Steamy Fries gets your bedroom steamy

I spoke to a celebrity chef on phone today. She is featured regularly on Florida channels and you know her from my previous posts(I am very close to stalking her). After I hung up with her, I was planning my dinner menu around Tex-Mex Veg burgers I bought from Trader Joe's and it hit me that I have been putting off trying Jaden's Matchstick Fries.

I made the fries exactly the way she said and let me tell you, I am definitely getting lucky tonight because in Prabu's words, "Dinner is very very very good". It's usually , "It's good" but when he adds "very" that many times you know he means it :).

I was too lazy to get my mandoline from the box, so I used the julienne peeler that I bought(Jaden made me buy the peeler).

I will upload the pictures tomorrow. There is no set recipe for the sandwich. I used fresh french bread and spread some mustard and my quick mint chutney. Cook the burgers per instructions and set it on the bread. Top it with some onions, tomatoes, romaine lettuce and your favorite cheese. I added some hot peppers I picked up from the olive bar at the store.

I served the sandwich with the fries and macaroni salad made with red pepper, celery and cucumber drizzled with balsamic and olive oil(no mayo and stuff).

Modified Steamy Kitchen Noodles

I once made Jaden's Silver noddles and wrote about it here. I started calling them Steamy Kitchen noodles.I made them for dinner tonight but (here is where I should ask Jaden to forgive for messing with her recipe) I was too lazy to look up the recipe. I remembered she added lots of veggies. So I made the noodles with veggies, soy sauce, vegetable broth and (GASP) added 1/4 cup of white wine. Who puts white wine in a rice noodle dish? In my defense, I was too tired and furthermore, the noodles came out so good that my family ate it up before I took the picture :)

One more of Jaden's dish ( or is it Jeremy's)

Jaden goes to extreme lengths to get certain recipes (you know dating guys from different countries). When she doesn't get a recipe from the guy directly she harasses his wife to get it for her :). This is one such recipe and boy am I glad she took the trouble to get it. Here is her recipe for Dukkah.

I decided to try it simply because it has two of my favorite ingredients: Chili flakes and garlic powder. I didn't have malden salt so I used regular salt. I modified the quantity a bit because I didn't want to make a pound of dukkah as we are leaving for a 5 week trip soon. And I also used this on a different vegetable. I used what in English is called bottle gourd. It's called Louki in hindi, anapakaya or sorakaya in telugu. You can get it in any Asian store.

Ingredients:

Anapakaya - 4 cups - diced
Oil - as needed
Salt - to taste.


For Dukkah:

Almonds - 1 cup toasted in the oven at 375 degrees
Cumin seeds - 1 Tbsp toasted
Chili flakes - 1 Tbsp.
Garlic Powder - 1/2 Tbsp.
Lemon Zest - pinch - dried in the oven

- Grind them all into fine powder and keep it in an air-tight container.




Procedure:

Heat oil in a wide skillet. Add the anapakaya pieces. Season with salt. Cover lid and cook on medium-low heat for 3 to 5 minutes. remove the lid off and cook till the pieces are tender but not too mushy. Sprinkle 2 Table spoons of the dukkah on the vegetables and turn the stove off. Mix well and check taste. If you are like me who just falls in love with the dukkah because it smells so good, add 2 more Tbsp.:).

Jaden's Silver Noodles

I am addicted to Steamy Kitchen. I am so close to stalking her and her blog :). When she posted my favorite noodle recipe, I had to try it at home. It came out very good except I forgot to add spinach. Here is her recipe.

It took me so long to try it because I had to go get me that julienne peeler first. Prabu tried, "I can cut them for you like that without the peeler." No thanks hon, I haz my peeler ;).

Verdict from the family is that I should include these noodles on my menu rotation. Now Prabu is hoping, I will try different things on the menu when we go out instead of ordering glass noodles every time.

Here are the sad pictures :).