Fresh Homemade Salsa - for Chips and Dips and for Linguini

Here is a nice homemade salsa that works for two.  One for the chips and dips or serve with linguini.

Yield: Qty - 2 Cups
Tools:  Blender or food processor; measuring cups, cutting board, sharp chef knife; teaspoon, 1 Pint Size Mason Jar, Medium size Glass Bowl, small glass bowl (for lemon and lime juice); option - juicer.  Strainer for pasta, large cooking pot, 10" frying pan, salad spinner, wooden spatula or stir-fry spatula.  Pasta serving plate.

Ingredients:

1 large Ripe Tomato

2 Romano Tomatoes

Lime Juice from 3 Large Limes
Lemon Juice from 1 Large Lemon from home tree
1/2 of Medium Onion - Chopped finely
1/3 C Cilantro leaves
Dash of Kosher Salt
1/2 C Vinegar

Procedures:
Cut and deseed tomatoes.  Chop tomatoes into small chunks.
Chop up Onions as small as you can, but not minced.
Wash Cilantro well and if you have salad spinner, spin to remove excess water.
Tear off all the leaves.
Juice Limes and Lemons into a glass bowl.  --Cut lemons and limes into halves.  Hold the halved lemon in the palm of one hand and Insert a teaspoon to the center.  Wiggle the teaspoon back and forth to squeeze the juice out.  But, if you have a juicer or any other means to get juice out, that will work, too.
Put all in the Blender.  Process for 5 to 6 seconds at Pulse Speed.
Transfer to the Clean, very clean Mason Jar.
Serve or Keep in refrigerator.

Lemon Lime Shrimp and Mushroom Pesto Sauce over Linguini

Ingredients:
1 pkg Linguini - Boiled and strained
1 pkg Mushroom - washed, strained/dried, sliced or chopped
1 lb Precooked frozen shrimp or raw is okay, too.
1/4 Cup Pesto Sauce
3 TBsp Butter
Kosher Salt
Lemon juice - from 3 Lemons
Lime juice - from 2 Limes      *squeeze both juice into the same glass bowl
Dash of Red Chili Peppers

Procedures:

Boil Linguini to the softness your family like.  If you are carb conscience, buy the pasta with "protein" in it, which maybe better than the regular pasta for your diet.  & you can use Linguini or any other pasta of your choice for this dish. 

WASH, STRAIN/DRY, OR CUT:
I like to wash Mushrooms.  Wash them quickly and remove all the dirt and rinse thoroughly and quickly dry them.  If you have a salad spinner, spin dry them.
Slice them or Chop them up into small pieces.

If you have raw shrimps, wash them in salt water and rinse them well or use precooked shrimps - whichever, wash them with salt water and then with clear water.

STIR-FRY:
Stir fry - medium heat - mushrooms first in 10" frying pan with 3 TBsp of Butter.
Stir fry until you start to hear sizzling sound and juice from the mushrooms are drying up - approx. 10 minutes.
Add 1/4 CUP of Pesto Sauce.  Stir quickly and Add shrimps.
Stir fry - medium heat - until raw shrimps turn white and orangish - approx 3 min. Or if stir-frying precooked shrimps, then cook till they are heated through.
Add Lemon and Lime juice.
Add a dash of Red Chili Pepper, if you like to give a bit of kick.
Turn heat to high to sizzle everything.
Remove from heat.

SERVE:
Serve the sauce over the prepared pasta.

Serving Idea:  Serve Lemon Lime Salsa on top of Linquini, or the Lemon Lime Shrimp and Mushroom Pesto sauce over the Linguini.
Enjoy!

Palmiers and Pinwheels

 So the rest of the Puff Pastry dough was baked into Palmiers and Pinwheels.

4 - Five Folding of the Puff Pastry, benching 20 minutes between each roll definitely helped with relaxing the dough and keeping the butter block in the dough.  And see the wonderful result of layers and layers of lamination.

Some people like the Palmiers baked till the sugar is caramelized completely, and also to extend the shelf life.  My Palmiers and Pinwheels are baked till Golden Brown and retained sugar crystals.

More pictures can be viewed at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastrydavinci

Stir-Fried Shanghai Noodles with Shrimps

We love to order "Chow Mien" at our favorite seafood restaurant in Fremont - especially my grand-kids.  They love "noodles".  Three dishes for $18?  Not baaad.  We can feed the entire family and still got enough to take doggy bag home.  After a while though, it's time to try your own.  We found this new 99 Ranch Market in Mountain View (CA).  It's loaded with variety of Oriental noodles.  Anything from dry, instant, to fresh noodles from Japan to Taiwan to China, they got few of each.  Our goal is to find the right fresh noodles for the stir-fry to make the "Chow Mien".  As you might already know "Chow Mien" is Chinese fried noodles usually prepared with some vegetables, meat, and sauce, and it is expressed in "Cantonese" dialect.  In Mandarin, it would be pronounced more like "Tsao Mien".  Regardless, I found this Stir-Fry Shanghai Noodles.   You can practically add any kind of vegetables and meat to stir fry with it.  Since this is fresh noodles, not egg noodles, the noodles will be soft vs. "pan fried noodles" that is usually prepared with "egg" based thin noodles.  I am sure you know a lot more about the noodles than I do, but I used the following ingredients:

2 TBsp dark soy sauce
1-1/2 TBsp light soy sauce... I just used Low Sodium soy sauce we bought for both
1TBsp OYSTER sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp ground white pepper or black pepper
1/2 tsp of pre-chopped garlic in the jar  - if fresh, three cloves, chopped
1 tsp of minced ginger  (I keep them frozen, so I can use it anytime)
1/2 lb of raw shrimps - Rinsed in salt water and strained or you can use Chicken pieces
1 bunch of green onions, washed and chopped
1/4 head small Cabbage, finely Julienned or cut thinly
2 cups of fresh bean sprouts, washed and strained
3 Dry Shiitake Mushrooms, rehydrated in Hot Boiling water. Sliced.  Save the Stock.
Any other veges you want to put in.

MIX soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt, and pepper together.  Set aside

Pour 3 TBsp of cooking oil in the hot wok.
Add garlic and ginger.  Stir to bring out aroma, then add green onion.  3 min.
Add Raw Shrimps (or Chicken)
Stir fried until cooked. (Not translucent anymore)
I also add a bit of chili flakes, but you can do it for your own bowl later.
WITHOUT TAKING OUT THE OIL IN THE WOK, Take out the shrimps.... try to leave as much oil in the Wok as possible.  If not enough oil to fry the vegetables, add 1 TBsp more of cooking oil.

Add Cabbage and stir-fry just until it turns translucent.  Make sure there is enough cooking oil to coat the cabbages lightly all around.  Do not over cook.    Stir fry for 3-4 min. 
(Raw cabbage seems to develop gas for many people.)
Add Bean sprouts, mushrooms, and any other veges.  Stir fry for 30 seconds.
Remove to large bowl and set aside.

In the same Wok:
Add the fresh Noodles and recommended amount of liquid on the package, e.g. 6 oz water + mushroom stock -- amount of stock from rehydrated Shiitake mushroom.
Cook the noodle until the stock goes down to 1/3 cup or something like that.  

(Some people prefer the noodles with lots of sauce, but just make sure it is not like a soup.  After all, this is Stir-fry noodles.)
Add Vegetables, Sauce Mixtures, Shrimps to combine with noodles.  

Stir Fry until everything is coated with sauce mixture.  3 to 5 minutes.
Done.

Serves 5

 

Also, there are lot more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastrydavinci