to go to almost every week!)

However, I won't deny you some food porn. See, Ruth, who is my favorite person in the whole country of Ireland, tagged me with one of the coolest Memes EVER. You tag 10 of your top food pics, and then tag 5 people to choose 10 of their tops food pics.

As cool as this meme is, it wasn't so easy because basically I take TERRIBLE pictures. (Stop laughing Gillian - you saw first hand how "amazing" I am.) But if you shoot enough arrows you're bound to hit the bullseye every now and again!

Mini Mocha Cupcake with Buttercream Frosting


Pumpkin Ice Cream

Grits-Stuffed Greens

Chocolate Guinness Cake

Southwestern Baked Rice


Citrus Vinaigrette

Spinach Custard

Savoy Truffle


Black Bean Chicken with Pineapple Salsa


Easter Egg Nests

And the 5 gorgeous food bloggers I'm tagging are:
Joy Through Cooking
Kayte's Kitchen
Made With Love
Not Your Mama's Southern Cooking
Culinography

All you need is love

You know how your mom always tells you how smart and beautiful you are but you don't really believe it because she's your mom?
"Mom, you have to say that because I'm your daughter."

It means so much more when the cute guy who sits beside you in science class tells you how he could melt in your eyes. For some reason the same affirmation means so much more when it comes from a relative stranger.

Which is why I am so completely and utterly touched that not one, but two bloggers who I have never met have given me the "I love you this much award." Both Jaime and Nicole have opened their arms and my response is the same as I so often reply to Thatboy when he professes his love to me - "Not as much as I love you." (and then of course I begin crying hysterically when he doesn't challenge that statement meaning he doesn't love me as much as I love him - Ladies, it works and it gets you the NICEST jewelery)

Jaime is gonna be a mommy any day now (or in a couple months) and even though we've never met and she lives almost across the country completely, the warmth and patience of her blog makes me convinced she's going to be an excellent mom.

Nicole on the other hand lives much much closer and is already a mother! She is truly an artist in the kitchen, and outside of the kitchen and I seriously have sour cream rotting in the fridge JUST so I can try her cookie recipe.

Now I get to tag 10 (10??!!) other blogs I love!

1) Jen at Dinner a Deux. Has anyone been keeping track of how many times I've tagged Jen in the hopes of her restarting her blog? What's it going to take Jen? You were always one of my faves and Thatboy and I used to act out your posts. Well, not really, because Thatboy caters to some of my whims, but not the crazy ones.

2) Elly of Elly Says Opa. Well this one should also not be a big surprise. Everyone knows I love Elly. Everyone. Especially if you hang out in Chicago bathrooms where it is written on almost every stall. She's funny, smart, and one heck of an amazing cook. And since the San Diego Greek Festival is coming up, I think of her almost every day I drive past the banners.

3&4) I promise I'm not cheating, but there's no way I can award this to only have of a culinary team. Just like Siskle and Ebert, Regis and Kelly, Watson and Crick, some duos can't be separated. Tthere would be no Equal Opportunity Kitchen without Giz and Psychgrad. Giz brings the wisdom that only a mother can bring, and Psychgrad brings the wisdom that we all have when dealing with our mothers.

5) PatsyK of Family, Friends, and Food is a blogger after my own heart because she too is always looking for quick weeknight meals. She's like Rachael Ray, but better (not that it takes much). She has totally convinced me to pick up an Ellie Krieger cookbook.

6) Nina of Nina's Kitchen blogs ALL the way from South Africa. I think Nina knows how much I love her - I tell her almost daily, but its time I shared my love with all of you. I love how Nina uses ingredients I've never heard of. I love how Nina makes everything look gorgeous. I love how Nina says how easy everything is to make (yet it looks like it must have taken hours).

7) When I pulled up Good Things Catered to get the url, I accidentally let Thatboy see it over my shoulder. I have purposely been keeping this blog from him because its okay for me to love Katie (or as we affectionately call her, Katie Numbers), but it is NOT OKAY for Thatboy to love her. Thankfully he only saw a picture of the cake and not Katie herself or I would have lost him for sure. The problem with Katie is that she's gorgeous, talented, and ridiculously kind and sweet. Which means you can only hate her for about .2 seconds before you too fall in love. Go ahead, try to resist. I dare you.

8) I have to admit, one of the reasons I was amped about living in San Diego was because that's where Bubbie of It's Just Me lives. In my head I have already made us best friends. We go on fabulous shopping trips together, and hang out at Target on our lunch breaks. However, this makes me sound creepy and stalkerish so I'm going to pretend like I never said that. The "in my head Bubbie" is insanely flattered and hasn't told security at the front desk of her building about the weird girl who's not allowed inside.

9) Melissa of It's Melissa's Kitchen probably won't be as touched by this award because I'm hardly a stranger. In fact, I only started reading Melissa's blog because, well, I like to support people I know. However, I have a VERY short span of attention, so Melissa, you should know I wouldn't have stuck around this long if you were boring. So you should be VERY touched. In fact, I've even clicked on some ads every now and again so Mr. Melissa would be happy. By the way, even if YOU don't love Melissa, show your love for me by going and clicking on an ad or too.

10) You know how there are people who live lives you've only dreamed of? Well one of those people for me is Joelen of Joelen's Culinary Adventures. First I adore her new place. I wish I lived somewhere nearly as cute (except for the fridge in the pantry, but hey, even Joelen thought that was a little strange at first). Second, even though she has a normal person job (for the time) she finds the time to host about 300 million foodie groups. There's her bookclub, her fieldtrips throughout Chicago, and the classes she runs out of her home that fill up so quickly that people have been catty and cutthroat to get a spot or gripe about not getting spots. She's been featured on television and in print!

A promise is a promise

I promised food and I deliver. Of course its nothing fancy, but its quick and easy, I'm easing my way back. In fact, I took one of the easiest recipes and made it a hundred times easier by taking a cue from one of my fave blogs, Nina's Kitchen. See, when Nina serves shrimp, she doesn't bother to shell the shrimp. She thinks half the fun is having the guests do it themselves. I don't know if I agree with her on that point, but it makes for a gorgeous presentation and it saves me a lot of time.

My friend Tater believes that "putting something on a stick automatically makes it better." With that in mind, I present to you lemon shrimp...on a stick.

Shrimp on a stick

1/2 lb shrimp, deveined
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 bell pepper, cut into 1" pieces
1 medium onion, cut into 8 wedges
1 medium lemon, cut into 8 wedges

1) In a ziplock bag combine shrimp, olive oil, salt and pepper. Refrigerate overnight.
2) Soak 8 bamboo skewers in water for 30 minutes.
3) Remove shrimp from bag and discard marinade. Preheat broiler.
4) Alternately thread shrimp, peppers, onions, and lemon on skewers.
5) Broil 4 minutes, turn skewers and grill 4 more minutes.

I hope you weren't looking for food...

Sorry to be a tease. I promise tomorrow there will be food here, and I never make a promise I can't keep. Instead we'll keep catching up with old mail.

Melissa of It's Melissa's Kitchen tagged me with a 411 meme. There aren't any instructions on this one, and those who know me, know that leaving me without instructions can be very very dangerous.

But I'll play nice. One of my favorite movies is on right now and that always puts me in a good mood.

1. Why did you start your blog?
If you look into the dark dark archives of this blog you'll see this blog has had a bunch of lives. Almost cat-like. It began as a way to document law school. Do you see how long that lasted? Yeah....law school, well, it takes up A LOT of your life.

2. How did you come up with your blog name?
Like the subject matter, the name has also been changed a number of times. The current name came from one of my views on my own life - no matter how hard I try, things just don't come out well. See I always mean well, but things tend to get twisted.

3. Do your friends and family know about your blog, and what do they think?
My family knows because one of the "lives" was to keep them updated when I lived in Europe on a different time schedule. Some of my friends know, but not all of them. It's kinda hit or miss. Most of my really close friends don't know, because how do you bring that up in conversation?

4. How do you write posts?
Well first I place my fingers over the keyboard, then I press down on each letter of the word I plan to write and the sentences, they just magically appear on the screen!

5. Have you ever had a troll or had to delete unkind comments?
I've never had a troll, but I have had an unkind comment. I don't delete them though unless they're offensive. I'm a firm believer in the First Amendment.

6. Do you check your stats or care how many people read your blog? If you care, how do you increase traffic?
I check my stats, but I don't really care how many people read my blog. I'm more interested in who than how many.

So there's no direction as to how many people to tag, so since this is a 4-1-1 meme, I'm tagging 4 people.

Shawnda
Amber
Peabody
Ally

Look What I Made!

You know when you go on vacation and stop your mail? Inevitably when you come home you have more mail than you've received in the past 2 months combined. So its no surprise that when I take a break from blogging for a week all of a sudden I become the target for tags and awards. Which is nice since I don't have much else to blog about. I'm going to try to hit the kitchen again tomorrow so stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, let's look at some old favorites. Jaime from Burnt Toast tagged me with a fun meme where I get to recommend recipes from OTHER people's blogs!


HERE ARE THE RULES to LOOK WHAT I MADE!

1. List the names of 2-5 recipes you tried from other blogs. Provide a direct link to the recipe. If not available, give the blog link and let the reader search for the recipe by name.

2. Shortly describe your experience with the recipe.

3. Tag 3-5 other bloggers or the authors of the recipes you listed to post the links to the recipes they have tried from other bloggers. Note: If you are new to the blogging world and haven’t had a chance to try any recipes from your fellow foodies, just pass the tag on to someone else.

4. Notify the tagged bloggers about the tag either by leaving a comment on their blogs or by emailing them.

So here are some recipes from some of my favorite blogs:

1) When my friend L had her baby I knew I wanted to make her something that would freeze well, so I turned to stew. And then I turned to one of my favorite blogs to find a stew recipe. It's no secret I love Elly's blog and her beef stew is absolutely fantastic. It was so fantastic in fact that I made extra to keep for us and Thatboy ate ALL of it up. I didn't get any. And to add insult to injury he talked for days about how good it was.

2) If you're looking for a quick and easy dinner Amber's your girl. Seriously, everything comes together so quickly and its always delicious. Especially her tortellini soup. It might have been the fastest soup I've ever made and it was just sooooo good!

3) Before we moved I had packed just about all of our cooking implements...except our crockpot. And lucky for me Erika of Bean's Bistro has a ton of great crockpot recipes in her blog. And lucky for me, most of the ingredients she uses were in my "get rid of before we move" pantry! And so I adapted her crockpot jambalaya because I didn't have shrimp. It was so wonderful to come home after a long day of work and have dinner all ready so we could get right into more packing!

4) My all time favorite dessert to make is panna cotta. It always looks so pretty and fancy and its ridiculously easy. One of my faves for "something different" is Sarah's coffee panna cotta. With that chocolate on top? Delicious! Although, her version looks far prettier than mine!

5) I'm still working on my risotto skills, but that just means I have to make a lot of risotto. I know. Poor poor me. I LOVE this recipe and and wish Jen would post more in her blog - she hasn't in ages and it makes me sad. The first time I tried this was the first time I realized halving risotto recipes doesn't work for me. When I master this dish I'm so making it again!

A Day Late and A Dollar Short

So technically the Recipe Exchange recipes were due yesterday, but the ever understanding Amy gave me an extension. Meanwhile I HATE letting people down, and I know that whoever sent in the recipe I was supposed to make is probably tapping their toes anxiously waiting for the results. I feel really bad about that so I summoned up some fortitude and accomplished the feat today. Only a day late! That being said, I'm going to take a little hiatus from the kitchen while things hopefully work themselves out. I'll be back soon, I promise.


The theme of this month's exchange was Family Recipes. I'll let you in on a little secret about my family recipes. My great grandmother on my father's side was definitely the cook in the family. her dishes always had people begging for the recipe. And she always complied and gave the recipe. Except for one little fact. My great grandmother on my father's side was also the evil one in the family. She would always leave out a key ingredient or step in the recipe. "Why would she do that?" You may ask. I'll tell you why. She left out a key ingredient so when the next person made it they'd shake their head and say "It's just not as good as when Zelda makes it!" My great grandmother on my father's side was also the genius in the family.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Grandma Williams, the creator of this recipe is very similar to my great grandmother. Only because this recipe did not come out nearly as well as anticipated AND I followed the directions exactly. Or nearly exactly. Which is another reason why I'm going to take a break from the kitchen because I think the meds are affecting my mad skillz.

I'll walk you through it. My remarks are in red.....just in case you can't tell.

Spaghetti Sauce

by Grandma Williams

3 12 oz cans tomato paste

3 15 oz cans tomato sauce

1/2 tbsp salt

pepper to taste

1 tbsp instant minced onions (or the real stuff) I used the real stuff. Not that it matters.

1/2 tbsp instant minced garlic (or the real stuff) See above.

scant 3 tbsp sugar

4 tbsp dried basil

3 cans water (use tomato sauce for water)

Fry tomato paste in oil until it can be formed into a ball. I'm sorry. Until it forms a what? Mine never balled up. Basically I fried it until it was shiny. Add tomato sauce, water and other ingredients.

Mix, bring to a boil. Turn to low & simmer 4-5 hours (the longer it cooks, the better it tastes! And it freezes very well) This is where "War of the Kitchen" began. When this baby boils it REALLY boils. Bubbles of tomato sauce ALL over the kitchen. It made me want to cry. But I didn't. Instead I kept playing with the heat until there was BARELY a flame below it. And STILL it kept sending Tomato volcanoes all over the place. I yelled to Thatboy "That's it. I'm going to put a cover on this thing before someone gets hurt." And that's when the tomato sauce heard me. It heard me and it sent a missile STRAIGHT for me. I have a beautiful red thumb to show for it. And I'm quite certain the new neighbors expect to find my body in a dumpster after the screaming that went on. I had to stop cooking the sauce after 3 hours because by this time it had almost solidified. There was very little liquid left and it was much more similar to tomato paste than tomato sauce.

Italian Meatballs

by Grandma Williams

2 eggs, well beaten

1 lb. ground beef I used the ground veal I had in the freezer.

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tbsp parsley, minced

1/4 c. shredded Parmesan cheese

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp oil

Combine all ingredients except oil. Mix well. With wet hands shape into 16 balls. Brown in hot oil slowly, shaking pan often. I SWEAR I did this. But I don't usually fry my meatballs, so this was a new test for me. Instead of meatballs I ended up with meat patties. When I put them in the pan they just flattened.

Drain. Add to spaghetti sauce last 1-2 hours of cooking. Yeah...those meat patties? Completely disintegrated when I put them in the sauce. I'm very go with the flow, so I shrugged it off (or as best as I'm able to shrug) and figured "Whatever - MEAT SAUCE!"

Fresh Pasta

Adapted from Nook & Pantry

1 cup flour I used whole wheat flour

2 large eggs

Make a mountain of flour on your work surface, then create a crater in the center. Add your eggs in the crater. Use a fork and beat the eggs in the crater incorporating a little bit of the flour at a time. Once the egg mixture begins to look like a batter, you can start incorporating more of the flour into the dough. After mixing all the flour, you will end up with a dough. If the dough is still sticky, add some more flour. Knead by pushing with the heel of your palm, fold the dough in half, give it a half turn, and repeat the process for 8 minutes or until it feels smooth. Marcella did not specify to let the dough rest but I let the dough rest, covered in a bowl (dish towels work great for this), for 15-20 minutes.

Cut the dough into 3 equal portions. Take one portion of the dough and press it flat, then run it through the pasta machine on the widest setting. Fold the dough in thirds and run the narrow end into the machine again. Repeat twice more. Do this to the remaining 2 portions of dough. Now you should have 3 portions of dough that have been passed through the widest setting 3 times each. Go up one setting, and run each portion of dough through twice, but do not fold in thirds this time, just run it straight through twice. Repeat with the two other pieces of dough. Go up one setting, and repeat again. After running the pasta through the #3 setting twice more, run it through the spaghetti cutter (the middle cutter between fettuccine and angel hair). Separate any noodles that did not get cut all the way through. Lightly toss the noodles in some flour.

So I was REALLY excited about this part. I was so excited I made Thatboy go out and get me a pasta machine. I've always wanted a pasta machine. I love homemade pasta. And things started out SO well! I had such high hopes. Even though it took much closer to 2 cups of flour than 1. And then the machine failed to cut the spaghetti - so I ended up with a beautiful crimped sheet of pasta. I painstakingly pulled each strand of spaghetti apart and put them in a bowl. I figured I'd toss all the noodles in flour at the end. BIG mistake. HUGE. By the time I had made all three sections my bowl was just one clump of spaghetti dough. There was nothing to do but try try again. I added a little flour and made a ball and tried again. This time the pasta cutter worked and I tossed each sheet immediately after cutting. I was feeling pretty good by this point.

Bring a pot of water to a boil, salt the water, then add the pasta. Cook for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes or until the pasta is al dente. Drain the pasta reserving some of the pasta water to thin out the sauce if necessary.

The end result:

Yum!!!!! Thatboy loved it, and we have plenty of sauce for many pastas to come. I'm not sure whether I'm amazing, he's kind, or he's been dipping into my meds. Whatever the reason dinner was a hit. But I'd be willing to bet it wasn't nearly as good as Grandma Williams makes it.