Asian Spring Rolls with a Hoisin Dipping Sauce

With the Asian New Year upon us, I conveniently got an email from Cook's Illustrated for an Asian inspired Dim Sum menu. You can see the full menu here. When it comes to asian food, I'm about as daring as stir fry and tofu fried rice. So the thought of making Spring Rolls sounded so new and exciting. It was a total turn on.

H. and I headed out to the Asian market in town to get all of our ingredients. This one huge strip mall is like stepping out of the U.S. and into a foreign country. It is totally fun and if you live in Denver, you really need to go there. It's on the corner of Alameda and Federal. Also, the whole appetizer cost me $6.97, not including all the sauces and oils which I already had. Crazy!



Spring Roll Ingredients
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon table salt
3 ounces rice vermicelli
1 large carrot , peeled and grated on large holes of box grater (about 1/2 cup)
1/3 cup chopped unsalted roasted peanuts
1 medium jalapeño chile or 2 Thai chiles, stemmed, seeded, and minced, or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 large cucumber (about 12 ounces), peeled and cut into thin 2" slices
4 leaves red leaf lettuce or Boston lettuce, halved lengthwise
8 round rice paper wrappers (8 inches in diameter)
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh Thai basil leaves or mint leaves
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves

Instructions (Straight from Cook's Illustrated)
1. Combine sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice in small bowl; set aside.

2. Bring 2 quarts water to boil in medium saucepan. Stir in salt and rice vermicelli. Cook until noodles are tender but not mushy, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain noodles and rinse under cold running water until cool. Drain again and transfer to medium bowl; toss 2 tablespoons fish sauce mixture with noodles and set aside.

3. Combine carrot, peanuts, and jalapeño in small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon fish sauce mixture; toss to combine. Toss cucumber in remaining 1 tablespoon fish sauce mixture.


4. Here is what my assembly line looked like. Fill 9-inch pie plate with 1 inch warm water. Working one at a time, immerse each wrapper in water until just pliable, about 20 seconds; lay softened wrapper on clean, damp, towel. Scatter 6 Thai basil leaves and 6 cilantro leaves over wrapper. Arrange 4 cucumber sticks horizontally on wrapper; top with 1 tablespoon carrot mixture, then arrange about 2 1/2 tablespoons noodles on top of carrot mixture. Wrap spring roll like a burrito; set on 1 lettuce piece on platter.

The recipe says it makes about 8, but I squeezed in about 12. We needed to taste test a few of course before we brought it to the party.


Sauces are so easy to throw together, and if you can believe it, I had all the ingredients already on hand. Score.

Hoisin Sesame Sauce Ingredients
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 inch piece fresh ginger, minced (about 2 tablespoons)
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Instructions
Mix hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and 2 tablespoons water in small bowl; set aside. Heat vegetable oil in small saucepan over medium heat; sauté ginger and garlic until fragrant but not browned, about 30 seconds. Stir in hoisin mixture; cook until flavors meld, about 2 to 3 minutes. Off heat, stir in cilantro. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Since we were taking them to a party, my spring rolls are laying in their little lettuce pillows in tupperware.


These are so fresh and tasty and so easy. I can't believe it's taken me 37 years to make them! The sauce really enhanced the flavors. Next time, I would like to try and whip up a peanut sauce for them too.

Making Your Own Baby Food

"Have you seen the Super Baby Food cookbook?", I asked DG yesterday. "I can't find it anywhere." "Oh yeah, I've seen it", he says. "It's in the bathroom." You heard it here ladies and gentlemen, good enough to be toilet reading.

I'm pretty excited about all the baby food I've been making. The colorful cubes are so pretty that I had to line them up for a photo op. From left to right there is sweet potato, squash, peas, oatmeal, summer squash, green beans and prunes. I've stopped feeding her carrots, bananas and rice as those are apparently constipating. But these are so easy to make I'm not sure why anyone would buy baby food. Though I definitely have a few jars on hand for traveling. But even when we were on the go all week-end, I'd pop a few cubes in a small tupperware or empty baby jar and off we would go.

To make any of the food, first you steam or microwave the veggies for a few minutes, then you blend them up adding water to get to the consistency you desire. I love using my magic bullet because it is small and just the perfect size. I fill the ice cube trays and freeze them overnight and then pop them into baggies the next day.

Hadley is now eating three meals a day. In the mornings she will usually eat oatmeal or pearled barley (blend 1/4C dry in the blender until a powder consistency and then cook with 1C water for 10 minutes). I mix this with pears, mangos, plums or prunes. At noon she will have asparagus, green beans or peas, and then for dinner her favorite sweet potatoes or summer squash. Though as always she will keep her mouth shut and let the food touch her lip to taste it before she decides if it is something that she has pre-approved.

Moosewood Cookbook Farmer's Market Gazpacho

I've posted recipes before from, The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (my favorite). But all it would take is one look at my book's tattered corners and food-splattered pages and you would be able to scratch and taste the love. I really need to move on and spread the love to some of my other cookbooks, but I just can't manage to break the ties. I always come back for more.

So I am very excited to be a part of Jemangelaville's week-end cookbook challenge in which the only rules are to make a recipe out of a cookbook made with ingredients that you purchased from a Farmer's Market. I thought about branching out and making the Chilled Cucumber Yogurt Soup or even the Cream of Summer Green Soup. But I have issues with change, so am sticking with the tried and true. I love making this soup at least once a summer. You may even call it a summer tradition.

I go to the farmer's market every weekend. You should try to find one near you too. They make me feel 1) social 2) good for supporting local farms and businesses and 3) green because I bring my own bags. Last Saturday morning, I packed up the family and headed to the Cherry Creek Farmer's Market, narrowly making it with 15 minutes to spare. This is the best time to go as the crowds have died down and vendors are more willing to cut you a better deal on the veggies. Wasting no time, I ran through grabbing all the ingredients needed for Gazpacho.

Everything pictured here totalled $17! A total steal. The only items I won't be using in the recipe are the broccoli, summer squash, zucchini, and green beans which are for Hadley. But that is another cookbook and another post that requires steaming, ice cube trays, and the magic bullet.

Here are the ingredients:
4C cold tomato juice
1 small well-minced onion
2C fresh diced tomatoes
1C minced green pepper
1 tsp honey
1 clove crushed garlic
1 diced cucumber
2 scallions, chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 lime
2 TBL wine vinegar
1 tsp each tarragon and basil
dash of ground cumin
1/4C fresh chopped parsley
dash of tabasco sauce
2 TBL olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Now here's the best part, are you ready? Combine all ingredients. No seriously that's it. Then you throw it in the fridge and let it chill for two hours while you go watch the new Batman movie, or mow your lawn or something.

Ok, since I'm not ready to let you go yet, here's a few little tricks that I like to do. First, I take the seeds out of the cucumber with a grapefruit spoon.

This is not necessary and I usually don't do it. But I had some extra time today so why not.

Next, depending on how lazy you are, there are several ways to mince/dice the ingredients. If you are a super fast fancy chef-like chopper with a good knife, then good for you. Give yourself a pat on the back, but make sure you take that knife out of your hand first!

But if you are like me, you need to whip this up fast because you are so hungry you're about to start dipping into that ciabatta bread you bought, and ruin your dinner. So your other choice is to use a Cuisinart. Just toss the whole kit-and-caboodle in there and don't stop until it's all minced, because this soup can be pureed as well. Me, I chose the middle option, my Pampered Chef chopper. This is a speedy way to get the mince/dice I want without having to clean the whole Cuisinart.

On another green note, make sure you take all your scraps out to the compost pile.


But that's it, combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and serve as a first course of a light summer meal or pair it with other things.


It's really good with a slice of crusty bread. I bought ciabatta at the farmer's market for $1. I paired it with shrimp cocktail because it's Saturday and my fridge was empty for the week, but I had pre-cooked shrimp in the freezer. Voila, a perfectly cool ending for a 98 degree day.

Pesto Lasagna

Working with what you have.

Often times, rather than have a set menu for the week, I buy the usual suspects at the grocery store and each night, I open the refrigerator door and take a peek in to see what I can rustle up for dinner.

On Sunday after our party, I had leftover pesto, ricotta, parmesan, mozzerella, and sauce. I also knew that I had several types of lasagna noodles in the pasta drawer that moved in with the dawn of DG. So what does this spell? Lasagna! Which is something I haven't made in about 10 years. It was the last meal I ate before I got the flu it's taken me 10 years to get over it. But I digress.

I did not do anything real fancy, and actually just followed the instructions on the side box of no cook noodles. Oh crap, does this fall under Sandra Lee's semi-homeade?

15oz ricotta
2 eggs
1/2C pesto (3C basil, 3cl garlic, 1/4C pine nuts, 1/2C olive oil, 3/4C grated parmesan, 1/2tsp salt) oooh, a recipe within a recipe
1/4C Parmesan
3C Mozzarella
1 jar sauce
1 box no cook noodles

Mix the ricotta, eggs, 1 1/2C mozzarella, and pesto. I only had 7oz of ricotta which I had premixed with garlic, basil and oregano for the pizza I made. Since I didn't have the full 15oz, I substituted some non-fat cottage cheese which worked just fine.

Spray a 13 x 9 baking pan and pour 1C sauce in the bottom. Add the first layer of 4 noodles. Then add 1/3 of the ricotta mixture and another cup of sauce. Repeat 4 times until the last layer is noodles. Top with the remaining parmesan and mozarella. Bake for 50-60 minutes at 375.

I cut this up into 12 servings and froze half of it for later this winter when the fridge is completely empty except for limp celery and condiments.

Fall Party Menu

Saturday evening, after 6 months of living in our new house, we finally invited all of our friends over for a fall party/house warming. We provided drinks (including pumpkin beer, wine, apple cider, and italian soda) and light appetizers. All food items were made from scratch. You would think that I would have tried to make my life easier by getting some frozen snacks to heat up, but no. Even the pesto and pizza dough were made that morning. Can you say nesting? And so the day began with rolling out of bed to start cooking.

Here was the menu:
Roasted Garlic Pea Puree en Croute
Baba Ganoush with Pita
White Bean and Rosemary Dip with Vegetables
Seven Layer Dip with White Corn Chips
Pesto phyllo rolls
Margarita Pizza (homeade) (ricotta garlic spread, tomato, basil, fresh mozzarella)
Cheese Pizza (homeade)
Pumpkin Cake with Brown Butter Icing topped with sugared Almonds
Halloween Sugar Cookies decorated with icing
Kettle Corn
Crackers, Cheese and Salami
Candy Corn and Cashews

As a side effect of being 7+ months pregnant, I did need to enlist DGs help as sous chef (aka cheese grater) and dish washer. In the midst of all the cooking, we did not get too many pictures. Unfortunately this one is the best. And I so wanted to be a part of the www.jemangelaville.com cookbook challenge.

Peanut Butter and Jelly French Toast

Here's another example of something that I would never make, if I were not pregnant.

This recipe came to me during a midnight snacking frenzy on Friday. I had gone 6 hours without eating and I needed a quick snack for Baby G before going to bed. So I took a small slice of bread from a leftover baguette and put a teaspoon of peanut butter on it to tide me over. As I was standing in the kitchen, by myself, guiltily eating the bread, I knew what I was making for breakfast in the morning.

Peanut Butter and Jelly French Toast

Ingredients
1/2 french baguette
Organic Peanut Butter
Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves
4 eggs
3/4C skim milk
1TBL sugar
1tsp. vanilla
1tsp. cinnamon
dash of salt together
1-2 TBL each butter and vegetable oil

Slice the baquette in the morning and make 3-4 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Mix together the rest of the ingredients. Let each sandwich soak in the egg mixture for a couple of minutes on each side. Cook up on the stove in a combination of butter and vegetable oil until golden brown.



Serve with real maple syrup, NOT Mrs. Butterworths. Shame on your for even thinking of it.

Last week's menus

Now that I'm back in the saddle cooking up nightly dinners in the kitchen, I've been throwing together some zany combinations.

Tuesday
Guiltless Chicken Fingers
Morroccan Cous Cous (recipe below)

Wednesday
Tofu, red pepper, green bean stir fry with rice noodles

Thursday
Salmon Burgers
Roast Brussel Sprouts
Lemon Garlic Cous Cous Salad


I made up the Cous Cous recipes this week based on whatever was about to expire in the fridge. I cooked the Cous Cous on Tuesday and used half for dinner then and half for dinner Thursday in 2 wildly different recipes.

Morroccan Cous Cous salad
2 stalks chopped celery
1/3C raisins
1 chopped apple
1 carrot shredded
1/2tsp. cinnamon
zest 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper

Use about 1-1/2-2C of cooked cous cous. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and serve. You could also add some toasted almonds to this recipe.

Lemon Garlic Cous Cous Salad
8 cherry tomatoes quartered
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1tsp basil
zest of 1/2 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper

Again, use about 1-1/2-2C cous cous, add the tomatoes, zest, lemon, salt and pepper. Cook the garlic in EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) with the basil until slightly browned. Stir in and serve.

Salmon Burgers
1lb uncooked salmon (skin removed)
1TBL dijon
2 TBL soy sauce
1 garlic clove
1" piece ginger peeled
juice of 1/2 lemon
zest of 1/2 lemon
1/2C breadcrumbs

Add everything except the salmon to a food processor. Create a sauce. Remove the skin from the salmon, chop into 2" cubes and add to the proecessor. Pulse until mixed together, stir in bread crumbs. I make about 4 patties to fry on the stove top in a little EVOO.

It's so fast that you too can whip it up.

Meatball Sandwich

Earlier this week, I made a tomato sauce recipe that Eileen, my old boss, gave to me. She recently had a pizza party where she made all the dough, and both meat and vegetarian sauces. Once we arrived at her house, we started assembling pizzas. We had so much fun and I ate pizza until 10pm.

Since I made the sauce on Monday, I've been dreaming about what I could do with the leftovers. Then it came to me, da duh duh turkey meatball sandwiches. YUM!

First, I started with the Eating for Life Recipe for meatballs.

1 1/2lb white meat ground turkey
2 egg whites
1/2C breadcrumbs
1/4C water
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4C fresh parsley, minced
2tsp dried basil
1tsp black pepper
salt

Mix all of the ingredients, form into balls that you like the size of and place on a baking sheet. Broil for 10-12 minutes, taking time at least once to rotate the balls.

After cooling the balls, I put 8 into a pan with the sauce to keep them warm. On hand you will also need mozzarella cheese and a roll. I broiled the roll a bit to brown it, then added the warm sauce and meatballs, sprinkled it with mozzarella and sent it back to the broiler to melt the cheese. The result was a tasty dinner and now I'm going to have to recreate it again for lunch.

Meal in a Pouch

I caught an Alton Brown show on the food network recently about pouch meals which was fascinating and peaked my interest with how easy it was to do. I decided to recreate his fish and cous cous pouch this week with ingredients that I had on hand. I also was out of parchment paper so I used aluminum foil.

Steamed Tilapia with Cous Cous(just quadruple the recipe for 4)
1 tilapia filet
1/4C Cous Cous
1/3C Chicken or Vege stock (or white wine)
1 clove garlic minced
1/4C sliced red onion
6 cherry or grape tomatoes sliced in half
1/4tsp thyme
lemon juice
dab of butter
salt and pepper (lemon pepper maybe?)

Heat oven to 425 degrees. I had 3 tilapia fillets so I tripled the ingredients and made 3 pouches. First cut a piece of tinfoil about 1 1/2' long. Rinse the cous cous and lay in the middle of the tin foil. Flatten a bit and lightly salt. Lay the tilapia fillet over the top of the cous cous. Lay the tomatoes around the egdes. Cover the fish with the chopped onion and garlic. Sprinkle with salt, pepper (lemon), thyme, a few squirts of lemon juice, and a dab of butter. Seal the aluminum foil so that there are no air holes. I folded it lengthwise and then up the sides. Bake for 20 minutes. Be careful when you open it up because you are going to want to nuzzle your nose in and take in the amazing aroma. However, the steam is super hot.

Oh wait, you wanted a touch of dessert too? Ok, here's a dessert pouch, again based on Alton's Brown recipe. He uses gingersnaps in his.

Fruit Pouch (use peaches, pears, plums, apples, whatever you have on hand)
1 apple (peeled and chopped)
1 pear (peeled and chopped)
2 TBL orange liqueur
1 TBL honey
1 TBL sugar (optional)
1/4tsp cinnamon (we love saigon cinnamon from Savory)
squirt of lemon juice
dollop of butter (I used less than 1/2 a TBL)

Place all the ingredients in a pouch. Hermetically seal your pouch and throw it in the oven while your dinner is cooking. Bake for about 20 minutes. This serves 2. Eat with 1/4C of real vanilla ice cream. Yum and it's only about 250 calories WITH the ice cream.

Last Week's Menus

I noticed in my lastest email installment of Martha Stewart Food, they had a lovely little side panel with a list of fresh healthy meals to make for a week. I'm all about the 5 minute meal (aka Rachel Ray) and I'm reading "The French Don't Diet Plan". Lesson number 1 is DON'T eat fake foods! The grocery store is full of packaged dinners and boxed mixes of human made chemicals created to simulate real food. It started in the 60s with the American LifeStyle of needing it hot, fast and now. We were fooled into thinking that Cool Whip was a fast and easy treat. But it is just chemicals we are putting in our bodies. Take High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) for instance. This was processed in the 60's to simulate sugar. But your body doesn't recognize it as a sugar, and your body has to process it through the liver with the rest of the toxins. HFCS is hard to get away from as it is in everything because it is cheaper for manufacturers to use than sugar. It's in most cereals, snacks, and even ketchup!

Normally we eat pretty close to the food chain, but even this one gets into our diet. I am going to try and be better about not buying anything with HFCS in it anymore.

Here's a sampling of our own quick and easy menus of what we ate last week for dinner:

Tuesday
Skillet chicken
Stuffed Acorn Squash (from The Moosewood)

Wednesday
Baked Salmon with lemon and dill
Roasted Asparagus
1/2 Baked Sweet Potato

Thursday
Homemade Turkey Meatballs (from the Body for Life cookbook)
Tomato Sauce (organic fat free)
Angel Hair Pasta (1 portion only!)

Sunday Special Birthday Dinner
Seared Ahi with Cilantro Dipping Sauce
Cucumber Salad
Udon Noodles with peanut sauce (Sauce recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forrest)
Individual Chocolate Truffle Cakes

Too sad to write...

Joy left this morning *sniff* after our fun 48 hour extravangza. We hung out and coffee clutched Saturday afternoon while perusing houses for sale in Burbank before heading downtown to drink red wine and listen to a great jazz band. Cabbing home, these two desperate housewives stayed up giggling until 2:30am. Thank god Joy had the sense to say no when I wanted to open another bottle of wine before going to bed. After the dogs let us sleep in until 9am, I made an honorary breakfast of a crab cheese egg scramble. I was trying to recreate the lobster casserole that we ate every morning at The Island Inn on Monhegan when we were there for Joy's wedding. It was a really good substitute.



Crab Cheese Egg Scramble

5 eggs
1 can REAL crab meat
shredded cheddar cheese
3 green onions, chopped
some 1/2 and 1/2 (use at your discretion - a couple of tablespoon fulls is good)
salt and pepper
1TBL butter for frying

Scramble all of the above and cook. It is suprisingly tasty.

More on our adventures tomorrow, maybe when Joy sends me some pictures. I have to go to bed early tonight to recover from our trip!

Super Bowl 41

At the super bowl party we went to, I was asked who I was rooting for. I said I was rooting for the chips and dip. Gooooooooooooo chips and dip. Who was playing in the game anyway? I don't go to those parties for the football, I go for the FOOD and the company. I brought standard and easy to throw together 7 layer minus a layer dip. Here is the recipe:

Super Bowl 7 Layer Dip
1 can refried beans
8 oz sour cream
salsa
sharp cheddar cheese
1 diced tomato
1 small can sliced black olives
green onions
Sliced jalepenos

I don't know what the proportions are, I just use a glass square pan and add the ingredients from top to bottom. I smooth the beans down with a spatula, then smooth the sour cream, pour on half the jar of salsa, completely cover with cheese and then sprinkle the rest on. Now if you want to get real fancy, add the guacamole after the sour cream. I'm just too lazy to rustle up some guacamole as I'm usually throwing this together in a frenzy before running out the door so I don't miss the tip off, I mean the first pitch, aw hell, I know it's the kick off.

Cranberry Walnut Salad

It is cranberry walnut week here at Team Gibson household. First there was the Wild Rice Recipe, then the granola, there were evern some bran flaxseed muffins and NOW duh Duh DUH!!! Salad. I threw this together for book club the other night.

1 bag pre-washed spinach
1/8 red onion, thinly sliced
1/3-1/2C dried cranberries
1/3C chopped walnuts
4oz goat cheese crumbled over the top
Newman's Own Light raspberry walnut dressing (to taste)

Go ahead, throw it together. As a matter of fact, you may want to buy like 2lbs. of the dried cranberries as there are so many uses for them!

Wild Rice with Cranberry and Walnuts

Years ago, I went to Cleveland for the week-end to get off campus. (Alright, alright, more than a decade ago.) At the time, I did not eat red meat, pork, or chicken. Having been a vegetarian for only a couple of years, my idea of dinner was a main course of french fries and cereal for dessert.

We stayed with a friend's family and in order to accomodate her guests, the mom went out to a specialty food store and brought back a bunch of gourmet vegetarian options, the likes of which I had never tasted. Wow, vegetarian food was good! It was so amazing to feel included at dinner time. My favorite dish that she brought back however, was a wild rice with cranberry and walnuts. I ate this cold every day until it was gone. For years I tried to recreate it with real cranberries. Recently, I learned that the real trick is to use dried cranberries.

I was at Wild Oats last week and saw a wild rice blend in the bulk section. While in that aisle, I also bagged up some walnuts and dried cranberries which I also use in my granola recipe.

Wild Rice with Cranberry and Walnuts
1C Wild Rice blend
2C water
salt (1/8 tsp. maybe?)
1TBL butter or olive oil (optional)
1/3C Cranberries
1/3C Chopped Walnuts

Put the first four items in a pot on the stove and bring to a boil. When it boils, turn the heat down to simmer, cover, and cook for 45 minutes. Throw in the last two ingredients, mix and serve. The hot rice will make the cranberries soften up perfectly. Now I usually just throw a handful of each in, so I am not exactly sure of the amount, because that is how I cook, a little of this, a little of that. But just eyeball it. If it looks like you are eating a few grains of rice with your cranberries, than add less cranberries, Duh!