Shrimp Enchiladas

This was also the night we discovered how fat we really should be. It also happened to be Valentine's Day.

We've made enchiladas before and both agreed enchiladas with shrimp in them would be quite delicious. I made the suggestion to make something with shrimp for Valentine's Day, since we never splurge on good shrimp (eco-friendly shrimp is nearly impossible to find). So it was natural that shrimp enchiladas was going to be our VDay menu. (That, and Rich had been asking for enchiladas for almost two weeks...)

Oh, you're in the kitchen? There must be food I can snub.

We've also recently discovered Whole Foods. Not in the sense that we didn't know it existed, but in the sense that until the last month or so Whole Foods was the wildly expensive yuppie grocery store you went to if you wanted to talk to staff members with dreads and those beanie hats that are only half on your head (how do those things stay on?). But I'd gone in there a couple times to find some body products for my ridiculously sensitive skin and discovered the prices weren't as ridiculous as I'd thought, especially for the quality. 

One day we went in there together. The Hillcrest location forces you to enter through the produce section, where everything is organic and there's space for locally grown produce. Towards the back is the meat counter. I'll admit that the meat counter at Whole Foods is enticing. For a bunch of dead animal sitting on lettuce behind a glass it's a very sexy part of the store. And this is coming from an almost-vegetarian. Rich? He almost looked aroused at the meat counter. 

And then we got to the beer aisle. So. Much. Beer. And it's all good and lots of it is local! Rich found heaven.

All the beer!

Anyway, so Whole Foods has a seafood counter within the meat counter, and every species is labeled with a form of certification from the Marine Stewardship Council (which may or may not be a great thing... best to do your own research on your seafood ahead of time). We bought shrimp. However, we were not the only people to want shrimp for our Valentine's Day dinner and were only able to get about a half pound of the uncooked shrimps. Should be plenty, right? It's enchiladas... how much shrimp do we need?

Get a full pound. Maybe we're just fat kids, but the thought of making an 8x8 inch dish of enchiladas seemed unfilling. A 9x13 dish was more appropriate (and leftovers!). But we did not buy enough shrimp for a full dish... so we had to get creative chopping them. A half pound would have been perfect for a 2 person serving, but we stretched it into a 4 person serving. Oh well.

Ingredients:

Shrimp

Tortillas

Pepper jack cheese

Enchilada sauce

Onions (optional, but awesome)

Cook your shrimps, if they don't come pre cooked. Stick them in some boiling water for 3-5 minutes (uncooked shrimps are slightly gray when purchased and turn pink the second they hit the water... it's really cool to watch!). Also, de-vein and de-tail your shrimps.

Cut them into little pieces, if necessary, if you didn't buy enough. We sliced them in half both vertically and horizontally.

Soften your tortillas. We use a tortilla warmer that goes in the microwave. Layer each tortilla with a small bit of cheese, as many shrimp bits as you want (but don't go overboard...), and onions if you want. Roll 'em up.

Once your pan is stacked with rolled enchiladas, pour enchilada sauce so that the rolled tortillas are covered. Cover that with shredded cheese.

Cook for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the cheese at the edges of the pan starts to bubble and brown.

Top your serving with sour cream, avocado, hot sauce and any other toppings you want. But in the interest of keeping the shrimp flavor, it's a good idea to not get too crazy with the toppings or other ingredients. We'd forgotten toppings so all we had was sriracha, but it was delicious anyway.

Total Cost: $10, plus market price of shrimp (serves 2-4, depending on how many shrimp you buy)

Total Time: ~35 minutes

We weren't about to share the shrimp with her, but she can have cheese!

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Vegetarian Pho with Fried Tofu

 Hot, spicy pho

We discovered a love for tofu at this strange little bar right by my place that served pizza, tots, Vietnamese sandwiches, and pho. And beer. What an unusual combination, right? And they had things like breakfast pizza which sounded gross (egg on pizza?) but smelled so good. I ordered the pho with tofu one of the first times I went there on a whim and because I'd never had it before and I was hooked. I never ordered anything else at that place.

Eventually, they started running out of pho. I would be impossibly disappointed after getting my heart set on a nice big bowl of hot pho and learn they didn't have any. The bar went through a lot of changes in a few months, and we finally learned it was closing to allow the owner to move on to bigger and better things (you can read about that here). But I never stopped loving the pho.

So I figured... why not make it?

Turns out, however, the ingredient list for authentic pho is way long. To get the broth right you have to simmer a beef bone for hours and add all these spices I don't have. So I gave up and resolved to find another pho spot that wasn't 15 miles away. Then Rich got sick. It started with just a tickle in the throat one night, a very chilly night. Pho was sounding really good, and I'd just discovered pre-packaged pho base at Sprouts. So I figured why not, let's give it a whirl. And it turned out pretty darn good, especially for a first try. My only recommendation is to either get a meat base, add your own spices to a vegetarian broth, or load up on the sriracha. The vegetarian base by itself is a little... lacking.

The steps are actually ridiculously easy, as long as you have a good soup base.

Ingredients:

Pho starter base (veggie, beef, or chicken)

Tofu (and olive oil or butter for frying, plus any seasonings)

Rice noodles

Cilantro

Green onions

Bean sprouts

Basil

Jalapeno

Lime

Sriracha

Plum sauce (optional)

So. Yummy.

Chop your veggies. Slice jalapeno and lime, chop some green onions, and pick fresh basil leaves and grab a big handful of sprouts. 

Fry the tofu. I always use olive oil, but I know butter tastes better. Use whatever you like. Or just boil it and don't fry it at all, or do a dry fry with no oil or butter (just keep an eye on it). I like to put a bunch of seasonings on my tofu: chili peppers, black pepper, some garlic salt, and a good amount of sesame seeds.

Cook the rice noodles! Follow whatever the package says, but it's just like cooking any other noodle. Also, simmer the broth in a big pot until nice and hot. You might also want to add the tofu into the broth so it can soak up the flavor (and stay warm), and add in a few more spices if you go the veggie route.

Scoop some rice noodles into a big ol' soup bowl. I did not have the kind of bowls you get at pho restaurants, and I plan on remedying this soon. Add the green onions and cilantro.

Pour the broth and the tofu over the noodles. Let it steep in. Top with the rest of the ingredients!

Shrimp pho is also really good. And I'm sure the beef and other cow parts are delicious as well. But I really dig the tofu.

Total Cost: ~$15 (less if you already have some of the toppings)

Total Time: ~30 minutes (assuming you don't spend 12 hours simmering a beef bone)

Note: In this particular post the photos are partially courtesy of my phone, which, while awesome and pretty decent at playing camera, is no match for Rich's actual camera. So if some of the pics look like cell phone pics, it's 'cause they are.

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Spicy Bean Burritos

These aren't your typical bean and cheese burritos. These have a kick.

Ingredients:
Vegetable oil
Garlic
Chili powder
1 Chile from a can in adobo sauce
Ground cumin
Cayenne pepper
Pinto or black beans
Brown rice (cooked)
Salsa
Tortillas (burrito sized)
Cheese
Lettuce
Green onion
Sour cream

One of these days I want to try cooking my own beans, rather than getting them from cans every time, and will probably start with this recipe, since it's so flavorful. It would be very easy to make spicy beans from scratch.

Chop a few cloves of garlic and one of the peppers from the can of chiles in adobo sauce and put them in a hot pan with a tablespoon of vegetable oil, a teaspoon of chili powder, a spoonful of adobo sauce, a teaspoon of cumin, and a few shakes of cayenne pepper. Depending on how hot you want it you can add more or less of those spices. Cook all that for about a minute to let it all simmer together.

Add the beans! If you're making a ton, use two cans (should feed 6 people). The recipe we used said to use a can of pinto and a can of black beans, but it was just the two of us so we used the one can, which gave us 3 medium sized burritos each. With all those spices it sure comes out hot. 

Add 1/3 cup of water with the beans and mix everything together real well. Make sure all the spices and adobo sauce covers the beans and bring it to a simmer over medium heat. Once it's a little bubbly lower the heat to medium low and mash the beans a little bit with a spoon. Continue cooking for 8-10 minutes, stirring and mashing as you go.

Ricey, beany, spicey.

Mix in about a cup of cooked brown rice and about a 1/4 cup of fresh salsa. Stir everything together real well so the rice is coated in the bean spices and the salsa. 

A little bundle of everything yummy. 

Assemble the burritos! We got a package of medium sized tortillas, and they really could have been bigger. Two of the medium sized equals one of the normal, large burrito sized tortillas, so we each had to have two to feel nice and fed. 

The trick to rolling a good burrito: don't overstuff it. Put what looks like a very small amount of the bean mixture in a line in the middle of the tortilla and add the toppings. After you put the cheese, onions, lettuce, sour cream and avocado on it (and maybe a dab of extra salsa) your burrito will be quite full. If you've ever been to Chipotle and watched them roll the burritos, try to copy that method. They take one side of the tortilla, fold it over quickly and use the tortilla to pull back all of the ingredients into a nice little package. Then, fold one end side inwards like you're wrapping a present and continue rolling the burrito over the end fold. If it's too stuffed it'll split down the middle, spilling bean goodness everywhere.

Add sriracha!

Total Cost: ~$15 (feeds 4-6, assuming you already have the spices... if not it's time to invest)

Total Time: ~30 minutes (including chopping, excluding time to cook rice)

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Sriracha Brussel Sprouts Over Quinoa

This recipe came about when I was craving avocado and happened to have some Brussels sprouts that really needed cooking. When I saw the sriracha I knew Rich would love it. And as weird as Brussels sprouts, quinoa and avocado covered in sriracha sauce sounds it's actually super delicious.

Ingredients:

Quinoa

Broth

Brussels sprouts (15-20)

Sriracha sauce

Avocado

Cheese

Garlic

Shallot

Olive oil

Lime

Salt and pepper

Cook quinoa like you cook rice, except use broth instead of water. (Exchanging broth for water when cooking rice makes it sooo tasty.) Use two cups of broth for every one cup of quinoa. Stir the quinoa real good because the grains will gather at the surface of the broth.

Like so.

Bring it to a rolling boil, then put the heat on low and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes or until the broth has been absorbed, and in the last minute or so squeeze in some lime juice. The recipe I used called for lime zest, which might actually make the lime stand out more, but I have no idea how to zest.

While the quinoa is cooking, get the sprouts ready. Chop a few cloves of garlic and a shallot and mix with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper, and a bit of lime juice. Douse the whole thing in 2 tablespoons of sriracha sauce and mix it all together really well. 

Clean and stem the Brussels sprouts, removing any loose outer leaves. Then douse the suckers in the garlicy, shalloty, srirachay mixture.

Line a baking sheet with tin foil and spread out the Brussels sprouts. Cover them with any of the sriracha mixture left in the bowl. If a little more olive oil is needed brush it over the tops.

Shiny, delicious sprouts.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes and then turn. Cook again for another 15-20 minutes, adding a tad more olive oil if necessary. Don't make them drenched in oil, just don't let them dry out.

Once they're good and crisped, sprinkle a small bit of cheese over the tops of the sprouts and return to the oven for another minute or two.

Remove them from the oven, add a diced avocado, and spoon the whole thing over a pile of quinoa. Add as much sriracha as you wish- the lime and avocado counteracts the spiciness, so you can add a lot more than you can usually handle. Or at least that's how it was for me... certain others like to pile on the rooster sauce.

And eat! This is also fantastic as leftovers. Just add fresh avocado and more sriracha.

Total Cost: ~$10 (feeds 4 easily)
Total Time: 45 minutes

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