Chatters Sushi & Lo Mein

Day 343

Sushi & Lo Mein

Celebration Food

Chatters for Ryan MacIsaac's 33rd birthday to celebrate his life, which no one is taking for granted these days. So many wonderful people to share a meal with. Lots of laughs and good eats.

Ryan & friends

We ordered the vegetable lo mein and vegetable sushi which comes with a sample of vegetable tempura and miso soup. 

Birthday Cake

For dessert there was cake!

Ryan blowing his candles

Reviews/Comments

Very delicious indeed. Good food with good company. I give dinner a 10.

Vegetarian Egg Rolls, Vegetarian Spring Rolls & Mushroom Fried Rice

Day 317

Monday, August 31

Tran's Palace: 

Vegetarian Egg Rolls, Vegetarian Spring Rolls & Mushroom Fried Rice

Egg Rolls, Spring Rolls & Mushroom Fried Rice

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Day 278

I took a week off from blogging. Let's call it my summer vacation. We didn't have anything fancy or new, so it's all good. :)

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Filling
Original recipe
2 leaves lettuce
3 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint leaves
3 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
4 teaspoons finely chopped Thai basil
12 - 15 snap peas
2 radishes
4 small carrots
3 green onions
52 grams Vermicelli noodles

Veggies for spring rolls filling

Brown rice vermicelli for spring rolls filling

Peanut Sauce
Original recipe
(Substituted 3 TBSPs General Tso's sauce for Hoisin and omitted sugar)

3/4 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup water
3 tbsp General Tso sauce
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
4 1/2 tsp soy sauce
2 1/4 teaspoons chile-garlic paste
1 medium garlic clove, mashed to a paste
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil

Peanut sauce for Vietnamese spring rolls

Wrap in rice paper.

Vietnamese spring rolls unwrapped

Wrapping Vietnamese spring rolls

Serve with sauce. Make extra for lunch.

Store in a container on a damp paper towel so they are not touching each other.

Reviews/Comments

OMG. I can die happy now.

Chinese Stir-fry & Cheese Rangoons

Day 270

Leftovers rock.

Chinese Stir-fry & Cheese Rangoons

Chinese Stir-fry

We added more veggies to this to freshen it up and also because there was too much sauce. I ran out and picked more snow peas, then chopped more carrots and another onion. I also threw in some garlic scapes and spinach that was in the fridge.

More fresh veggies for yesterday's stir-fry

Before & After

In the before and after pics below, you can see in the first pic that there is a lot of sauce for the amount of veggies in the top pic. 

Before

After

Cheese Rangoons

We had more wonton wrappers left so I picked up a new package of cream cheese and Laura grabbed more green onions outside and I made 15 cheese rangoons to have with the stir-fry tonight. Because we ate all the ones I made last night, since we had this meal for lunch today, too.

Cheese rangoons & veggie stir-fry

Reviews/Comments

The rangoons weren't as good as last night's bok choi rangoons, but the stir-fry was even better. Gets a 10 from me again.

Chinese Stir-fry & Vegetable Rangoons

Day 269

Chinese Stir-fry & Vegetable Rangoons

Chinese Stir-fry

Fresh, homegrown snow peas were the inspiration for this whole meal. The more you pick the more they grow so we're trying to use them as much as possible.

Snow peas & green onions

Stir-fry Ingredients

1/3 lb snow peas

4 carrots

1 lb mushrooms

2 onions

1 red pepper

1/2 lb bean sprouts

1/2 lb fresh pasta, cooked

Stir-fry ingredients

Stirfry Sauce

Original recipe (the Basic Stir-Fry Sauce one)

2/3 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup veggie broth

1/3 cup rice vinegar

3 1/2 tbsp white sugar

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp minced ginger

Directions

This dish requires a bit of prep and a few steps. All veggies need to be washed and chopped. The pasta has to be cooked then set aside and the sauce needs to be made. The veggies need to be stir-fried, then mixed with the sauce and noodles.

Chinese Stir-fry

Vegetable Rangoons

I've posted a rangoon recipe before but this one is slightly different. In addition to the cream cheese, green onions and soy sauce, I also added minced snow peas, diced red pepper and finely chopped bok choi, which changed the flavor and texture. 

Ingredients

1 package cream cheese

2 tsp soy sauce

5 green onion stalks, chopped

1 bunch of baby bok choi, chopped fine

6 snow peas, finely diced

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh red pepper

1 package wonton wrappers

Water for sealing

Rangoon ingredients

Directions

Clean your counter-top really well. Mix first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl. Arrange wonton wraps on the counter in a grid and wet 2 adjacent edges on each. Drop 1 tsp filling in the center of each wrap and fold opposite edges together to seal.

Making rangoons

Fry in 1" sunflower oil and drain on paper towels. Serve with Compliments Sweet Chili Heat sauce.

Vegetable Rangoons

Reviews/Comments

This was amazing and gets a 10 from me.

Laura thought the bok choi rangoons were perfect and delicious and she loved them. Gets a 10 from her too.

Spicy Peanut Thai Noodles

Day 261

This recipe was given to us by our pal, Devin who posted it on our walls and then followed up with a message that we "need to make" it because he made it last night and it was "so good"! So, we did. Thanks, Devin!

Spicy Thai Noodles

Spicy Peanut Thai Noodles

Original recipe
This meal came together too fast to take many pics, but I think the one of the end result says it all. It's as fantastic as it looks.

Mix in small bowl:
2 inches grated fresh ginger
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tsp Sriracha
2 tbsp brown sugar

Trust, me, you'll want to mix these ingredients first, so you can tend the stove. Grate your ginger and measure out the other things, set aside and start chopping mushrooms and garlic. We went light on the hot sauce, as you can tell.

Fry:
1 tbsp olive oil
12 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced thick
3 garlic scapes, chopped

Mushrooms & garlic scapes

We skipped the zucchini because we didn't have any, and added more mushrooms instead. We also substituted the garlic from the original recipe with garlic scapes because we just harvested ours yesterday. And by we I mean Laura.

Boil 5 minutes:
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 package fresh linguine

Drain the linguine and combine all three of the above mixtures until well incorporated. Don't overcook the linguine, because you'll hate yourself.

Add:
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
3 green onions, chopped
1/4 peanuts, chopped

These are the ingredients that really make this dish by adding the important flavors and textures. I wouldn't recommend skipping any of them.

Spicy Peanut Thai Noodles, uncombined

I did skip the eggs, but not on purpose, I just forgot. And I also skipped the red pepper flakes, but believe me, we didn't miss them.

Spicy Peanut Thai Noodles

Reviews/Comments

Okay, so this was super damn spicy, at least for us. You'll notice the original recipe calls for 3 tbsp of Sriracha. Let's just say thank God we didn't use that much. We must have wussy palates when it comes to heat, although we both enjoy it in moderation.

I give this a 10. I might go for a milder version next time, as that was the plan tonight, but it was excellent, regardless of the burning lips. Laura said she loved it too. I'm going to go ahead and rate it a 9 on her behalf.

In Other News...

...soon we'll have snow peas!

Pea blossoms

Asian Garden Salad

Day 258

Asian Garden Salad

From the Garden

Laura's garden is growing and some of the plants are already ready to harvest. The lettuce in particular needed to be thinned out and there are always tons of scallions. We also picked some kale and a couple radishes, which went amazingly well with the Asian dressing.

Red & green leaf lettuces

Garden veggies

From the Store

We also added to our salad some slivered almonds from the Bulk Barn which we toasted in a dry frying pan and a some Mandarin oranges from Sobeys. Laura topped hers with some Farkin chowmein noodles, too.

Toasted slivered almonds

Mandarin oranges

Asian Ginger Dressing

Original recipe
Laura made the dressing, and it was awesome. She followed the original recipe with the exception of adding the teaspoon of sesame oil.

Ingredients
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp + 1 1/2 tsp honey
1 tsp sesame oil

Directions
Mix well.

 Asian Ginger Dressing

Asian garden salad & dressing

Reviews/Comments

This meal was absolutely delicious and gets a 10 from both of us. The only downside is the prep time, since all the veggies had to be washed well, then dried, and chopped. But, it's worth the time. So fantastic.

Jaipur Vegetables on Quinoa

Days 230-234

I clicked on the blog and saw that my last entry was on Monday June 8th, the last day of normalcy, work-wise. Tuesday it was announced that we needed to work some OT so I have put in 10 and 12 hour days since then and the blog took a bit of a hit. I did remember to at least take a picture of dinner every night.

Jaipur Vegetables on Quinoa

When you work 12 hours, and sleep 7 hours, spend at least 1 hour getting ready and 30-40 minutes traveling, there isn't a lot of time left for life!

I took today off, but tomorrow (Sunday) I'm right back at it from 11-6. There's a rumor going around that it's Samosa Night, so dinner will be waiting when I get home. WOOT!

Tuesday June 9

Mini Pizzas

Old standby. Laura made these and they were fantastic. I was almost too tired to care if they were even good, but I appreciated their fantastic-ness immensely.

Mini pizzas

Wednesday June 10

Sweet Balsamic Marinara Rigatoni

After my first 12 hour day, Laura made this meal and it was sooo good. She makes good sauce. I ate, walked the dog and went to bed. Sooo tired. TG Laura fed me.

Sweet balsamic marinara rigatoni

Thursday, June 11

Egg Salad Sandwiches

We decided on egg salad for supper in order to get two birds stoned at once (Ricky-ism). That way we also had something to take for lunches. And, egg salad is yummy.

Egg salad sandwiches

Friday, June 12

Cheesy Broccoli Rice Casserole

This dinner was courtesy of Joanne Hawkyard, who made it for potluck and an extra small one just for us. How thoughtful is that? Let me tell you, after my week of OT, it couldn't have been more appreciated, and it was very delicious. Thank you, Joanne!

Cheesy broccoli rice casserole

Saturday June 13

Jaipur Vegetables on Quinoa

Today, I cooked a pot of quinoa and opened a packet of sauce to have on it. Nothing fancy at all, but it was good, nutritious and filling.

Quinoa

Jaipur Vegetables

Jaipur Vegetables on quinoa

Reviews/Comments

The Jaipur Vegetables were good. Spicy. I rate it a 7 and so does Laura.

Sushi Bowls

Day 228

Of course sushi bowls require some work. But not too much. Especially since we really didn't have a lot of things to put in it. It's Sunday and the stores all close at 5:00 so there's no way to get carrots, for instance, after it's been discovered that we didn't have any after all. I do wish I had had the foresight to get some asparagus or a mango. However, we did have a few mushrooms, a cucumber and plenty of green onions and avocados.

Sushi Bowl

Sushi Bowl Ingredients

2 cups sushi rice
3 cups water
1 cucumber
1 green onion
1 avocado
8 mushrooms
1 cup rice vinegar
1/2 white sugar
2 tsp peanut oil
Soy sauce
Wasabi
Sesame seeds

Directions

I'm not going to get into the full directions, since I've already done that in other blog entries. For more detailed directions on how to make sushi or sushi bowls, click these links:

Vegetarian Sushi
Vegetarian Sushi Bowls

Sushi ingredients

Sushi Rice

Sushi rice is a bit of a pain in the ass but it's the only part of making sushi bowls that is annoying.

Sushi rice coming to a boil

Sushi rice cooling

Sushi Rice Flavoring

Rice vinegar, sugar & peanut oil

Sushi bowl

Reviews/Comments

Always good. Feels like a naughtier meal than it really is, which is what I love about sushi. I give it a 10.