Za Jiang Mein

Mmm, Za Jiang Mein has always been a favorite food of mine.  The easiest way to describe it is Chinese Spaghetti!  You use a few simple ingredients like sweet bean paste with ground pork and the dish is sweet, salty, and scrumptious.  Here is the fabulous recipe I used: http://www.foodmayhem.com/2009/11/za-jiang-mein.html.  The site does a great job explaining what the dish is all about and breaks it down with step-by-step pictures!  What else could you ask for?

So I made this dish for a couple friends, Wender and Cherry, and I found out two things that night: Cherry is a noodle-monster and Wender is better with a fork than a pair of chopsticks.  That wasn't a dig Wender!  Just a fun fact.

Here are some pictures from the night:

My bowl with crunchy cucumbers and blanched bean sprouts.

Cherry's very full bowl of noodles (bowl 1 of 2).  She said the noodles fluffed everything up and made it seem like a lot of food.

   

Light summer dessert: lychee and yellow jelly

Cioppino Soup

I love the Cioppino Soup from Whole Foods.  I feel like a horse with blinders on when I enter that store because I make my way directly to the seafood section and help myself to a cup of that delicious soup.  I decided to try my hand it at because I was tired of paying $3.99 a cup every time I went.  Found a recipe from Giada (of course): http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/cioppino-recipe/index.html, and it was a lot of fun to make!  It was my first time using fennel as well as clams and some varieties of the fish.  Paired with some baked garlic baguette slices, it was a slurp-down meal!  

Homemade Pizza Dough

Last weekend I made my own pizza dough for the first time ever.  It was fun cause you get to punch the dough a few times in the process of waiting for it to rise fully.  Since I spent so much time on the dough, all the other ingredients were store-bought. :)  I rolled it out really flat because I was going to grill the dough and just prefer a thinner crust. After grilling 2 crusts, and baking 2 crusts to do a side-by-side comparison, it turned out that all of the pizza crust wound up kind of looking like Indian naan bread.  It would puff up real big with those air bubbles but then after it settled, the crust was cracker-thin, just how I like it.  

I made 4 types.  We had friends over too!  We didn't eat all this ourselves.

 
*Oblong Margarita Pizza with sliced tomatoes (this one came out a little soggier than the next one without tomatoes)










*Traditional Margarita pizza (I love fresh mozzarella!)

 



*Grilled Shrimp and Pesto Pizza












*Pesto Pizza with Artichokes & Red Onions (Half Chicken/Half Shrimp)







This Sunday marks our 1-year anniversary!  I am happy to say that it's been a fun ride cooking my way through the year and trying out new things and just having the time to actually do it!  Edwin told me the other day that it doesn't make sense for him to cook anymore because #1: he gets home so late and #2: I've gotten so good at cooking.  Call me a sucker, but I'll take that compliment and continue with the cooking...at least for another year.  :)  Happy cooking to all of you.
 

Summer Steak Salad

A couple weeks ago someone suggested making a steak salad for a summer dish (thanks, Kathleen!).  Usually I think "heavy" when I think steak, but the ingredients in a steak salad can definitely be refreshing and cool enough for the summer.  Since we had rib-eye in the freezer, I went ahead and used that with this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/steak-salad-recipe/index.html.  I did a few omissions and substitutions with Giada's recipe- cut out the endive and used goat for gorgonzola cheese.  I also used some romaine lettuce to supplement the arugula.  

Oh a really gross side story- I bought TRIPLE-WASHED arugula and learned my lesson that even triple-washed greens need to be inspected.  As I was tossing the arugula with the romaine, guess what I found??  A cricket...that was still alive!  YUCK.  Being the resourceful and frugal cook that I am, I triple-washed all the leaves again and hoped for the best. 

Anyway, the finished product was probably a little bit heavier than if you had used flank steak and not included cheese, but it was one way I could get away with making a "salad" the main course.  :) 

That's Tim and Christine in the back of the picture- Hi, Lee's!  Thankfully after they heard the story about the cricket in the bag of greens, they didn't run. 
 
I also found an appetizer recipe in Everyday Food called Cucumber-Feta Toasts.  They are exactly what they sound like: cucumbers atop feta cheese (mixed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper) on top of a toasted baguette.  The first couple times I made it, I thought they were awesome.  But recently after making them so much, I am realizing that I am getting burnt out on feta cheese!  That's a first.  Happy weekend!