2 meals in 2 days!

I guess I am on a roll. I have cooked 2 days in a row!  Last weekend I took the Spud on a shopping eating Saturday night date.  We went to the Japanese grocery store not too far from our house called Mitsua.   I needed to stock up on my asian basics like sesame oil, rice wine, oyster sauce, hoison sauce, ginger, etc.   We also managed to buy udon noodles, sesame noodles, and fresh ramen noodles.  Spud loves asian food more than anything.  There are not many 11 year olds that would eat eel sushi, salmon eggs and seaweed salad over mac and cheese any day of the week, so I try to encourage this in every way I can.  Our highlight of the evening was the dessert.  First we had grilled Mochi Balls with sweet Miso sauce, and then Spud had green tea mochi filled with red bean filling, like a sweet japanese empanada. 

So tonight I made use of my purchases.  I made Chinese pan-freid noodles with chicken.   I pan fried the fresh ramen noodles, and stir fried chicken marinated in a sauce made from soy, rice wine, sesame oil, salt, pepper, sugar .  I cooked it in fresh minced ginger and garlic, and then added a sauce of similar ingredients and green beans and scallions.  Should have added water chestnuts and bamboo shoots, but I don't like them.   I love my Chinese cook book Chinese Kitchen by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo.  We ate it with our new chopsticks.  We bought a pack of 100 disposable wood chopsticks last week too.  The meal was a huge hit for Spud and now he has lunch tomorrow.

It's a busy week, so probably not much cooking going on, but stay tuned for next week when I have another guest chef cooking with me, and another special meal in the works.

Italian with Old friends

  Many people collect many different things, and have a few collections myself.  I collect some coins, piggy banks, cd's, dvd's,  my favorite is my cookie jars, but my most treasured collection is my friends that I have been blessed to have through the years.   I have been very lucky to keep so many with me which is why it is a collection.  I am in touch with friends as far back as the 4th Grade in 1978. I even recently got a note from a friend who went through school with me from nursery school in 1973.  I am still close to my friend from the 5th Grade, and then my next oldest that I am close to is a group of 3 friends, We'll call them Bonzo, Yak and Adrienne.  Those are nicknames you will find referenced on our High School yearbook pages.  
  So 28 years later, Adrienne and I have both been through some pretty major life changes recently and we got together yesterday in the solidarity of friendship to cook.  We share the same passion and both find that we can lose ourselves in our kitchens and yesterday we got lost together.  Adrienne happens to be going to cooking school right now, so we pooled our cooking talents and made a fabulous meal.   I made my cheese ravioli  (from the Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken) for her and she made me the best sauce I ever had.   I had a lot of trouble with my usually perfect dough yesterday.  I think I must have miscounted my flour cups and used too much, and my dough was very dry and hard to work with.  Thankfully by the time it was cooked, it was still delicious.  The ricotta filling was creamy and Adrienne's fresh nutmeg was just the perfect touch.  Adrienne's sauce was just amazing.  She starts with a pork rib base for flavor and adds tomato puree, bouquet garni, and veal stock.  It makes for wonderful rich flavor that was a perfect accompaniment to the ravoli.  I made the Spinach Torta Alla Hoboken as a side dish, we added some good wine and we had a wonderful day and meal.   Along the way we munched on delicious crusty bread with Irish butter, black truffle butter, burrata ( very creamy mozzerella made from water buffalo milk and cream) , Proscesso sparkling wine, and chocolate.   Our boys had a great time together and liked our food, so a good day was had by all.