Gourmet Meals For Less

A fresh idea for a hot summer day...Vietnamese Summer Rolls

Well, we’re back…coming home from vacation is always such a mixture of emotions.  On the one hand you are glad to be home to catch up on everything, check on your flowers and garden, mow your 2 foot tall grass…on the other hand it’s hard to get back to reality.  Laundry, pets, chores.  Sigh..it was a great vacation.

  

I arrived home to an abundance of herbs and wanting to stay true to my promise I was eager to get started on another recipe using these fresh and free(!) seasonings.  I had a chance while I was gone to really peruse my cooking magazines and I came across a recipe for Summer Rolls or as I knew them “Fresh Spring Rolls”.  I just love them.  They were my favorite menu item at our little Thai restaurant in Seattle…that I miss so very much.

 

This is a great recipe to create with kids.  So I pulled my girl and her darling best friend into the kitchen with me to recreate these.  A few things we learned along the way.  There is definitely an art to making fresh rolls.  Out last ones looked way better than the first ones we made.  Also, these are an acquired taste.  Not everyone will like them.  I LOVE them,  hubby ehhh so-so…he likes the fried ones better go figure. J

 

But they were so much fun to make!  We made one version of them but there are a million possibilities.  I will give you some more options at the end.

Rolling it over...Jerk Chicken Sweet and Spicy Sesame Noodles

As promised here is recipe #2 from my second round of Rachael Ray Rollover Meals.  Recipe #1, Jerk Chicken with Roasted Vegetables and Pineapples was a huge success...but oh my!  This one was even better.  I thought it was interesting that we found the same thing to be true with the Pork Loin Rollover Meal.  We really liked the main recipe, but LOVED the Pork Loin Chili even better.  Maybe it's because in both cases the meat has had time to absorb even more of the flavors while waiting in the fridge to be used for the follow-up recipes.  But whatever it is, this recipe did not fail.

I was so excited to have a guest 'taste tester" over for the Sesame Noodles.  I often get suspicious that my family is so happy to have a good hot meal and is afraid that this might cease to exist if they are too critical, that they might not always be giving me their unfettered opinion.  So, it's nice when someone else is over to give me feedback. 


Now this person, tends to be a little bias cause she loves me dearly, and she knows when she stops in she is likely to get something good to eat, but I know she will ALWAYS tell me the truth...we have that kind of relationship...and it's a good thing.  So I was glad to get her take on this recipe...the fact that my friend who is very careful with "portion control" went back for seconds..and shhh I think even thirds...was a good sign!  She gave it two thumbs up and so did hubby and I, so I consider this one a big success!  I hope you will too...oh and it makes a TON!  Way more than I thought it would, so it's a great one for extra guests. 

And please indulge me for a minute on a little side note here to my extra guest...

Thank you for spending the evening with us.  It was full of good eating, hysterical laughter, some "interesting cartoons" (hehe) and "from the heart" conversation...you are a joy in my life!

 

 

Waste not want not...Cucumber and Carrot Ribbon Salad

 

 

 

 

 

Part of cooking frugally is making sure that items you purchase do not go to waste.  For instance, the English Cucumbers I found hiding way at the bottom of my produce drawer looking a little pitiful and forlorn beneath the kale and celery.  I am pretty sure I had a plan for them when I bought them, but since I could not remember what it was and not wanting them to go to waste I had to rethink how to use them.

 

The concept of “ribboning” vegetables has recently become popular on Food Network shows.  When you ribbon items like cucumbers, squash, etc you end up with this pretty pile of vegetables, much prettier than merely sliced or julienned.  I wanted to try my hand at this and thought it was a perfect activity to bring my daughter into the kitchen.  We decided that we would make a ribbon salad and that adding in some carrots would give it a nice crunch.

 

When given a choice, both of us always gravitate towards items with an Asian influence, so we created a dressing out of some of our favorite Asian pantry items.  So we present to you:

Cucumber and Carrot Ribbon Salad

which my girl proceeded to eat entirely on her own for lunch (okay so she let me have one piece of cucumber), and it seemed to be a hit.  We agreed that this would be wonderful summer salad with a nice piece of grilled or broiled fish.  I’m sure this will be popping up again on here when summer arrives.

Uncle Billy's Asian Peanut Chicken Stir Fry

Asian Peanut Chicken Stir Fry


So I know the first question you are asking is...."Who's Uncle Billy?"  Well he would be my husband's so very cool, incredible cook and all around awesome uncle.  I promise you, you have never had gumbo like this man can cook gumbo.  The first thing we all shout in unison when we here Uncle Billy is coming to town is "GUMBO!!" 

Uncle Billy and Aunt Bev are just two nice people.  So nice in fact that they even let us live with them for a month when we were newly married.  Let me tell you, we ate gooood while we were there.  And I'll let you in on a little secret... at the time I would have been as happy as a clam to stay living with Uncle Billy and Aunt Bev 'cause it meant I didn't have to learn to cook....but alas that didn't happen.  And now here we are 17 years later and I think I've finally got this cooking thing down pretty good myself. 

Now a little bit about the person that cooked this meal for us...that would be hubby.  As many of you know we (and when I say we, I include a lot of those of you who are reading this blog) lost a dear friend a week ago.  That night, I just could not bring myself to even think about cooking.  So, my sweet, wonderful husband (who's a pretty darn good cook in his own right) offered to make dinner that evening.  Yes, this is a meal we ate a week ago, but it was one worth sharing.  And to my nut-allergy readers (who happen to be some of my favoritest people...you know who you are) you can absolutely make this without the peanuts and peanut oil, so don't let it scare you away.