Sunday Morning Breakfast

So, my wife woke up this past Sunday and said she wanted to eat breakfast somewhere in our neighborhood. I went online and looked at what Yelp had to say about that. Well it turns out that there are not many breakfast places in the OP. The restaurant was super quiet but had a good laid back vibe. I ordered the Chorizo Omlette and my wife had the Sausage and Eggs. Each plate came with hash browns and bread.
I was pleasantly surprised at how awesome the food turned out. The chorizo was not greasy and very flavorful and the bread was definitely homemade. They even gave us some homemade apricot-cherry jelly to go with out bread and what appeared to be house whipped butter. I will come back again.

Spicy Shrimp Lo Mein(Noodles)

8 ounces dried shanghai/lo mein noodles or 8 ounces spaghetti
1 cup chicken stock (optional)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup teriyaki sauce 
2 teaspoons cornstarch
4 tablespoons peanut oil or grapeseed or vegetable oil
1/2 lb white tiger shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoons minced ginger
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 scallions, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 red bell pepper chopped
1 1/2 cups of mung bean sprouts
1-3 teaspoons of chili oil

This is such a great and healthy recipe and you can make it mild or make your eyes water.

Place the shrimp in a bowl with two teaspoons corn starch, two cloves garlic and chili oil(I like a lot of chili oil) mixing all ingredients well. Let this sit and marinate for a good hour or so if you have the time.

Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot and place lo mein noodles cooking for about 5 minutes or until noodles separate. Rinse with cold water and set aside. 

Chop all the veggies; garlic, ginger bell pepper and scallions and place them in separate bowls. Place these aside for now.

In a wok or chef's pan heat 2 tablespoons of peanut or grapeseed oil and stir-fry shrimp for several minutes just until pink. Remove and set aside.

Using same wok or pan, heat 2 tablespoons of oil and stir fry bell pepper for 1 minute. Throw in ginger and garlic and stir fry for about a minute. Place noodles in pan stir frying all ingredients for several minutes.

Pour teriyaki sauce and soy sauce in pan and simmer for about 1 minute and then place shrimp, scallions, and mung bean sprouts mixing all ingredients well.

Optional Step: You can pour 1/2 cup of chicken broth in now if you want your dish more on the saucy side. Let all the liquid come to a simmer for several minutes and then throw in shrimp, scallions and mung bean sprouts last.

Hijacked!

Since this blog isn't getting much play from my husband, I am taking over!  I might not cook very often, but my food is just as good as Izzy's. 

Two weeks ago I made amazing ravioli.  Green was the color of the day on Saturday night.  I made delicious Artichoke-Pesto Ravioli with Rosemary Salt Bread from the farmer's market and a side salad from the garden.  This was a nice, quick dinner after a long day.  Ingredients from the garden include: lettuce, arugula, spinach, cucumbers, green onion, and basil.  The ravioli is Costco's cheese ravioli.

Here's the recipe for the sauce (all measurements are a guess since I don't measure):

Aritchoke Pesto Sauce
Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  Add 2 tablespoons flour to the butter and mix to make a roux.  Slowly stir in 1 cup milk as follows:  add enough to make a moderately thick sauce.  Stir until sauce thickens and continue adding more milk until you have added all the milk and have a creamy sauce.  Add 3/4 cup artichoke tapenade, 2 chopped green onions, and 1/4 cup pesto (recipe below if you want to make your own).  Incorporate all ingredients until well blended and has reached your desired consistency.  If the sacue is too thick, add more milk.  Add cooked ravioli to the sacue and cook over medium-low heat so that ravioli absorbs some of the sauce. 

Pesto recipe:
3-4 cups fresh basil
3-5 cloves garlic
1/2 - 3/4 c parmesean
olive oil

place all ingredients in a food processor and add enough olive oil to allow ingredients to blend smoothly.  Salt to taste. (I don't recommend much.)

Lasagna

You gotta love Italian food. My grandmother-in-law bought us a beautiful dish and our chard was growing nicely in the garden so I decided to make a hearty lasagna.

1-2 pounds of no-bake lasgna noodles(varies depending on size of dish and amount of marinara used)
Extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 lbs. spicy Italian sausage
1/2 lb. ground beef (optional)
1 large red onion finely chopped
8 stalks of rainbow or Swiss chard
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh oregano finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 tiny pinch of nutmeg
1 cup of red wine
1 1/2 quarts (approx 32-48 oz.) marinara(varies depending on size of dish and amount of noodles used)
1 1/2 quarts of ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1/2 cup of parmesean
1 lb. mozzarella shredded
1 lb. buffalo mozzarella sliced

I started with chopping the 8 stalks of rainbow chard first removing the stems from the leaves. Be sure to thoroughly wash the chard if you are taking it from your garden or you may end up killing earwigs on your kitchen counter-top (hint: you can't see the eariwgs in the photo below).

Cook chard stems, chopped red onion, salt and pepper in a large skillet, bringing all ingredients to a nice caramelized state.

Once caramelized place the sausage and beef in the skillet and cook meat thoroughly mixing together all ingredients well. Do not clean the skillet because it will be used later.

Transfer these ingredients into a 3 qt or larger pot. Pour the marinara sauce into the same pot and bring all ingredients to a simmer. I usually pour a little bit of wine that is going to be served with dinner right about this time and let it blend into the meat sauce. Simmer meat sauce for 25 minutes or more letting flavors blend together. During the last 5 minutes of simmering, place the fresh basil and oregano and blend together.

Place the chard leaves in the skillet used to cook chard stems and onions and saute in a little olive oil for about 10 minutes or just until tender. Transfer to a plate and allow to cool.


Place the ricotta cheese, eggs, parmasean, nutmeg, and chard leaves in a large bowl folding together nicely. Let the mixture set for a couple of minutes.

Coat the bottom of a large baking dish 13x9 or a dish that similar in size that is at least 2 1/2- 3 inches in depth with a layer of meat sauce. I have a dish that is perfect for baking lasagna that my grandmother gave to me last Christmas.

Place one noodle against each of the short ends of the pan and two one each side of the longer ends forming a collar to keep the lasagna from sliding around.

Cover entire bottom of pan with noodles and then spread ricotta mixture over noodles. Place more noodles on top of ricotta mixture and pour meat sauce over noodles. Add a light coat of shredded mozzarella over meat sauce. Continue this alternating pattern of layers ending with meat sauce at the very top dish. Place sliced buffalo mozzarella on the very last layer of meat sauce and bake in the oven at 350 degrees F. Cover lasagna with aluminum foil making sure that foil doesn't touch cheese.

My First Blog

So, it would seem that my love for food has taken me to the blogosphere. Thanks to Brittany I now have a food blog. I will post photos of food, recipes and even favorite restaurants once in a while. I don't discriminate when it comes to what I eat and I can enjoy a cow tongue tacos just as much as a vegan burger.