Fried Rice

Ok, this one I will admit I have not perfected but it still tasted good. Another thing that my typically NON carb eating son (where he came from is still a mystery) requested for leftovers. I almost fell over when he asked but just smiled and said, "I'll heat that right up".

I added some shrimp sauce on top and could barely tell the difference.

4 C cooked White Rice, chilled
1 Carrot minced..I whirl them around in the food processor most days
1 bunch Green Onion, chopped or 1/2 medium onion that took a spin in the food processor
2 cloves garlic minced
6 T Butter
2-3 t Garlic Powder
3 Eggs
1-2 T Sesame Oil
2-4 T Soy Sauce
Pepper and Salt to taste

Put your carrot, onion, garlic and 1 T butter into pan, season with salt and pepper.  Saute for a couple of minutes. Add your rice and rest of the butter. Sprinkle with garlic powder. Add Sesame Oil and 1 T Soy Sauce. Fold around a minute or two heating the rice up, add 1 more Tablespoon Soy sauce. You want the rice very lightly colored brown with the soy sauce. Push the rice to the side and throw in your eggs. Scramble around with some salt and pepper. When the eggs are a lose scramble, fold into the rice. Give it a taste and see if you need salt or pepper. Be careful adding too much soy sauce, it can take over the rice. As can the sesame oil. It's not a bad taste if you add to much of either, it's just not the taste I was going for.
Wash and chop your scallions.
Chop the scallions up.

Yep, I used the real deal for this recipe too.
Peel and slice your carrots down the middle. Dice these babies up nice and small.
Like this.
Saute your carrots, onion, garlic and 1 T butter for a couple of minutes. Add your rice, soy sauce and sesame oil and saute for a few more minutes to heat the rice through. Push the rice to the side.
Add your eggs. Season eggs with salt and pepper and scramble around. When they are a loose scramble, cook for another 30 seconds or so from this stage...mix in with the rice.
I added sesame seeds in this version but completely NOT necessary. Taste for flavor, add salt and pepper as needed. Also want to note that this is the photo when I added too much soy sauce. Your finished product SHOULD be lighter and this recipe reflects that. So, don't look at this photo and say, "my rice isn't that dark"..it shouldn't be. It doesn't taste bad if it is..it just tastes better if you follow the measurements in this recipe in my opinion.

Shrimp Benihana Style

All you need is a clean pan to make these simple shrimp.

2 lbs fresh Shrimp ~ take the shells and tails off
3-4 T Butter
1 t Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper to taste

Melt your butter over low heat. Turn the heat up to about a 6 and throw your shrimp in. Sprinkle with garlic powder, salt and pepper. Flip them around, cooking all sides. They should pink up and be done fairly quick, about 4 minutes.
Sorry, all I have for this post is a photo of how to get the shells and tails off. They should peel off easily and the tail needs a little pinch and a pull. See the finished product under the shrimp sauce post.

Chicken Benihana style

Another easy dinner or addition to your Benihana night.

1 pkg boneless Chicken Breast cut into bite size pieces
3 T Butter
1 t Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper to Taste

Throw the chopped chicken and butter into the pan. Season with garlic, salt and pepper. Cook until cooked through..about 5 minutes. Serve.
Cut your chicken into bite size pieces. LOVE my kitchen sheers for this job.
Throw your chicken and butter into a pan. Season and cook until cooked through, about 5 minutes.

Beef Teriyaki

This was my kids favorite part of the meal and it was so easy that it's almost ridiculous. But, I guess they don't need to know that. They just need to know that Mom was SLAVING in the kitchen to bring them dinner.

2 lbs Top Round Steak
Tops of two scallions sliced in thin strips
2 T Butter
1 t Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/3 bottle Teriyaki Sauce

Cut steak into thin, bite size strips. Throw in a pan with scallions, butter and garlic. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Drain any excess liquid from steak. When steak is cooked to your liking, add Teriyaki sauce, stir around to heat through and serve.

I made this on a Monday and again on Friday because my son requested it. For some reason the steak felt heavy when I pulled it out of the package. Which to me, meant that it was going to be tough. Not sure if it would have been but didn't want to take any chances so I used my meat mallot and gave it a few whacks to soften it up. I also sprinkled meat tenderizer on both sides before cutting. If you use meat tenderizer you will most likely NOT need any salt. Cook the same as above and it was melt in your mouth tender.
Basic Top Round steak.
See, just a nice piece of beef.
Cut into bite size pieces across the grain.
This is the tops of the scallions, sliced lengthwise. You can skip this step if you want, but Benihana has this, so we were too.
Mix the scallion tops with the beef.
This is wrapped up and prepped so all I have to do is open it and throw it in the pan with the butter and seasoning when it's time to make dinner.
Throw it in the pan with butter and seasoning. Cook until it's the way you like to eat steak. Drain excess liquid off and add Teriyaki Sauce. Serve.
This is the brand I used. Found it in the grocery aisle with the Asian items.

See finished product on the Shrimp Sauce post.

Carrot Cake

The only thing that I can really experiment with on holidays is dessert because we have our tried and true that are served for dinner on every holiday. Holidays at my house are about tradition so I don't want to miss making someones favorite dish. But dessert, that's where you get surprised.

I do however, always make a bunny cake on Easter, it just varies on what is inside when you cut into it. Carrot cake is a favorite for my family. I made one a few years ago but it had so many ingredients, was expensive to make and weighed about 50 lbs when it was finished that I swore I would never make one again. But then I saw a post on PioneerWomanCooks.com with a Carrot Cake that looked easy and tasty. So, I gave it a a try for this Easter and it did not disappoint.

She makes it in a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with edges) and cooks it for 20 minutes or until cooked through and she mixes in 2 cups of chopped Pecans into her frosting. Because it was a bunny and I didn't want a lumpy bunny, I put 3/4 Walnuts (didn't have Pecans) in the cake and used the rest to decorate the tie. I used 2round pans to get the "bunny" to work.

Ingredients
FOR CAKE:
2 C Sugar
1 C Vegetable Oil
4 Eggs
2 cups All-purpose Flour
1/2 t Salt
1 t Baking Soda
1 t Baking Powder
1 t Ground Cinnamon
2 C Grated Carrots
3/4 C Walnuts finely chopped
_____
For Icing
1 stick Butter, Softened
1 pkg (8 Oz) Cream Cheese ~ I used 1/3 fat free
5 C Powdered Sugar
2 t Vanilla

Preparation Instructions
Cake:
Mix together the sugar, oil and eggs in a large bowl with a mixer. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and combine. Then add carrots and mix well. Fold in chopped nuts. Pour into a greased pan and bake until done, 40 minutes, for two round pans.
Cool completely.
Icing:
In larger bowl, cream butter and cream cheese. Add sugar and vanilla and blend. Spread on cooled carrot cake.
Start by peeling and grating your carrots. It was 3 carrots for me to get to 2 Cups.
Mix your Oil, Sugar and Eggs with a hand mixer.
Add your dry ingredients. Add your grated carrots.
Chop up your nuts nice and tiny.
Fold those nuts into your batter.
Pour your batter into your greased pan of choice. Give it a bounce on the counter to get out the air bubbles.
Cool cake for about 10 minutes and then flip one onto a plate and one into the middle of a rectangle cookie sheet.
Cut your cake like you are cutting a baseball design. You are getting two ears and the middle will be the tie.
You just made a bunny.
Mix your softened cream cheese, butter and vanilla together.
Add your powdered sugar and this is what you get. YUMMY cream cheese frosting!
Frosting "cut" cake can be tricky. So what you want to do is to start with a big glob of frosting. Make sure you stay on top of the frosting with the knife. Try not to allow the knife to touch the cake, that's where you get a bit crumby and crumbs get mixed with the frosting. Even if you do get crumbs on your first try, it's all good, just looks like the ears have some fuzz on them;)
Sprinkle nuts on the tie. I was NOT in the mood to get out the decorating bag so I used a toothpick dunked in food coloring and ran it up and down to color the ears. Another toothpick with red food coloring to make the mouth and chocolate chips to make the eyes and whiskers. But licorice works great too.

Deviled Eggs

I'm guessing over the next couple of days, you are going to have some hard boiled eggs you don't know what to do with. So, I thought I'd show you how to make Deviled Eggs. I'm one of those people that actually make Deviled Eggs a few times a year. I don't do anything fancy like adding shrimp, I just make the "basic" Deviled Egg. Last year I had to make 175 Deviled Eggs for a fundraiser party at school~yeah that was fun;). But, my point being is that they are fairly easy to make, once they are peeled. I have tried every trick I've read about the "easy" way to peel eggs. I've used fresh ones, older ones, chilled them, left them warm. The bottomline is...sometimes they peel easy and I LOVE making them. Other times, they completely SUCK to peel and I tolerate making them. It does make it worth your frustration on those hard peeling days because everyone is excited to see them. One of my friends told me it reminded him of being a kid and his Mom making them. And, I'll be honest, my daughter actually likes to make them so she is pretty much the deviled egg maker in our house now.

Deviled Eggs was not something I liked until a few years ago, I still don't "love" them but I've learned to like them. See there is hope for my fussy kids;)

So, let's get started.
Dozen Hard Boiled Eggs
1/2 - 1 C Miracle Whip
2 t Yellow Mustard
Pepper to taste
Paprika

Put your eggs in a saucepot, cover with cold water and bring to a hard boil. That means there are LOTS of bubbles going on. Cover with a tight lid and turn off the heat. Set your timer for 10 minutes and leave the eggs alone..no peeking. When the timer beeps, put the pot in the sink and turn on the cold water. Run the cold water for a couple of minutes. Let the eggs sit in the cold water, either in your sink or in the fridge until the eggs have cooled down. One of the theories is the colder the egg the easier to peel, well I've explained that above so I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Peel your eggs, there is this fine layer on the egg that is attached to the shell for the most part, as you're peeling you will notice it...make sure you get that off or your egg will be a bit tough to the bite. Rinse to make sure you have to shell left on the egg. Set on paper towel and go to the next one. I typically plan that at least one egg is not going to peel pretty and I'll just be using the yolk. If that doesn't happen..BONUS:)

Slice your eggs in half, I like to use a serrated edge knife because it seems to cut easier. Dump your yolks in a bowl, put whites on a plate. After you've got all the yolks in the bowl, get a fork and give them a good mash. Make sure you don't have any big pieces, you want nice smooth filling and big pieces will turn into lumps when you add the Miracle Whip. After you have the yolks mashed, add 1/2 C Miracle Whip, 2 t mustard and a couple of shakes of pepper. Give it a stir. You are going to need about another 1/4 C of Miracle Whip to make it nice and light so add that now. Taste it, do you want more Miracle Whip or pepper or mustard? Add it now.

Ok, now you have options. If you have a cake decorating bag and a star tip, I recommend that because it's the prettiest. You can also just use a spoon and spoon the yolk filling into the egg whites. Or you can put the yolk filling into a ziploc, I would recommend a gallon size. Spoon all the filling into one corner. Cut the corner off..HOLD ON...cut a very small piece off the corner. You can always cut it bigger but you can't make it smaller if you go crazy;) What you want is an opening big enough to squirt the filling into the egg without it blobbing out and making a mess. Does that make sense. I hope so because I don't have a photo, sorry.

Fill the middle of your eggs, you'll probably have more filling than eggs and that's ok. Sprinkle with Paprika if you wish to make them look a little prettier and you're done. Put them in the fridge for about an hour, not more than 6 to chill. OK, you can make them a day before but they can sometimes get a little squishy so if you do that, put a paper towel under the eggs to help with that.
We're gonna pretend this is a dozen. Cold water and eggs on high heat.
Here's the start of the boil, wait until it's really bubbling before you cover and turn off the heat.
Cut your eggs in half like this.
Here are your yolks.

Mash them up really well with a fork.

Add your Miracle Whip, Mustard and pepper. The filling should be thick enough to stick to a spoon but not so thick that it doesn't taste creamy in your mouth..hope that makes sense.
Fill your eggs. These were done with a large star tip. If you don't have one, not a problem.
Sprinkle with Paprika and you're done.

Chocolate Pie

My son Max doesn't like to be in the kitchen very much. He's never shown much of an interest except when it comes to making cream pies. They are his favorite, actually the only kind he'll eat and since they are easy to make, I've always required him to make them because I think everyONE should have a signature dish;)

I didn't take very many photos because I was in the middle of a big dinner but this is easy enough for you to get the idea.

What you'll need is
Store bought graham cracker crust ~ today was Oreo based
2 sm pkgs Instant Chocolate Pudding
Milk
1 C Whipping Cream
1 t Vanilla
1 C Powdered Sugar
Chocolate Candy Bar
White Chocolate Oreo Candy Bar

Make your pudding according to package directions and pour into crust. Cover the top with plastic wrap (don't forget this step or you'll get that hard jelly type top that isn't tasty) and chill for a couple of hours.

Pour 1 C of Whipping Cream into a bowl and 1 tsp Vanilla and whip it up with your hand mixer for a couple of minutes. It should be pretty firm, like you could almost use it as is. Add 1 C Powdered Sugar and mix until firm. Pull your plastic wrap off the pie and top with Whipped Cream. Chop up candy bars and sprinkle on top. Serve or refrigerate for a couple of hours until ready to serve.
Here he is spreading the whipped cream on top.
Chop up your chocolate bars.
Looks just like Baker's Square, don't ya think?? Here is Max's signature dish:) Enjoy!