Easy Szechwan Shrimp

The only thing better than good eats, is good eats, FAST! Last night I made Szechwan Shrimp for dinner. This recipe is super easy, super fast and super good! The sauce is made from ingredients that I usually have in my pantry and refrigerator anyway. It turned out okay, except I did a few things different from the recipe below. Instead of cooked shrimp, I used raw shrimp and I since I wanted to add some veggies to it, I added one red bell pepper and one small yellow onion (you can add whatever veggies you have on hand like zucchini, broccoli or even string beans). I swapped out ground ginger for a teaspoon or two of fresh ginger (which gave it great flavor). I also decided to marinate the shrimps in a light dusting of corn starch to help keep them moister while they cooked, and of course I seasoned them with salt and pepper. First, I cooked up the onion and bell pepper in some vegetable oil. Then I added the garlic and green onions and then added the raw shrimp. After the shrimps started turning pink, I added the sauce mixture. 

I think next time I will increase the honey to 1 tablespoon because it didn't seem sweet enough. This may be because I used Trader Joe's organic ketchup which doesn't have added sugar in it, so it isn't as sweet as Heinz ketchup or other brands. There was no problem with the heat level with adding 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red peppers. In fact, I might use real peppers next time, either whole dried red chiles or maybe a jalapeno to add some more heat to the dish. I also added some sprigs of cilantro for garnish to give it a fresher taste and appearance. Overall, I liked this recipe and it was very easy and very quick to prepare. I'll just make those additional adjustments the next time I prepare this dish, but this sauce is super versatile and could be used with chicken or beef or pork. YUM!

Szechwan Shrimp

INGREDIENTS:

4 tablespoons water 2 tablespoons ketchup 1 tablespoon soy sauce 2 teaspoons cornstarch 1 teaspoon honey 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1/4 cup sliced green onions 4 cloves garlic, minced 12 ounces cooked shrimp, tails removed

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a bowl, stir together water, ketchup, soy sauce, cornstarch, honey, crushed red pepper, and ground ginger. Set aside.
2.	Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in green onions and garlic; cook 30 seconds. Stir in shrimp, and toss to coat with oil. Stir in sauce. Cook and stir until sauce is bubbly and thickened. Szechwan Shrimp Recipe is courtesy of allrecipes.com

Chicken Tortilla Soup

One of my favorite things about wintertime is that I get to make soup for dinner! I love making soup and I love eating soup more than that! So, here's my take on chicken tortilla soup.

First, let me just say that you can vary this soup to your own liking by adding other vegetables that you like or omitting ones that I mention. I didn't have zucchini the day I made mine, but if you have that, you can add some to your soup. You can add frozen corn to this as well.

For the basic soup, you will need:
1. one yellow onion, chopped (red onion works fine, too)
2. three or four cloves of garlic, chopped
3. 2-3 celery stalks, chopped (1/4 inch pieces)
4. 2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped (1/4 inch pieces)
5. 1-2 boneless, skinless breasts of chicken, cubed into 1/2-1 inch pieces, depending on how much you have (I used one and it was fine, but if you want it more hearty, you can use two)
6. one 16 oz can of black beans
7. handful of cilantro and 2 green onions, chopped for garnish
8. three cheese mexican blend (about 1/2-1 cup)
9. 8-10 white or yellow corn tortillas cut into thin strips, I prefer white corn tortillas. I tend to cut up a lot of tortilla strips because I like a lot of them in my soup! Just eyeball how much you want. The leftovers are fun to nibble on and they keep well in a ziploc bag for the next day, too.
10. vegetable or canola oil for frying the tortilla strips
11. two big 32 oz cartons or cans of (organic, if you have it) chicken broth
12. lime
13. extra virgin olive oil
14. salt and pepper
15. teaspoon of mexican oregano
16. bay leaf
17. 16 oz can of cut tomatoes (petite cut or regular)
18. teaspoon ground cumin (you can add more if you like cumin)
19. 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
20. teaspoon ancho chile pepper powder or mexican chile powder or regular chili powder

First add some oil into a fry pan until it reaches about 1/2 up the side. Set the heat to medium/medium-high depending on your stove. After a few minutes, test the oil with a wooden spoon by sticking the handle stick into the oil until it touches the bottom of them pan. When you see bubbles forming around the handle, your oil is ready to go. Add a handful of tortilla strips and fry until they are lightly golden brown. Keep frying in small batches until you have used up all the tortilla strips. Place strips on a paper towel or cooling rack and season with salt immediately after taking them out of the oil.

In a large dutch oven or stock pot, add a tablespoon or two of extra virgin olive oil and turn the heat to medium. Add the onions and saute for a minute or two. Add the carrots, celery and garlic and saute for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the oregano, chile powder, cumin, coriander and stir the veggies. Add the black beans and tomatoes. Season with more salt and pepper. Add the chicken broth and bay leaf. Turn up the heat to high until it comes to a boil, then lower the heat back to a medium simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the carrots soften. At this point, this will hold for quite some time on low heat until you are ready to add the chicken. (Once you add the chicken though, you should serve it immediately, so the chicken doesn't overcook and get dry.) Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Add the chicken to the gently simmering soup and let the chicken poach for a few minutes. Check the chicken after a five minutes or so to see if it's cooked through. If it's still pink inside, let it finish simmering a couple minutes longer while you get the garnish (green onions, cilantro, cheese, lime) ready. Taste the soup and adjust the seasonings; add more salt and pepper to your liking.

To serve:

Ladle a generous amount of soup into a big bowl (trust me, you will want a big bowl of this!) and add a sprinkling of green onions and cilantro. Squeeze the lime all over for an extra kick of flavor. Add a handful of tortilla strips and pile them in the center of the bowl. Sprinkle the strips with a handful of cheese. You may add extra cilantro on top for added garnish (plus, I just love cilantro, so I can never have too much of it on anything). My husband likes his soup spicy, so he adds some Tapatio hot sauce.

This is a warm and comforting treat to eat at the end of a cold winter's day. It's worth the time to make your own tortilla strips (It doesn't take long either! Really, it doesn't! I just fry them up while I am chopping the veggies). If you don't want to make your own tortillas strips, you can always use store bought tortilla chips and crumble them into the soup instead. But, believe me, it really makes the soup when you make your own tortilla strips. Plus this soup only gets better the second day, so make a big batch, even if it's just for one or two people, and keep the rest for leftovers for the next day's lunch.

This is also a good "use up" meal because you can use up your extra tortillas and use up your root veggies. You can easily make this a vegetarian soup by omitting the chicken and using vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. Just add the corn and zucchini to make this soup a little heartier. Enjoy!

Turkey and Potato Casserole

What do you do with the last two or three potatoes in the bag?

Here's a quick (prep-wise) casserole that you can do ahead of time, store in the refrigerator and stick in the oven when you're ready for dinner.
Or, you can do your prep work and bake it all at once.

This is a super easy recipe and it's good for those days you are too tired to cook, but still want something homemade-tasting. Plus, there's not a whole lot of chopping to do, and once it's in the oven, you can walk away and do other things while it bakes. I think the total prep time for me was less than 10 minutes, and that included scrubbing the potatoes, chopping the onions and garlic and slicing the potatoes.


Here's what you'll need for the basic casserole:

1. Half a pound of ground turkey meat (If you want to serve more than two people, I would use a pound of meat.)

2. 1 onion chopped

3. 2-3 cloves chopped garlic (Optional. If you don't have any fresh garlic on hand, you can use a few shakes of garlic powder.)

4. 2 medium potatoes, thinly sliced (I used yellow potatoes, scrubbed and unpeeled, but you can use russet or red potatoes, whatever you have. If you are serving more than two people, then use 3-4 potatoes, depending on the size.)

5. Cream of mushroom or Cream of anything soup (I used cream of chicken soup, non-condensed. If you use a condensed soup, just add 1/4 cup of water or chicken broth to the concentrated soup.)

6. Salt and Pepper

7. Extra Virgin Olive Oil (teaspoon or two)

8. Freshly chopped flat leaf parsley for garnish (Optional. If you don't have any on hand, it's okay.)

9. Shredded cheese (Completely optional. I used a Mexican four cheese blend, but sharp cheddar or jalapeño jack cheese, if you like it spicy, would work well too.)

Start by browning the ground turkey in a teaspoon or so of extra virgin olive oil.  Then add the onions and garlic. Season with plenty of salt and pepper. Drain off any excess liquid that may have rendered during this process.

Layer the bottom of a casserole dish (I just used a small dutch oven) with potatoes.
Season the potatoes with salt & pepper.

Then add a layer of turkey meat mixture and pour half the soup mixture over it. Add another layer of potatoes (season with salt and pepper), turkey meat, and the remaining soup mixture. (At this point, if you want to save it for later in the day, let it cool a little bit and then put it in the refrigerator, covered. It will be ready for you when you're ready to eat at dinner time!)

Bake, covered for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Here it is:  Turkey and potato casserole.

Now, I wasn't too thrilled with this, so I added some cheese and put it back in the oven, uncovered for a few minutes until the cheese melted. You don't have to add the cheese, but I wanted to give it another layer of goodness. (For a crispier cheese layer, put it under the broiler for a few minutes.)

To serve:

Scoop out casserole onto a plate or bowl and sprinkle with parsley.

(NOTE: If you use non-condensed soup like I did, it might come out a little saucier, in which case, I'd just serve it in a bowl.)

This is just the skeleton of the casserole recipe. You can add whatever you want to it during the saute phase: celery, bell peppers, corn, peas, carrots, mushrooms, whatever you have on hand! Of course, this can also be done with ground beef or ground chicken. Basically, you can be as creative or "uncreative" as you like! If you don't have a lot of ingredients around, you can still make the basic version of this and it will taste great. But, if you want to jazz it up a bit, you can add different flavorings and veggies to your own liking.

Korean-Style Turkey-Stuffed Zucchini

The big question on everyone's mind at the end of the day seems to be, "What's for dinner?"  I admit that I get stuck in the same menu rut sometimes, because I am usually just too tired to try to learn new recipes--the main goal is to get food on the table, sometimes. I don't plan ahead as much as I should, but I do get inspired by fresh ingredients that I see at the grocery store. A couple days ago, I picked up some zucchini, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it (I tend to do that, which I know isn't the best game plan, but I'm more spontaneous about what I'm in the mood to eat and I can't always tell that two days before each meal).  


So anyway, last night I decided to make stuffed zucchini. Originally, I was going to make Italian-style stuffed zucchini, but then I thought I'd try to make an Asian version of that. I Googled: "Asian Stuffed Zucchini Recipes."  I only found one hit for Korean Beef-Stuffed Zucchini.  I clicked on it and I thought it sounded good. 


PROBLEM: I don't eat beef! (UH-OH! What kind of Korean am I? Koreans are generally big beef eaters! But, I don't eat beef and neither does my husband.)


Nevertheless, I decided to put a California spin on this recipe. It might not be 100% authentic Korean cooking, but that's okay. It'll just have to be Korean-inspired. So, here's my journey through a quasi-Korean recipe:

I gathered the ingredients for Korean Beef-Stuffed Zucchini, but I decided to omit the mushrooms and almonds (my husband detests mushrooms and almonds, so I have to leave them out of every recipe). I swapped the beef broth for chicken broth and I substituted ground turkey for the beef chuck.  I decided to chop a small handful of finely pre-shredded carrots instead of using mushrooms. Oh, and since I love cilantro and ginger, I decided to add some (about 2 tablespoons) finely chopped cilantro and about an inch of finely minced ginger.

I didn't realize this step would be this important, but it is. After you cut the zucchini into 2" pieces, you must sprinkle the tops with salt to draw out the water and soften them, so they will open up later when you are ready to stuff them. Depending on how thick your pieces are, this process may take up to 45 minutes at room temperature (I think mine were ready in about 30 minutes). The recipe calls for 4 zucchinis and I only had 2, but that was enough for two people. 



Now comes the fun part: mixing! Combine the turkey, green onions, soy sauce, sesame oil, black pepper, egg yolk, garlic, ginger, carrots and cilantro. I used about a half a pound of turkey, which is about half a package. Since I only had 2 zucchinis, I had some meat mixture left over (but it's okay, because I'll just use it to make some meatballs tomorrow).


This is a great recipe because there is no need to put oil in the wok! Just put the onions in, a teaspoon of sugar and a cup of broth.  


Stuffing the zucchini proved to be a little challenging, but I just took little chunks and used my fingers to wiggle them into the slots as carefully as I could, adding more meat mixture until a small mound was created.  Then, I gently added the stuffed zucchini to the wok, meat side up.  If you like it spicy, remember to sprinkle some red pepper flakes on top (it wasn't that spicy for us and plus, it looks pretty on top!).  Bring the broth up to a boil and then lower it to a simmer; put a lid on it for about 10 minutes, or longer depending on the thickness of the zucchinis and the amount of stuffing. 

Some of my zucchinis broke during the cutting and stuffing phases, so I just stuffed them as half pieces, and they still came out fine.  The recipe says to take the zucchini out with a slotted spoon, but I just used tongs and gently lifted each one out of the sauce.  

I like thicker sauce, so after I took out the zucchinis, I mixed two teaspoons of corn starch with two teaspoons of cold chicken broth and added it to the sauce. I turned up the heat to bring it to a boil and it thickened up in no time!

Here's my culinary experiment: Mariko's Korean-Style Turkey-Stuffed Zucchini served over white rice:

To serve:
1. Scoop rice into a bowl or onto a plate. 
2. Spoon plenty of sauce with onions over the rice.
3. Gently place the stuffed zucchini on top.


This is also a good low-carb meal! Just omit the rice and place the stuffed zucchini over salad greens or pre-shredded cabbage with Korean-style dressing.


(PS: My husband liked this meal, so it's a new menu item for our household now.)