Review: Spicy Shrimp and Bok-Choy Stir-Fry

Tonight I decided to try the Spicy Shrimp and Bok Choy Stir-Fry recipe found at that link (also pasted at the bottom in case the link ever goes away). I also made a variation of asian-inspired noodles to go along with it. (Spaghetti noodles cooked and drained, then tossed with 1 cup vegetable stock, 6 T soy sauce, 1 T sugar, and 1 tsp sambal oelek.)

Changes I made to the recipe:
Instead of using chili-garlic sauce, I used sambal oelek (chili paste) and added extra garlic to it. I already had sambal oelek on hand from a past recipe, and in comparing the two bottles at the store, they seemed identical except for the addition of garlic, so I decided to be a little frugal and use items I had on hand already.


I also forgot to garnish with the green parts of the scallions. To be honest, none of us care for them very much, and I always add less than a recipe calls for (just enough for flavor). By the time I finished putting this recipe together, I had honestly quite forgotten about them.


Family Feedback:
K-Pidge: thought it was so-so. The noodles were a variation on a previous recipe we'd tried and really liked, but I modified them to have less sugar, which really cut out the sweet quality I liked previously and made it a little tangier than I wanted. The shrimp was really good, but I thought the spiciness was a LITTLE too overpowering. I might go easier on the sambal oelek next time. Overall I wasn't a fan of the bok choy; too earthy. (I am really picky about greens, but I'm trying to find ones I like!)


Mr. K-Pidge: liked it a lot. He wouldn't make any changes. MAYBE if I used the 'right' Chinese noodles, lo mein noodles or something. Otherwise it is tasty and spicy and even visually pleasing.


Boy K-Pidge (6): doesn't like it. It's too spicy. He would make it less spicy. Otherwise he likes shrimp and bok choy and noodles.


Girl K-Pidge (4): liked it ok. Didn't like the spiciness of the noodles, but she liked the spicy on the shrimp OK. However, she keeps insisting she doesn't like shrimp, even though she eats them every time we have them.


Frugality rating:
This recipe is not very frugal simply because shrimp, at least here in the Midwest, is not cheap. I think the bag of shrimp I bought was $13. All total this dinner probably cost about $22, give or take. It gave us   6 servings, since the kids didn't eat very much. So it was roughly $3.70 each for us to eat dinner tonight, plus two leftover lunches.


Health rating:
The shrimp and bok choy, per serving:
225 calories
6 g fat (1 g sat)
9 g carbohydrate
35 g protein
3 g fiber
525 mg sodium


I haven't figured out how to examine our diet for proper levels of fat, protein and carbs yet, exactly. I mostly count calories to try and lose weight, but since I'd like to change the QUALITY of the food we're eating, I'll need to figure that part out too. Calorie-wise, this part was great, and as a diabetic, it was low-carb too. Fresh seafood and fresh greens, not too much sauce, sounds like an overall healthy dish to me.


The noodles, I used whole-wheat pasta (score, I think), but I know that part added calories and carbs. I haven't figured out the nutritionals on that part, and I'm not going to bother until I've perfected the way I want them to taste. I don't think it's bad as a side carb, but it should definitely not be the main focus of the dish.


Reheat rating:
I took one of the extra servings and split it in half; put one in the fridge and the other in the freezer. I will come back and rate the recipe's 'leftover' rating, as well as the 'make ahead and freeze' rating, at a later date!


Is it a keeper?
Flavor-wise, it needs some modifications to be a whole-family pleaser. Cost-wise, it's a little high but not TOO bad; this would rank it as an 'occasional' dish and not a staple. Health-wise, it seems to be fairly decent. The reheat rating, of course, remains to be seen. Overall, three spoons out of five; would make again, but with some modifications.


The recipe, in case it disappears from the South Beach site:

Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
4 scallions, white and green parts thinly sliced and kept separate
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 pounds boy choy, sliced crosswise
2 tablespoons lower-sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons chili-garlic sauce

Instructions
In a large bowl, combine shrimp, scallion whites, and garlic. In a wok or a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add shrimp mixture and cook, stirring occasionally, until shrimp turn pink and are cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a large clean bowl.

Return the pan to medium-high heat. Add bok choy, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain any liquid from the skillet and add bok choy to bowl with shrimp.

Return the pan to medium-high heat. Add soy sauce and chili-garlic sauce; stir to combine and bring to a boil. Add shrimp mixture and toss until coated. Cook briefly, just to reheat. Stir in scallion greens and serve warm.

This is part of K-Pidge's efforts to feed her family healthier, more nutritious foods. For all posts in the K-Pidge Healthy Family Project, click here.

Nicely Spiced Mess O' Beans

I love made-up dinner. Made-up dinner doesn't mean we were so poor and/or lazy today that we had imaginary food; it means I felt inspired to grab things I already had in my kitchen and create something random. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. Tonight it worked, and was full of awesome. AND it was cheap! Oh so tasty. A little too spicy for my kids but OJ and I loved it, and it made enough to feed us for at least two meals.

I like to call it Nicely Spiced Mess O' Beans.

Things I grabbed:
olive oil
2 small white onions
6 cloves of garlic
1 beef bouillon cube
1 small can green chilies
1 medium can pinto beans
1 medium can kidney beans
1 large can diced tomatoes
1 large can white hominy
Tastefully Simply Bacon Bacon mix
chili powder
adobo seasoning
Pampered Chef Southwestern Seasoning Mix
Tastefully Simple Fiesta Party Dip Mix
ground white pepper
light brown sugar

In a medium pot, I put about 2 T of olive oil and warmed it on medium heat. While the oil was warming, I diced the two onions and added them to the pot. I pressed 6 cloves of garlic in and sauteed for a few minutes, until translucent. Sprinkled in about a tablespoon of the Bacon Bacon - would have friend up some regular bacon but my bacon was all frozen, which does not lend itself to 'instant bacon for dinner'. Then I added in the beef bouillon cube (I would have added ground beef if I had it, alas! But this gave it a nice, hearty flavor) and the can of diced green chilies. Cooked those for another minute or so, then added the cans of pinto beans, kidney beans, and diced tomatoes - all undrained. I drained the hominy, rinsed it, and added it to the mix.

Next, it's time for seasoning! I did about 2 T each of the chili powder and brown sugar, and the rest of the spices I just did about a teaspoon of each, just enough for some flavor. I figured I'd let it simmer and then adjust as needed, but I have to tell you, no adjusting was necessary. It was just perfect, a really great blend of flavors. Hearty, warming, with a nice little kick to it. A great chili-stew-southern style bean type mix. YUM.


This is hominy. It's processed corn. Don't worry, I didn't know what it was either, until I did a Native American meal a few weeks back. I thought I had heard it was a corn thing, and I was vaguely afraid the recipe I'd found was calling for that weird diseased corn that's a delicacy somewhere, and I was like OH HELL NO, but thank god, hominy is not diseased corn. That's cuitlacoche, and for the love of god, if you didn't know that people eat diseased corn ON PURPOSE, you probably don't want to click that link. Anyway, that's NOT hominy. Hominy is delicious and undiseased. It's very mild and provided good body to the dish without the over-sweetness of full-on corn kernels. I recommend trying it, it seems quite versatile.

I also cooked up some of this Moist Sweet Cornbread I found over at The Daily Dish. I'm a huge fan of sweet corn bread and this was EXACTLY what I was looking for when I went searching for corn bread recipes. Perfect. I think I have to rename it for my purposes though, because my husband hates the word 'moist', and he loved the corn bread until he saw the name. So when I make it, it will henceforth be known as Tasty Fuckin' Corn Bread. It made a ton, too. Enough for me to stuff myself silly at dinner, still have some for an evening snack, and have plenty left over for dinner number two.

Can I get a what-what? Let's hear some of your favorite made-up dinners!

- with love from K-Pidge

Greek Feast, Part Two: Pork Souvlaki with Tzatziki Sauce

For our Greek meat dish, we decided to go with pork souvlaki with tzatziki sauce. I used this recipe from Food and Wine. (The recipes for both can be found at the end of this entry.)

I decided to mix up the tzatziki sauce earlier in the day and let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours, so the flavors would have plenty of time to blend. (First we had to 'make' our own Greek-style yogurt, since I couldn't find any at our local grocery store; it was easy enough to do and I will detail that in a future post!)

Tzatziki is comprised of greek yogurt, sliced cucumber, and a bit of chopped mint. Mix everything together in a bowl. You can add a little bit of mashed garlic and some salt and pepper if you'd like. Honestly, we just used the first three ingredients and it was DELICIOUS. I highly recommend tzatziki sauce; it is fresh, light, and extremely tasty. It was a nice complement to everything on our plates; after we ran out of pork souvlaki, we filled pitas with the artichoke-potatoes (another recipe that will be coming soon) and topped them with tzatziki. DIVINE.


Our GIANT bowl of tzatziki. Which did not go to waste, oh no. (I made double because we had several guests sharing dinner with us; we still had leftovers, and I was VERY glad!)

To make the pork souvlaki, you need to trim the fat off your pork and cut it into strips, approximately 3 X 1/2 inches each. In a medium bowl, toss the pork strips and some onion wedges with olive oil, lemon juice, chopped oregano and 1-2 mashed (or pressed, which is what I prefer) garlic cloves. Season with 1 & 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and let stand for 20-30 minutes.


This is the pork marinating in the above mixture. You can see that the citrus from the lemon starts to 'cook' the meat while it marinates; it also serves to break down some of the tough fibers, tenderizing the meat.

After the pork is done marinating, heat a large cast-iron griddle, skillet, or grill pan until very hot. Add the pork and onion wedges along with any marinade and cook over high heat, turning once or twice, until the pork and onion are tender, about 10 minutes. (It will appear very wet at first from the marinade, but it WILL cook down and allow the meat to brown slightly towards the end.)


Halfway through the cooking process; you can see how much liquid there still is.

Transfer the pork and onion to plates and serve with the tzatziki, lemon wedges and warm pitas.


Plated.

A note: this did not make much souvlaki at all, so if you want leftovers, DOUBLE UP. We were sorely disappointed that we only had enough left over for one person's lunch the next day. I could easily have eaten this for several days in a row.


All pita'd up, as part of our Greek feast! Be sure to check out the spanakopita recipe from earlier, and watch for recipes for the other delicious dishes coming soon.

Tzatziki Sauce

INGREDIENTS
1 cup Greek-style whole-milk yogurt
1/2 European cucumber, seeded and finely diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 garlic clove, mashed (optional)
salt and pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS
Mix everything together in a bowl. Refrigerate for an hour or more before serving.


Pork Souvlaki

INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 pounds trimmed pork shoulder, cut into 3 by 1/2-inch strips
1 large onion, cut through the root end into 1/2-inch wedges
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus lemon wedges for serving
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
2 garlic cloves, mashed to a paste
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Warm pita, for serving

DIRECTIONS
In a medium bowl, toss the pork strips and onion wedges with the olive oil, lemon juice, chopped oregano and the garlic paste. Season with 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and let stand for 20-30 minutes.
Heat a large cast-iron griddle or grill pan until very hot. Add the pork and onion wedges along with any marinade and cook over high heat, turning once or twice, until the pork and onion are tender, about 10 minutes. Transfer the pork and onion to plates and serve with the tzatziki, lemon wedges and pita.




I am participating in the Global Cook Along project, where we try recipes from around the world. We focus on one region's cuisine each week. We try to do ours as one big potluck-style meal each week, but other people are doing one meal a night, a week, whatever works for them! To learn more, see additional recipes, or to participate yourself, check out our livejournal community and / or our facebook group!

with love from K-Pidge :)

Greek Feast, Part One: Spanakopita!

This week we are exploring the cuisine of Greece, and that means I get to try my hand at one of my favorite foods: Spanakopita! Spanakopita is a savory pastry with a phyllo dough crust and a spinach-cheese (typically feta, or feta and a mix of white salted cheeses) filling. It can be cooked as one large pie or as several small triangular pouches (boureki) and is often served as an appetizer.

Phyllo is often intimidating to your average home cook, and fear of complicated recipes often means that some delicious dishes are limited to those times when we can get out to a restaurant that serves them. Fear of working with Phyllo, along with the fact that Greek foods are not something I grew up eating at home (and therefore am utterly unfamiliar with any of the processes involved in cooking them), kept me from trying my hand at recipes like this. If you would love to have spanakopita at home but have been putting it off, take it from me: you CAN do it! It wasn't even that painful. Everything they say about phyllo being a pain in the ass to work with is true; I won't lie. But it wasn't a HARD process, and it was fairly forgiving. Give it a try, and you just might end up with something delicious. Come with me as I walk you through it; I'll even hold your hand if you want.

I started by trying to pick a recipe from my good friend The Internet. There are a lot of recipes out there, and a lot of cooking blogs (so if you're reading our little blog here, thanks!), as I'm sure you know. With some recipes I find something that sounds delicious and I go with it; with others, I pick and choose until I have something that sounds good to me. That's what I did with this one. Some of the recipes I found had things I liked that others didn't, and some had things I thought would be better left out. The basics were all the same; spinach, feta, egg, salt, pepper. It was little things, like different cheeses and spices, that I tweaked. The recipe I used is at the end. Here is the basic process I followed:

The night before, if your phyllo dough is frozen, MAKE SURE YOU THAW IT IN THE FRIDGE. You won't be able to work with frozen phyllo dough, you'll just frustrate the hell out of yourself.

I would suggest thawing your spinach the night before too. I put mine in the fridge the morning of baking, thinking spinach would thaw out pretty quickly... and it didn't. It was pretty much still frozen solid, to the point that even running it under cold water didn't work very well, and I ended up having to defrost it in the microwave and drain it and use paper towels to soak up as much of the liquid as possible. Save yourself the trouble! Make sure you give it plenty of time to thaw!

Heat a medium saute pan (or skillet, which is what I used) over medium heat and add just enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Chop your onion (I did a medium dice) and add the chopped onion. Cook it for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally (mine was decently browned when I was done). While the onion is cooking, slice up your green onions. After the five minutes have passed, add the green onions and cook for another 2 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to cool.

Mix the spinach, feta, dill, parsley, green onions, eggs, parmesan, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a large bowl. The order doesn't really matter, but I like to start with the eggs because I have this paranoia about getting a rotten one and having all my ingredients be lost if I add them first and then accidentally add a rotten egg to the mix. This has never HAPPENED to me so I'm not sure why I worry about it, but I do! At any rate, this made a goodly amount of filling; we had a very thick spanakopita. Next time I will probably cut back the amount of spinach I use a little, and use more feta. I like a cheesier filling! I also would add a little more dill and a tad bit more salt. I went very light on the salt because the cheese is salty, but it could have used more. Overall it was tasty, don't get me wrong! But I feel it could be improved nonetheless. Still very happy with it though; ate it again today, lol.


the filling mixture

Brush the bottom of an 8x8 inch baking pan with olive oil. As you can see, I used a much larger dish. (My dish was also not very accommodating to the rectangular pieces of phyllo dough, but I managed!)

Place a sheet of phyllo dough in the pan and brush the top with olive oil. You may have to cut (or rip, as is the case with my laziness) the phyllo dough to fit the pan, and it's OK to run it up the sides so you have a nice crust! I also alternated the direction for each layer. The phyllo was so surprisingly soft and pliant, but VERY thin so it did not stretch. It did, however, do a marvelous job of not sticking to itself and of going exactly where I wanted it. I had a little trouble getting the olive oil up the sides of my pan, which meant I had trouble getting the phyllo to stick to the sides. But that is more a function of the pan I used as well as the crappy pastry brush I have, and is not the phyllo dough's fault. I wouldn't have minded this layer being a little thicker - we had a LOT of filling and not much crust. It was tasty though. So the recipe calls for repeating this step until you have 6 layers. I don't think a few more would hurt.


the assembled bottom layer

Place the spinach mixture on top of the phyllo dough.


filled with all things that are good

Place a sheet of phyllo dough on the spinach and brush the top with olive oil. Repeat until you have 6 layers. As with the bottom layer, I would probably use a couple more sheets. But I like a bit more crust, and like I said, the filling was very thick (and delicious!). I tucked all the corners in around the top of the pie so they wouldn't burn, and I made sure there was a decent coat of olive oil on the top of the spanakopita before popping it into the oven. Please note that while this was not HARD (sometimes a bit of a pain but not difficult), it IS time consuming, so give yourself plenty of time to get the phyllo right and not feel rushed for time.


topped and ready to go in the oven!

I had the oven preheating at 350 while I was working on assembling the spanakopita. Ours took easily over an hour to cook, though I started checking it at short intervals after half an hour. It was easily twice as large as the recipe called for so I knew it would take longer but I didn't want it to burn. Even leaving it in for an hour, it was still only slightly golden brown on top, and another ten minutes didn't hurt at all.


baked and out of the oven! Note a few of the other dishes I'll be talking about this week surrounding it. Yum!

The end result was incredibly delicious. As I mentioned at various points above, I might tweak it a little bit in the future but if this was the only spanakopita I ever got to eat, I'd be pretty darn happy with it. Our guests all seemed to enjoy it too, and they even ate it cold for lunch the next day and proclaimed it equally delicious. My husband and I had it warmed for dinner the next day (reheated in the oven to maintain crispness) and it was still good. I even added a little tzatziki sauce (recipe coming in a future post) with the leftovers and it was pretty tasty.


the finished plated product, there on the right, surrounded by other delicious Greek foods!

I am really looking forward to trying this again, one day when it's ALL I'm making, and trying to make it in the little boureki pockets. I would love this to be surrounded by more flaky pastry crusty goodness, because who wouldn't love that? mmmm!



Our recipe is as follows (note that for the pan I used, I doubled this. I was feeding two families AND I wanted leftovers. Which I have in abundance!):

Delicious Dorson Spanakopita Pie

Ingredients:
2 pounds frozen chopped spinach (thawed and well-drained (press out additional moisture))
1.5 cup feta (crumbled)
1/4 cup FRESH dill (chopped)
1 bunch green onions (sliced)
3 eggs (lightly beaten)
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil (I didn't measure, and I used it pretty liberally)
phyllo dough

 (roughly 15 sheets)

Directions:
1. Heat a medium saute pan over medium heat and add just enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the chopped onion and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the scallions and cook for another 2 minutes until the scallions are wilted but still green.

2. Mix the spinach, feta, dill, parsley, green onions, eggs, parmesan, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a large bowl.

3. Brush the bottom of an 8x8 inch baking pan with olive oil.

4. Place a sheet of phyllo dough in the pan and brush the top with olive oil. (You may have to cut the phyllo dough to fit the pan, and it's OK to run it up the sides so you have a nice crust!) Repeat until you have 6 layers.

5. Place the spinach mixture on top of the phyllo dough.

6. Place a sheet of phyllo dough on the spinach and brush the top with olive oil. Repeat until you have 6 layers.

7. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until golden brown on top, about 30-50 minutes.



I am participating in the Global Cook Along project, where we try recipes from around the world. We focus on one region's cuisine each week. We try to do ours as one big potluck-style meal each week, but other people are doing one meal a night, a week, whatever works for them! To learn more, see additional recipes, or to participate yourself, check out our livejournal community and / or our facebook group!

with love from K-Pidge :)