Light & Flavorful Asian Shrimp Noodle Soup

I try to plan our weekly meals as much as possible. This makes lunch packing much easier and is a spectacular time and money saver at the grocery store. We aren't extreme couponers, but we do comparison shop - buying produce at store one, meat at store two and taking mini-road trips to the best discount store in the area.

When I do my meal planning and making grocery lists, I can be pretty vague about breakfast (a real shame, I know) and snacks, but I try to put thought into dinners to allow for creative uses of leftovers and to fit our schedules. One of my other tactics is incorporating at least one new recipe of interest into each week's schedule.

Hello, my name is Amanda and I am a chronic recipe hoarder.

I have subscriptions to three food-related magazines, I clip recipes and put them in my "to try" binder and of course, I pin to multiple food boards. (

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Picking a recipe a week is really helping me explore new techniques, ingredients and cuisines but also helps me justify cutting out more recipes!

This week, I picked a recipe that wouldn't require any additional grocery purchases and looked delicious and simple: an Asian shrimp noodle soup.

The recipe was such a pleasant surprise. I'll admit I was a little concerned about a soup with shrimp in it; I generally like my shrimp more on the crunchy side than floating in broth (floating in butter or Old Bay seasoning, maybe...).

For having only a handful of ingredients, it was incredibly flavorful and well-balanced. Soy sauce is one of the simplest umami-filled ingredients that brings a well-rounded savory flavor that's only heightened by the kick of spice from the red pepper flakes.

Via Google 

You can also use tamari, which is a low- to no-gluten soy sauce. We bought our bottle at an Asian grocery store, but it is becoming more readily available and inexpensive. I highly recommend it for a gluten-free alternative.

The sliced wonton skin "noodles" become so tender, they're actually creamy and impart that warm comforting feeling that only comes from the best soups. And the Napa cabbage and peas bring a brightness and snap to each bite.

And you can't find a soup recipe easier than this. It's essentially a throw-everything-in-the-pot kinda dish. The ingredients lend themselves to quick, no-fuss cooking techniques and little expense, too. I love that this dish is a really good vessel in which to use some leftover ingredients. It's just the two of us in our house, so we rarely need to cook an entire pound of protein or several serving veggies, which left us with a fridge full of groceries to use. I actually had everything on hand (and in almost perfect portions) except for the wonton wrappers!

Asian Shrimp Noodle Soup

Adapted from Real Simple

Ingredients:

6 cups low-sodium chicken broth

Pinch red pepper flakes (more/less to taste)

2 T low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
1/4 small head napa cabbage, chopped
2 oz. wonton wrappers, cut into 1/2 inch slices
1/2 lb. peeled and deveined shrimp (large or extra large)
1/2 c. halved pea pods (snow or snap), strings removed
1 T. rice vinegar (white vinegar, in a pinch)

Method:

Bring the broth, soy sauce and pepper flakes to a boil in a large pot.

Add the cabbage, wonton wrappers and shrimp to the pot and simmer until shrimp are opaque and noodles are tender (about 3-4 minutes). Stir in the peas and vinegar, cook another minute or two to just heat the peas. 

Homemade Chinese Takeout

J and I love "exotic" foods (although probably Americanized versions of such). We love to try new foreign menu items (like Ethiopian on our honeymoon to DC last week) and we especially love Asian-inspired dishes.

We enjoy these foreign meals so much that we've been developing our own versions to make at home (like our Russian feast). We've made our own sushi and curries, and I think we've finally perfected our take Chinese takeout dish - sweet and sour chicken.

J's DIY California Roll Stogie

Jade Dragon is our go-to Chinese restaurant and we could easily spend $35 on a takeout order for the two us. Even though it is disturbingly delicious, I have absolutely no idea what is in our food other than the obvious (or alleged?) things listed in the title and description. My only assumption is that everything we usually order is either seared or deep fried in lots of oil; covered in equally oily, and salty sauces and the vegetables are cooked to near death. It's delicious, but not affordable for our wallets or our bodies.

This dish is just the opposite.

We've been on our honeymoon for the last week and of course, came home to an empty fridge; so we're trying to "make do" with our pantry and freezer stockpiles until we can get to the store. We do have a good stock of meats and vegetables in our freezers (we buy in bulk and freeze in appropriate portions) but nothing outlandish, and we were able to complete this whole meal without stopping at the market.

In addition to pinching some pennies, it also means, that for the most part (ketchup aside, probably), I know exactly what went into this dish and it contains very little oil - only enough for the initial sear, and no MSG. The dredged chicken is lightly browned in a small amount of vegetable oil, but the majority of the cooking is done in the oven which saves lots of calories. Also, this recipe makes for a ton of sauce - which would be the biggest calorie culprit - and you can easily use less and serve the sauce warmed on the side for dipping (FYI: dipping not pouring sauces, like salad dressing, onto dishes is a simple calorie saver. Humans are much too lazy to bother dipping each bite and will usually skip it).

I love the flavor profile of this dish. Unlike real takeout, which is doused in sauce to the point of not tasting the protein, you can taste all of the elements of this dish. It is sweet and it is sour, but it's also chicken and I appreciate being able to taste all of the parts in a beautiful union -not cloyingly sweet or super bitter. The browning adds a crispness that isn't hindered by the sauce and makes for a crunchy, but still saucy bite.

I will remind you that this is a takeout-based dish, so don't come looking for authentic Chinese cuisine. For starters, I have my doubts that "sweet and sour chicken" exists in traditional Chinese diets, and secondly, if it did, I'm sure it wouldn't involve ketchup or cornstarch. If you're looking for a true-to-China dish, check out Easy Chinese on the Cooking Channel. Ching-He Huan makes dishes that are legit, but she also takes the time to explain the history and visit restaurants, farms etc. that are keeping up the traditions.

Enjoy this recipe and I hope you're able to enjoy your own homemade takeout!

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

Ingredients:
3-4 boneless chicken breasts (around 1 lb), cut into 1x1" pieces
salt & pepper
2 eggs, beaten
vegetable oil
3/4 c sugar
4 T ketchup
1/2 c distilled white vinegar
1 T soy sauce
1 t garlic salt**

Method:

Preheat oven to 325. Lightly grease a glass baking dish (I use a 9x9" pan, but it's all based on how big your diced pieces are, you want to be able to lay them all in a single layer).

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil over medium/medium-high heat in frying pan. Dip chicken into cornstarch and then into eggs. Cook chicken pieces in pan until lightly brown on all sides, but not cooked through. Place browned chicken into prepared dish.

Mix sugar, ketchup, vinegar, soy sauce and garlic salt in a bowl with a whisk until sugar is dissolved. Then pour half of the mix evenly over the chicken. If you like a "wet" or saucy chicken, you can pour all of it, I prefer mine to be a bit stickier, so I gradually add more sauce throughout the cooking.

Bake for 30 minutes to an hour (until a meat thermometer in a large piece reads 160), flipping the chicken every 15 minutes (and re-evaluating sauce level, if needed). One pound usually takes around 45 minutes, but it depends on the cuts of the chicken and how crowded your pan is.

Serve with rice (homemade fried rice? yum!) and stir fried veggies.

**Note: I had a little flub today trying to throw this together (alliteration!) and used a tablespoon of minced garlic. Yes, that's a lot of garlic. And yes, it was delicious. If you love garlic, consider making this switch out. It's wonderful!

Bringing New Life to Leftovers

I love leftovers, especially holiday leftovers that are wrapped and stuffed in a number of packages and cram-packed into the fridge.

When I was younger, on Thanksgiving Day my parents and I ate lunch at my mamaw's house with some twenty-odd cousins, aunts, uncles and adopted family members. And I always looked forward to dinnertime that night, when we'd drag ourselves into the kitchen, exhausted  and would eat cold turkey, mayo and mustard sandwiches on white bread and I'd eat Jell-O fluff by the spoonful. That was the best part of the whole day!

As I got older, and our celebration became a little more disjointed and we started having our primary meal at my parents house and I'd cart my own menagerie of Tupperware back to mine, I loved re-creating the meal over and over.

I am a creature of habit - almost disturbingly so when it comes to meals. Left to my own devices, I'll master a dish or flavor profile that I fall back to repeatedly. For example, almost every weekend that Jordan's working, I make nachos or quesadillas for lunch. Do I have the ingredients for practically any dish? Sure. Do I have the capability to follow a recipe and create a successful noon-day meal? No doubt. But time and time again, I haphazardly dump Latin ingredients (salsa, guacamole etc.) and chopped up protein leftovers (chicken tenders, pot roast...) onto Santilla corn tortilla chips and nuke it for 90 seconds. Como se dice "deja vu" in espanol?

With that being said, I get a sick pleasure out of reheating duplicate Thanksgiving plates on Friday, Saturday and if I brought big enough Tupperware, Sunday. I recreate the plate dish for dish, I want the turkey, the dressing, the cranberry sauce over and over.

However, I do like to reinvent my leftovers too and today, I think I made a good dish. Jordan was at work today and doesn't like dark meat turkey, so I knew I'd be nibbling on that to leave him his favorite parts for dinner. As mentioned before, my fail-safe is Mexican cuisine so I made the most delicious quesadilla with leftover smoked turkey, shredded sharp cheddar and brie! I may try this again and do just brie and a spread of cranberry sauce, but today I took it in a decisively Mexican profile (go figure).

Despite my sub-par sour cream (I'm a snob) and a lack of guac, this quesadilla is one of my better improvisational lunches. The brie elevated the whole dish - there's melted cheese and then there's melted brie - this gave it a much smoother texture with more gooeyness than stringy meltedness. I think the cheddar contributed more flavor, but the brie added a contrasting texture to the crispness of the tortilla. The turkey, which my dad had smoked, added a much more robust flavor than my usual frozen Tyson grilled chicken strips. It also had some fat (read:flavor!) that a grilled chicken strip lacks.

My dad is a master at this kind of improv with any groceries (he and Jordan did a Chopped challenge where they could only spend $15 to feed four of us 3-courses at a discount store), much less leftovers. He is notorious for getting every last drop of flavor and value out of an item; one of his best examples is a chicken noodle soup made out of KFC chicken and gravy leftovers! I hope to someday have this flair and ability to improvise, but I certainly think this is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, with our remaining gallon-sized Ziploc bag of turkey, we'll be able to think outside of the box (and Mexican flavors) for some new dishes this weekend.

Happy eating and reheating!

Saturday update: I just used diced pieces of turkey leg meat to make a wonderful panang curry! Panang curry is often served in Thai restaurants; it's a coconut milk red curry with lots of vegetables and very little heat. It has traditional light and warm Thai flavors without the spice you sometimes find in curries - but I served it with a sprinkle of Thai spice and sriracha for a little oomph. I improvised this recipe- turkey, not tofu; used red curry paste instead of panang curry paste (panang is a red curry with peanuts added - you could probably recreate that, but it isn't carried pre-made in our local stores) and I didn't use Thai basil, either (another shortcoming of our grocery store). The recipe is super easy and other than the coconut milk, we normally have these ingredients on hand, so it was fairly inexpensive (we spent 16 cents on ginger and another 16 cents on snap peas!) and could be a quick dinner in a pinch. If you're looking for a sneaky, not-super-turkey-flavored way to use your leftovers (or any meat/veggie/soy leftovers), this is it!