Mario Bento

So I had the urge to make bento today. My day off and all my spare time. xD Liza said I could make her lunch, and that's how I decided it was to be Mario themed. I think it was delicious! :)

The mushrooms are cut up radishes.
The blocks are omelettes marked with cheese.
The fire-flowers are strawberry slices and cucumber.
Mario is white and mexican rice with cheese and seaweed detailing.
All on a bed of spinach.

Shrimp'n Noodles

So what happens when I'm home at 12 am on a (.....what the heck, I'll still consider it Saturday) Saturday evening? I get a craving for noodles! Then I remember that I'd bought all the ingredients for a shrimp and noodle dish a while back. Digging around, I find most of them had gone bad. However, noodles covered in shrimp sauteed in butter with garlic and onion still sounded good. I made up some fettuccine noodles, cut up the garlic and onion, then went on to detail the shrimp.

Wait.

Why do they still have legs? Should I pull them off? Isn't there a vein to cut out too? Yup, I decided to cook raw shrimp without knowing how....AFTER dirtying up my hands so that I couldn't look it up on the computer. xD

So, pulling off the tail, I realized that the rest of the body was still covered in shell. Peeling that off, I discovered that it took the legs with it! Yay! And under the legs....a poop-vein to deguttify. After a couple of those, I found a shrimp where the back had been cut open, but the vein hadn't been all the way removed. So THAT'S the vein that supposed to be gone; they did that part for me! However, still didn't want to eat the poop-vein. So I shelled and gutted all 1 lb (SO glad I only dumped out half the bag!) of shrimp. Back to the frying pan, I melted butter, started to sautee the onion and garlic, then dumped in way too much shrimp. And they lost all their water. I thought it'd boil off, but the longer they cooked, the more that came out! I didn't want to over cook them, though. So, I figured it would make an ok sauce, added some basil and garlic salt and called it good. Mixed in the noodles to warm them up, and served me some deliciousness.

I was pleasantly surprised at how flavorful the shrimp was! Usually I'm disappointed by it's lack of strength. The noodles were a little bland, but I expected that. I think I'll need to find a way to drain the water or thicken it all into a proper sauce. Prolly making less at a time in a bigger pan would help. :)

Shrimp is high in lean protein (did you know protein helped boost immune function?), phosphorus, copper, and iron. As well as vitamin D (which helps you absorb calcium and regulate calcium and phosphorus in the bloodstream), Vitamin B-12, and other B vitamins (they change your food into energy!).

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Chicken Cutlets

Doesn't that title sound fancy? We made some gourmet stuff toNIGHT!
The premise? Oce is in town! And I needed to bribe him with food. And he didn't want pizza or hamburgers. Chinese was out, as was Thai. So, he settled on Italian. We went to this delicious-looking website, Italian Food Forever (get why we clicked on the link?) and saw this delicious treasure!

Ingredients:
Chicken Cutlets
1 1/2 Cups Sautéed Spinach
8 Tablespoons Grated Cheese
8 Slices Very Thin Sliced Bacon
Salt & Pepper
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Clove Garlic, Peeled & Minced
3/4 Cup Chicken Broth
3/4 Cup White Wine
3 Tablespoons Finely Chopped Fresh Sage
To Thicken:
1 Tablespoon Butter
1 1/2 Teaspoons Flour

Making the dish:
First, I had to saute the spinach, cause all that I had was fresh. Then we took chicken breasts and turned them into cutlets--make them thin by cutting in half horizontally (We just pounded on them).

We made four; We figured that two each was plenty. Cover them in the spinach and then sprinkle it with cheese. Roll it up, then wrap bacon around it and secure with a toothpick. I didn't like their cheese choice, so we used mozzarella  Plus, I have a ton of it. We also decided that our rolls were more secure with two pinned rolls of bacon around them. In a large skillet, add oil (or in our case, bacon grease) and brown the rolls on all sides.

This took around 10 minutes, Then add in minced garlic. Saute the garlic for a tic, and then add the broth and wine (we used a pinot grigio). It is supposed to come to a boil and then reduce to a simmer, partially cover and let alone for 15 minutes. We then took out the rolls, heated the wine mixture up to a boil, added the sage, brought it back down in temperature, created a roux and added it to the wine to thicken. When it was deemed think enough, we rolled the rolls in it, put them on plates and covered in more sauce.

How it turned out:
Delicious! I was worried about the chicken cooking, but that worked out just fine. :) It was easier to do with two people working to get it all done. Even the roomie who's not into meat cooked in delicious grease liked the bite she tried!

Smothies?

Smoothies! This is something new I decided to try. So, I went to the store and bought random fruits and greek yogurt and randomness.

The first smoothie I made included white grapes, pears, apple juice, and spinach. It actually wasn't too bad for a random concoction. I then ended up pureeing a bunch of avocado. After scraping most of it out, I dumped the first concoction and ran it again to help clean the avocado out of the blender without wasting it. And made a fantastic discovery! Before, I noticed that the pulp and juice in my smoothie would separate. But after the avocado was added, it all stayed mixed up! I wonder if it had something to do with the fat of the avocado? I don't know, but that was kinda cool. And I enjoyed the slight taste it added. :)

The second smoothie I made.....hasn't grown on me yet. I included blueberries, cran-grape juice, two white grapefruits, and two spoonfuls of greek yogurt. I don't know what I was thinking. Grapefruits are SOUR. I added a bunch of sugar, but it's still making my stomach ache a tad. I think I need to get better at thinking about taste, not just what fruits I have a lot of. XD Oh wells, slowly learning.