Impromptu Date Night and Another Weekend Already

Yesterday afternoon my husband randomly asked me if I wanted to go on a date night with him that night. I was excited. We had been talking about seeing the movie Contagion. Worried about how eating out would fit into my Weight Watchers points, he thoughtfully suggested Thai! I can't seem to get enough Thai food lately. And I have been in a great search to find a new "go-to Thai place" that is easy to access and affordable. We have a nicer Thai restaurant that is amazing, but it is too expensive for us to eat at regularly, as in once a week. Our old Thai restaurant that closed down and changed hands is not very good anymore. I found this new one through some co-workers though that seems to be doing the trick.

Usually impromptu date nights don't work as movies start either too late and I can't stay up that late after working an entire week, or they start too early and don't give us enough time to get home and made something or even go out. But this Thai place is really fast. So we met up at home around 5:30 and headed out to what is becoming our new Thai place. Being so early the restaurant was very calm.

We started with some pork spring rolls which had pork, carrot, onion, and green onion. They were just OK, but were served with this orange colored, thick, sweet & spicy sauce. I forgot to ask what it was called, but the sauce was amazing. I began drenching my spring roll in it and they were delicious. I'll be ordering that again!

For dinner I ordered their Basil Stir-Fry with a spicy level of 4 out of 5. The last time I went I ordered a 4 and it was perfect. I like my Thai food hot enough that my sinuses are running, but not so hot that I can't enjoy and eat bite after bite. Last night however, it was hot! I'm not quite sure if they gave me what I ordered because they added green beans to it, which were not on the menu, but it did have basil. I like green beans, so this was not too much of a problem. But it was so much hotter than the last time I ordered a 4. It was so hot I couldn't take more than 3 bites at a time without having to wash some water down. I went through 4 large glasses of water and finished the meal in actual physical pain in my mouth. It was delicious though. The green beans, onions, and bell peppers were cooked perfectly, but way too hot to enjoy. I do love Thai restaurants that take their spicy level seriously and don't joke around with it, and this place is no exception! I was hoping that the fortune cookie at the end would tame the heat, but my mouth was so much on fire that anything touching it burned. I had trouble getting through the fortune cookie! Part of the roof of my mouth was numb, and my lips were tingling. I had finally found something that was too hot to enjoy! Something that is very rare for me these days. My mouth didn't stop hurting for another hour or so. It was without a doubt the hottest thing I have ever eaten.

We were out of the restaurant within an hour and had plenty of time to get up to the theater, get our tickets that my husband ordered online, and get good seats. A few weeks ago we made the mistake of getting to the theater 10 minutes before the movie started and had to sit at the front and it was not pleasant. The screens are huge, and my eyes and head were in constant motion for 2 solid hours trying to take in everything on the screen. We won't be making that mistake anytime soon! We got great seats near the back of the theater that were perfect. The movie was really good! There was not much of a personal story line which was unique, but focused more on the spread of a contagion. It was pretty scientific, but no so much that you get lost. It moved quickly, but not so quickly that one had trouble keeping up. I found it to be very fascinating and enjoyable. This is a movie I will be adding to my wish list when it comes out.

It was a wonderful date night with the hubs. We are so excited that another weekend came so fast. This week went by so much faster than we expected it to, even with it being a 4-day work-week. He is out playing paintball this afternoon to enjoy the end of this cooler weather before it heats back up a bit next week into the 90s for a few days. I think I'll finish up cleaning the last of the house today that I have not gotten to over my last 3 weekends of cleaning and will start decorating for fall. We have no real plans again this weekend and are just going to be relaxing once again. It's so nice to have time on the weekends again. And just in time for the fall season of staying close to keep warm! There is supposed to be another cold front coming through mid-week that is to bring the highs down to the 70's.

It seems as though Fall is starting to settle in. I hope this is the start of the fall cold fronts that come every two weeks or so. After this summer's heat, I'm so ready for fall and winter.

In Search of Delicious Asian Dishes

My husband and I love Thai! There was this little place we used to go to that I introduced him to shortly after we started dating. We hadn't been in a while, and about three years ago we started going again, and about a year later got hooked. It was so good! I tried making something similar at home, but I just couldn't recreate the flavors. I know how to build great flavors for Italian, Mexican, American, etc., but Asian flavors are a whole other type of cooking that I just was not used to. In general I'm not an Asian food fan, too many veggies, and I'm more of a country girl eater... and my eating habits are the only thing country about me!... but I can't seem to get enough of Thai. I think it's the sweet/spicy flavor that keeps me coming back for more. Anyway, so Thai is the one thing you can count on my husband and I eating out for. We cook a lot at home, but about once a week, we would go to our restaurant. One of my favorite memories of Thai Raja was that during our 15 months of wedding planning, even though we were on Weight Watchers, we ate Thai almost every Wedding Wednesday Night. The girls knew our order and when we strayed from our usual, they were confused. When we skipped a week, which was rare, they asked if we were OK. Sad, I know. It was one of the few things that got my husband through those long nights. Even after the wedding stress had ended and we came back from two weeks of Italian food, we went right back to our Thai food once a week. Sadly, our restaurant, the staple of our Wednesday nights for the last 2 years was closing. This forced us to finally learn the art of Asian cooking. I still don't have it, but with the help of great recipes, I'm leaning my way to building complex Asian flavors.

After my husband was able to get me to eat our last Stir-Fry creation, Stir-Fried Shrimp and Asparagus with Lemon Sauce, he talked me into making something new that had the word "spciy" in it. I was game.

Stir-Fried Chicken and Green Beans with Spicy Orange Sauce:

We did our usual grocery shopping on Saturday and were unable to find shiitake mushrooms and other good looking veggies at our usual source, so we went to the new Natural Grocers and picked up a whopping 12 oz of shiitake mushrooms, 12 oz of green beans, and some other veggies for my husband to snack on. I wasn't too excited about this recipe after looking at how much 12 oz of mushrooms were. I'm just now starting to come around on them, and this was a first for me with shiitake mushrooms.

We started by slicing the chicken thin and marinating it in a mixture of toasted sesame oil, cornstarch, flour, low-sodium soy sauce and Chinese rice cooking wine (we used dry sherry again instead since we still couldn't find Chinese rice cooking wine). Then we did the notorious vegetable prep of stir-fries and I played with my macro lens a bit.

I still wasn't feeling it for this recipe after everything was prepped and ready. But cooking out of the Healthy Family Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen, I had hope. We cooked our wonderful organic green beans and they looked awesome! Now came time for the mushrooms. We added them to the pan, and it was full! I wasn't too sure about this. The recipe said they would cook down, then I began to worry about slimy mushrooms. I was entertained with the contrast in colors in the pan and played with my macro lens some more while the hubby cooked.

Sure enough a few minutes later the mushrooms had cooked down. I made the Spicy Orange Sauce as my husband added the scallions, garlic, and ginger to the stir-fry. The Spicy Orange Sauce was very simple with orange juice, Chinese rice cooking wine (we used dry sherry here too), low-sodium soy sauce, Asian chili-garlic sauce (and we added extra since we like things hot), sugar, cornstarch, toasted sesame oil, and orange zest. It was added to the pan, and now I was getting excited about dinner!

During our prep we had toasted some sesame seeds before hand. We served this over a bed of brown basmati rice and sprinkled the sesame seeds over it. The mushrooms were not too slimy, not too mushy, and were actually quite good. The dish wasn't too spicy, but I think it was just right. Any spicier and it would have overpowered the mild orange flavor. I would not, however, recommend serving this on brown basmati rice. It has an aromatic nutty flavor that competed with the toasted sesame oil in the dish. I think plain brown rice would be better, and definitely jasmin rice.

UPDATE: This keeps really well in the fridge. The mushrooms get a little "slimy", but I'm not a mushroom fan and I was able to handle it fine.

This is another stir-fry that we will be adding our our rotation of dishes!

Yet another fun Saturday evening in the kitchen with my husband! I'm really loving all the free time we have on the weekends lately to experiment with new recipes.

My Husband Found Stir-Fry That I Like!

Apparently my weekend of cooking was not enough and I needed more. After work tonight my husband and I decided to try a new recipe. Actually, we had intended to do it last night but in a moment of weakness went out for dinner instead. This broke my streak of 7 days of not eating out. I will attempt this again next week as this week I have a birthday dinner celebration for a friend at one of my favorite Italian places, and agreed to eat at a favorite Asian restaurant for lunch later in the week. At least my eating out splurges are now on favorites and are not a regular part of my eating habits anymore. So back to dinner tonight...

I received the Healthy Family Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen for Christmas last year. I have had very little time since then, and what time I did have was spent making delicious meals that where anything but healthy. While I very much enjoyed my splurge of cooking and eating for 5 months, my weight did not. Now it's back to Weight Watchers for my husband and I and back to getting creative in the kitchen while not sacrificing flavor.

My husband loves veggies and stir-fries, while I'm not a fan of either. I have warmed up to asparagus and carrots lately (if cooked to my picky tastes), so he thought I might like this recipe.

Stir-Fried Shrimp and Asparagus with Lemon Sauce:
This recipe uses fresh asparagus, carrots, ginger, garlic, scallions, lemon juice, and pepper to create a full flavored, fresh tasting dish.

The shrimp quickly marinated in a mixture of low-sodium soy sauce and Chinese rice cooking wine. We could not find Chinese rice cooking wine so we used their substitution suggestion of dry sherry. We let them marinate while we prepped everything else.

Less than 2 tablespoons of canola oil were used in this dish, and was used to help cook the shrimp and veggies. The shrimp were partially cooked first, then the asparagus and carrots were cooked until crisp-tender. The center of the skillet was cleared and the other seasonings were added to bloom and then were mixed in to the veggies. The lemon sauce which contained chicken broth, lemon juice, Chinese cooking wine (I used dry sherry again), low-sodium soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch and pepper was then added to the skillet. Everything was cooked a few more minutes to finish cooking the shrimp and thicken the sauce.

This was an excellent dish that was very complex. I served mine over a bed of brown basmati rice while my husband has his over whole wheat thin spaghetti. I'm now has me on an Asian kick. We used to eat Thai food once a week and I have tried creating it at home with no luck. Maybe this will start teaching me how to build Asian flavors so I can start creating my own dishes.

UPDATE: This keeps surprisingly well in the fridge!




Fage Yogurt:
For dessert, I again went to my Greek Style Yogurt. I tired a new brand: Fage. While I didn't like the yogurt by itself as well as the Chobani, it was extremely good when I mixed in the blueberry acai segment. I will be buying it again!

Instead of fruit on the bottom like the other Greek Yogurts I have seen with fruit, this brand keeps it in a separate compartment. It did however, allow me to try the yogurt plain. This brand's yogurt is much stronger, tangier, and thicker. I really liked the thickness of it, but it was a bit too tangy for me. I think I might appreciate this yogurt funk flavor more when I get a little more used to it. I hear it takes a little time. The only real thing I didn't like was that this brand uses sugar, where Chobani only uses evaporated cane juice to supplement the sweetness of the fruit. I will have to try the Chobani blueberry flavor to see which one I like best.

I think I have a new Greek Yogurt obsession starting. I guess it makes a better dessert than what I used to eat!