Does he always tease you like that?

Yes, and every joke and rib-tickle is some how washed away when your husband wakes up in the morning and says I'm going to make seared sea scallops for dinner tonight. Um, OK! I can stand a couple more jokes, if I have to...

Vegetable Garden Update

Remember when we built our raised vegetable garden? Well... It's working! I have food growing in my yard. I love it, a lot. The spinach plants are doing really well and I sampled a little leaf today. The broccoli has taken off too. The variety we have though doesn't yield the big heads of florets like you see in the grocery store. As a result we missed a bit of our crop because we were letting them get big, but then they went to flower and turned bitter. We read up on when to trim the broccoli plants and promptly went down there and chopped, chopped, chopped!

That's our harvest of broccoli and we cooked it up in a stir fry. Yum! Now I'm waiting for some tomatoes. Look at these beasts! Oh, my!

A Recipe a Week: Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Cilantro

I love to cook and bake and blog about it so that led me to the idea of trying a new recipe a week. Hooray! Follow along, give the recipes a try and let me know what you thought of them. I love to talk about food and I want to talk to you about food. Let's take this as the leap into a fun food conversation!

Week 1: Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Cilantro
From: Fine Cooking April/May 2010

Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Cilantro
Serves 3 to 4

Ingredients:
6 oz 1/4" wide rice noodles (pad thai)
2 limes, 1 juiced and 1 cut into wedges
1 1/2 Tbsp packed light brown sugar
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
3/4 lb peeled and deveined large shrimp
3 Tbsp peanut oil
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 medium red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and finely diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
1 large shallot, finely diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

Instructions: Bring a medium pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the noodles, lower the heat to a gentle simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the noodles are just tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a colander and run under cold water to cool slightly. Drain well.

In a small bowl, combine the lime juice, sugar, soy sauce, and fish sauce; set aside.

In a medium bowl, toss the shrimp with 1 Tbsp of the oil, the coriander 1/2 tsp black pepper, and 1/4 tsp salt.

Heat the remaining 2 Tbsp oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering hot. Add the red pepper, jalapeno, and shallot, sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the shrimp and cook, stirring until it turns pink and is almost cooked through, about 2 minutes. Add the lime juice mixture and cook, stirring, until the shrimp is cooked through, about 1 minute more. Add the noodles and half of the cilantro; toss until the noodles heat through and pick up the sauce, 1 to 2 minutes.

Serve sprinkled with the remaining cilantro, with the lime wedges on the side for squeezing.

Yum!

From my garden: Limes

Delightful Lobster Wraps

We bought a 24 oz bag of lobster claw meat just so we could make lobster pot pie again, the best pot pie in the world. The recipe calls for half the bag so we had another 12 ounces of lobster meat sitting in the fridge and there is no way I was going to let that spoil. Together Thomas and I concocted these lobster lunch wraps and they're definitely a keeper. So I'm making them again tomorrow.

Delightful Lobster Wraps
Makes 2 servings

6 oz fresh lobster meat, cut into chuncks
2 good handfuls of fresh baby spinach
3 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
1 ripe avocado
2 burrito-size flour tortillas
salt and fresh ground pepper

In a large skillet warm a good glug of olive oil, add the lobster and toss until warm and heated through. Remove lobster from pan and put into a small mixing bowl. Set aside. Next wilt the spinach by adding another tsp of olive oil to your warm skillet. Toss spinach in pan until wilted.

In small mixing bowl with lobster add the spinach, mayonnaise, and parsley. Mix gently to combine. Add salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Spoon half of lobster mixture on to each tortilla. Peel and slice the avocado and add it to the tortilla. Wrap tortilla and serve. Enjoy!

I think I'm brilliant

These are the kind of meals my husband cooks. Wanna come over some time? Thomas spoiled Pauline and me with a roasted rack of lamb dinner with bright green wilted spinach and mashed blue potatoes. Meals that look like this happen pretty often which means I am either very spoiled by this man or incredibly brilliant for choosing him to cook my dinners for me.