Snow Day Snacks

These last few days have been quite snowy which is pretty unusual for our area and has lead to numerous closures and a fair amount of downtime. After spending the day working from the safety of my couch, we made it out for an invigorating (read: freakin cold!) walk to the grocery store and then made the spontaneous decision to sneak over to our neighbor's house and build a snowman in their driveway. Why? you may ask...well, to be creeper neighbors, of course, but also their front yard is larger and a better stage for our beautiful (or some might say awkward) snowman.

Upon returning home, we set out to thaw our frozen bodies with some hot chocolate (+ Baileys of course! See recipe here.) and wrapped ourselves up in blankets. After feeling returned to my limbs, I braved the outside of my blanket cocoon in search of a more substantial snack (though Baileys has protein...right?). You may remember (since it was just a few sentences ago) that we just went to the grocery store, meaning we should have a variety of snacks to choose from... One would think that, wouldn't they... Well, we primarily focused on getting more hot cocoa, some tea for the cough that blew in with the cold weather, and lunch makings...no easy snacks in sight. So, after looking in the fridge one last time, I saw some yummy salsa that sadly had no chips to be eaten with.  Though I have been known to eat some sauces and condiments by the spoonful--peanut sauce, Nutella®, both "quality" protein sources (see I use protein to justify a lot of things)--I do draw the line, as wavy as that line may be, at eating spoonfuls of salsa. Since sitting down with a bucket of salsa was out of the question, I decided to figure out some sort of vehicle for the salsa that wasn't dishwasher safe.

*it's (memes are not know for proper grammar)

Each year, my husband and I host a Halloween party, complete with boo-zy punch and themed snacks. This past year, I found a recipe for ghost shaped chips at myrecipes.com and modified it a bit for the occasion and because Costco doesn't sell tortillas in quantities smaller than a few..or nine...dozen, we have a crap-load of left-over tortillas (it's amazing how well items like tortillas store in the freezer!) just waiting to fulfill their potential. Chips and salsa are not normally what you think when someone says, "snow day," but in my mind, nothing else would hit the spot. So, I pulled out the tortillas, olive oil, my small pizza cutter and a few cookie sheets and using the ghost chip recipe as a guide, I got started.  The recipe calls for a few different spices to adorn the chips but, where's the fun in using a per-determined spice mix?! I asked the DH what spices sounded good to him and grabbed the chili powder and sea salt then turned on the oven to 375°.  With the oven heating up, I got started on the chips. I ground up about a tablespoon of sea salt into a small bowl, added in the chili powder, threw in some paprika, mixed it together and called it a day. (If you looked at the recipe, you'll notice this mix is pretty similar to what the actual recipe calls for--something I noticed after I finished--but what can I say, that's what the DH wanted ☺) Then, I prepped the cookie sheets by brushing them with the oil and cut up the tortillas, saving time by stacking them three high, into eight equal wedges.

After placing the now cut tortillas onto the sheets, I brushed them with oil then sprinkled roughly half of them with the spice mix.  Though the DH wanted chips with a little zest, I was in the mood for plain salt chips; so I simply ground up more sea salt over the second half of the tortillas. Following the baking instructions from the recipe, I baked the tortillas for 14 minutes, switching racks halfway through and, because our oven heats more in the back than the front, when I switched the rack the sheets were on, I also rotated them to avoid burning the chips in the back. When done, the chips looked nice and golden brown, I pulled the cookie sheets out and let the chips cool a bit before putting them in to a bowl.  I continued cutting up tortillas and baking chips until I filled the 2 qt. bowl.  Then, I turned off the oven, poured some salsa into a bowl, grabbed the bowl of chips and joined my husband on the couch to watch some Bones (Note to future self: Stop eating while watching Bones...).

Now, since I basically took the myrecipies.com recipe and "wing"ed my way through it, I provided the link to that recipe above but a summary of what I did and my changes are below.

Enjoy!  

Recipe Recap - Easy Tortilla Chips

You'll need:

• 8" Corn Tortillas
• Each tortilla makes 8 chips (or fewer if you want larger chips), so depending on how many chips you want, you'll need about 12 tortillas (more if you decide to make larger chips), respectively, to make 24 servings.
• Olive Oil
• The myrecipies.com recipe uses vegetable oil but I like olive oil better so that's what I used!
• Sea Salt and other seasonings
• I used chili powder and paprika but you can season the chips however you want.

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375°.
2. Blend spices together in a small bowl.
3. Brush cookie sheets with olive oil. 
4. Cut tortillas into 8 equal wedges and place on cookie sheets.
5. Brush the side of tortilla wedges not on the cookie sheet with oil making sure not to brush on too much oil--you don't want soggy chips!
6. Sprinkle wedges with seasoning.
7. Place two sheets in the oven at a time, one on the top and one on the bottom rack. Cook for 7 minutes then switch the cookie sheets' placement.
8. Cook for another 7 minutes or until golden brown; larger chips will need to be baked longer or the middle will be chewy.
9. Pull out of the oven, set them aside to cool and continue with the remaining wedges.
10. Once cool, grab some salsa and enjoy!

Leftovers Makeover

Welcome!

In my family I'm known for "winging it" when it comes to many aspects of my life, especially in the kitchen. As 20-something year-olds, my husband and I still have our moments of poor Adulting; and when we forget (again) to go grocery shopping, we often have to do our best Chopped contestant impressions to answer the age-old question, "What's for dinner?"

To launch this blog, I'm going to start with a Flavor Creation my family said couldn't (well, more like, shouldn't) be done--Chinese Leftovers Soup! The story of the why and how I came up with this idea begins on New Year's Day. My husband and I were in charge of making lunch for the group and I had the wild idea to make soup from scratch in an effort to be mindful of the diabetic needs of some of the family. I put a bunch of fresh ingredients in a pot and voila! a delicious soup was born. (More about the vegetable soup recipe to come in a later blog post.)

Source: http://www.quoteswords.com/35-funny-minions-quotes-and-sayings/

The next day, we go out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant.  I order the pineapple chicken chow yuk expecting a stir-fry type dish with pineapples and chicken.  When the food comes, it has a bit more sauce on it than I expected; the food was all covered in a fairly thick clear-ish sauce.  Since this was the first time I'd ordered the chow yuk, I still have no idea if this is normal or not but either way, not what I was expecting and not really something I enjoy.  Don't get me wrong, the flavor was good and the food all cooked perfectly, but I was a bit turned off by the consistency of the sauce. With the success of the previous day's vegetable soup fresh on my mind, I thought to myself, Why not make this into a soup? I figured by thinning out the sauce into a soup broth, I could leverage the flavors of the dish into something I would enjoy eating.  This is the point where I voice my idea and am met with some laughter and strong suggestions to forget this crazy idea. My sister-in-law had ordered the same dish so she understood where I was going with the idea but the rest of the crew was less than enthusiastic; even my husband was wary knowing he would end up as the guinea pig.

Never one to be deterred by nay-sayers, the next day, I set out to turn my leftovers into a delicious soup. I started by straining the chicken, pineapple and vegetables out of the sauce and throwing them in a saute pan with a dash of sesame seed oil.  I then put the sauce from the meal mixed with some sweet and sour sauce into a few cups of water in a pot on the stove. I whisked the soup base together and left it to boil.  Then, I worked on lightening/freshening up my leftovers by letting them cook in the saute pan while I started on making some noodles to add to my soup.

Source: http://www.veganosity.com/homemade-vegan-pasta/

Upon a close examination of my refrigerator, I found we were seriously lacking a few staples including eggs.  So, like a child raised on computers and search engines, I Googled, "vegan homemade noodles" and found this recipe from Alex Meyer over at Veganosity. Following the instructions (yes, sometimes I do actually follow a recipe, well steps 1-3 anyways...) I prepared the noodles to be added to the soup.  After the leftovers had gotten a decent sear and the soup base reached a boil, I added the leftovers to the base and reduced the heat.  As the soup cooked, I added some ginger, pepper and garlic seasoning and another dash of sesame oil diluted in another cup of water to the soup until I was happy with the taste.  With the noodles prepped and ready, I tossed them in the soup and turned up the temp to maintain the boil.

Once the noodles were done, I turned off the heat and prepared myself for the first test and ladled myself up a bowl.  What I tasted was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself.  The flavors of the original dish were still present but the food tasted fresh and basically became a Chinese flavored chicken noodle soup.  Now, I may be biased but you can rely on the results of the ultimate test--my dear husband, the guinea pig.  DH's not afraid to be brutally honest...not even the threat of a night on the couch can change his review; so though it may have taken a bit of convincing, my husband did agree to try my new concoction and... Drum roll please... He liked it! He even said he was, "literally eating his words," from the night before and especially liked the noodles. I guess not only was my experiment a success but also my first foray into making homemade noodles!

Don't take my word for it, try it out and let me know what you think in the comments section below.
Thanks :)
Happy Experimenting!

Recipe Recap - Chinese Leftovers Soup

You'll need:

• 1 container of leftovers
• Separate sauce from food best you can
• Noodles
• Flour, salt and water are needed for the recipe I used but you can use any noodle recipe or pre-made noodles
• Water
• Six cups seemed to work for me but the amount will vary based on the quantity of the leftovers and leftovers sauce and how thick the leftovers sauce is
• Chinese and other seasonings
• I used sesame oil, ginger, sweet and sour sauce, and fresh ground pepper and garlic seasoning.  I didn't need to add any salt as there was plenty in the leftovers sauce, but you may need to; add salt and other seasonings to flavor your soup to taste.

Instructions:

1. Get water, sweet and sour sauce (optional) and sauce from leftovers boiling in large pot to make soup base.
2. Fry up the leftovers and add to soup base, let simmer while you prep noodles.
   NOTE: if you use pre-made noodles or make your noodles up beforehand, let simmer for roughly 30 minutes; you can go longer to really bring out the flavors just be aware of the cook on the vegetables.
3. Prepare noodles. As you prep the noodles, continue to taste and season the simmering soup base.
4. Add noodles to soup base once both are ready.
5. Increase stove temp to maintain boil and boil soup until noodles are cooked.
6. Turn off heat and enjoy!