Monday Recipes - Thai Omelets and Shrimp Rice Salad

Broke out the Thai cookbook today. My recipes were limited by the fact that I didn't want to buy 2 dozen ingredients, and I don't like coconut. I briefly considered making spring rolls, but didn't want to deal with the wrapping and frying. I figured an omelette would be pretty easy, and a salad even easier.

I had to improvise a bit. The store I went to did have lemongrass (and let me tell you, it's very bizarre to cut up something that looks like a dry scallion and have it smell like lemon), but they didn't have lime leaves or thai basil. Also, I forgot to buy cucumber, but the salad recipe says that you can pretty much throw anything in there and it'll work. Also, I used frozen shrimp instead of dried shrimp with shrimp paste.

Thai Omelet
8oz pork (I actually used a pound, and the flavors still came out just fine)
2 tomatoes, diced
onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2T sugar
2T fish sauce (doesn't actually taste like fish, so don't let the name deter you)
1-2T cilantro, minced
2T peanut/grapeseed oil
5 eggs
2T fish sauce

Pour oil into pan and saute onion and garlic until soft (but don't let the garlic brown or it can become bitter). Add pork and cook until slightly browned. Add tomato, cilantro, 2T fish sauce and sugar and cook until liquid (from the tomatoes) has thickened a little bit (or, until you get tired of cooking it, like me, and just use a slotted spoon to remove it from the pan).

Beat eggs together with 2T fish sauce (what I did was to do three eggs at a time, as that was one omelet and when I make the rest of the pork into the omelet, I'll crack more eggs). Pour the egg mixture in a thin layer into a medium-large pan and cook until slightly browned on the bottom and no longer runny on top. Spoon pork mixture on top. Using a spatula, serve on a plate. The recipe said to fold the egg over the pork into a packet. However, I put too much pork and it just didn't fold easily (it'll come out of the pan more easily if you lift it a little on each side to loosen before sliding the whole thing out). So I just had a pork sandwiched in egg, and it was tasty.

Shrimp Rice Salad
3C cooked rice (I used brown rice)
20 frozen shrimp, defrosted and cut into small pieces (I'm guessing at the amount, this is flexible)
2 lemongrass stalks, sliced into small pieces
C toasted slivered almonds
avocado, pitted and diced
juice of 1 lime (the recipe called for 2 lime leaves)
2 Thai basil leaves (I left this out all together)
1 Asian pear, cored and diced
1 1/4C water
2T sweet chili sauce
1 spicy green/red pepper, minced
2T brown sugar

While the rice is cooking, put the water, sugar, 1/2 stalk sliced lemongrass, lime juice, and shrimp in a small pot and bring to a boil for about five minutes. The original recipe said to strain the liquid and use that as dressing, discarding the rest (given that the dried shrimp would not be included and therefore not discarded. I chose to add the shrimp to the dressing, and therefore didn't strain it).

Put the rice in a large bowl and let it cool. Remove dressing from heat and let cool. While cooling, cut up the pear, the rest of the lemongrass, and the avocado (and 1/2 cucumber, if desired). Toast the almonds.

Add the pear, lemongrass, avocado, almonds, sweet chili sauce, Thai basil (if desired), chili pepper and dressing. Mix thoroughly.

To be honest, I haven't actually tried it yet, but will be eating it for lunch. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Monday Recipe - Food for Exhaustion

So Boston Mania was this weekend. More details to come on that (I may expand Exercise Wednesday to Tuesday and Wednesday this week). One of the by products, apart from excitement over all the new stuff I learned, is absolute exhaustion.

I took it easy on Friday, but then over Saturday and Sunday I went to enough Step (I can't take it easy in step) and boot camp and bosu strength classes that by the time this morning rolled around, my gluts were seriously complaining about climbing any stairs at all. A good kind of pain though!

Saturday night, I got home around 7:30. I didn't feel like cooking, but I didn't have anything defrosted and ready to go in my fridge (thinking ahead? Ahem...not so much this weekend). So this was my dinner:

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Pork chops with sweet potato fries and brussels sprouts
1 pork chop, fat cut off
dash of salt, pepper, ginger powder, and red pepper flakes
1 sweet potato, cut into thick fry-shapes
2 handfuls of brussels sprouts, cut in half
olive oil
salt and pepper

I put all the sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts in a bowl, sprinkled olive oil, salt and pepper over them until fairly well covered (but not slathered), and then spread them out on a baking tray. On another tray (I use a glass pie-plate), I put the pork sprinkled with spices. Pop all of it in the oven at the same time and jump in the shower while it cooks. The only thing I'd do differently would be to not cook the sprouts as much, because by the time the fries and pork were cooked, the sprouts were fairly mushy.

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Sunday, I was even more tired (as you can imagine, since my first workshop (at 7a) was Group Xtreme). I got home around 2. Made some pasta with butter, grated asiago (no, I didn't grate it myself), and some jalapeno chicken sausage.

By the time dinner rolled around, I just didn't have the energy to cook up some protein on the stove. Some I made some kale, then I had some steamed edamame (I just put frozen edamame in a bowl with some water, cover with paper towel, and then cook in the microwave for 2-3 minutes). Then I had some cherry apple crisp for dessert (I did defrost this the other day, so it was good to go).

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Wilted Kale
1 bunch of kale, stems removed, and ripped into bite-sized pieces
olive/grapeseed oil
garlic
lemon juice
red pepper flakes

Put all the kale in a pot and add oil (I used olive oil steeped in garlic, but you could just put the oil with a couple cloves separately). Wilt down a bit. Add lemon juice (a couple squirts), red pepper flakes, and then salt and pepper if desired.

I ate the whole thing, but it could easily be 2 or 3 servings if you're eating it as a side dish. It makes about one heaping bowl of kale.