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avocado cilantro cream

 

whipped up a batch of avocado cilantro cream to go with the tacos we will being having for dinner tonight. oh my, this stuff is delicious!

recipe notes: although i haven't tried it, i would think that if you used a whole avocado instead of the 1/2 called for in the recipe that would result in a super-tremendous avocado dip.

avocado cilantro cream

1/2 avocado, peeled, pitted, and cubed
1/2 cup light sour cream
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 drops (or more) of tabasco

combine all ingredients in a food processor. whirl until smooth.

posted by: artichoke72 at 20:19 | link | comments |
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red-hot chile oil dressing

red-hot chile oil dressing, a recipe i got from nina simonds' asian noodles cookbook (which is one of my all time favorite cookbooks) is something i make often. this dressing is hot and downright addicting! i like to use it in stir fries and to dress asian-style noodle dishes.

• 1/4 cup safflower or corn oil (i used canola)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper or 4 to 6 small dried hot chile peppers, seeded and cut into 1/4 inch rings (i used about 15 small dried hot chile peppers because i'm a chilehead)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 7 tablespoons soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons chinese black vinegar or worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons chinese rice wine or sake
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

combine both oils in a heavy saucepan and heat over high heat until almost smoking hot. add the red pepper, cover, and remove from the heat. let sit until cool, about 10 minutes. add the remaining ingredients and stir to disolve the sugar. refrigerated, in a covered container, the dressing will keep for a week. makes about 1 1/2 cups.

what i did with the red-hot chile oil dressing

i stir-fried peeled shrimp, shredded carrots, shredded cucumber (that had been peeled, seeded, and squeezed to removed liquid), bean sprouts, thinly sliced chinese cabbage, and green onions in the chile oil dressing. i added cooked fettucine noodles (you can use flat chinese egg noodles or any other flat noodle), a little more dressing and tossed it all together. i put more red-hot chile oil dressing on the table so we could drizzle more over the dish if we so desired. it was fantastic!  i have also made a similar dish using pan-seared scallops and varying vegetables.

posted by: artichoke72 at 00:35 | link | comments |
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miso soup

 

miso soup is highly nutritious, quick, and satisfying. miso soup is traditionally made with dashi and/or seaweed, but i haven't gotten accustomed to the taste, (it tastes fishy and oceany) so i leave them out. here's the basic miso soup recipe i make.

 

basic miso soup

4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup hot water
4 tablespoons miso of your choice
1 teaspoon fresh ginger root, grated (optional)
1/2 cup firm tofu, cubed
1/2 cup thinly sliced mushrooms

3 tablespoons thinly sliced scallion greens (optional)
1/4 cup spinach, swiss chard, bok choy, or other leafy green vegetable (optional)

a bundle of cooked soba (buckwheat) or somen noodles (optional)

bring the vegetable broth, ginger (if desired) and mushrooms to a simmer in a medium saucepan. meanwhile, dissolve the miso in the 1 cup of hot water. once the soup is simmering add the cubed tofu and the miso slurry. bring back to a simmer, but do not let boil. add green onions and leafy greens (if using) and remove from the heat and serve. for a heartier soup, add cooked soba noodles along with the green onions and greens and then serve.

*note: do not let the soup boil once the miso is added. doing so will greatly reduce the miso's flavor.

posted by: artichoke72 at 23:47 | link | comments |
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the worst of the worst

scafa's italian restaurant, spotsylania, virginia

as soon as we walked through the doors of scafa's italian restaurant on courthouse road in spotsylvania, we were greeted with the stench of old grease and cigarette smoke. the unpleasant smell should have prompted us to turn around and leave, but instead we stayed to endure one of the worst dining experiences in recent memory.

scafa's menu consisted of the usual items you'd find at any average italian restaurant, pizza, pasta, red sauce, and chicken wings. what?! the wings (whose being fried in hot oil contributed to the awful smell in the restaurant) struck me as an odd item to have on the menu. the lackluster menu items were blatantly overpriced, especially for a restaurant of scafa's inferiority.

we ordered spaghetti with marinara sauce, a house salad with italian dressing, chicken parmesan, and a small cheese pizza for our son, who was 3 years old at the time. with soft drinks, our total came to over $30! that didn't include the tip for the server who, although nice, was more involved with the teenage dramas being discussed among her co-workers than with actual service.

the marinara sauce on my spaghetti was bitter and metallic tasting. it was disgusting. the salad was the highlight of the meal. the green leaf lettuce was fresh and was accented with tasty and colorful vegetables. the chicken parmesan was so tough my husband could barely cut it with a knife. it was also topped with the same unappetizing marinara sauce that was on the spaghetti. my son didn't eat more than a few bites of the unremarkable pizza., so we took it home. the next day, i reheated a few slices for my lunch. almost immediately i bit into a chunk of glass that was under the cheese of the pizza. i was horrified! what if my son had eaten that glass?!

i sat down and wrote a letter to the owners of scafa's. the letter was polite and it detailed the account of our unfortunate dining experience at their restaurant. i never received a reply from them, not an apology, not a plea to give them a second chance, and most certainly not a refund for our meal. apparently, the owners of scafa's were not concerned about losing my family's business. and why should they? their parking lot is often packed with cars of patrons, who clearly have no problems supporting a less than mediocre restaurant that serves less than mediocre food.

chinamax, fredericksburg, virginia

it's not often that i throw away $20 worth of food, but after having chinamax deliver a completely inedible chinese meal to my home, that's exactly what i did. chinamax was voted "best chinese food" by readers of the local newspaper in 2002, so i was surprised by how terrible their food was.

i ordered general tso's chicken ($9.50), shrimp chop suey ($7.50), and vegetable egg rolls ($2.75) from chinamax. everything was fine up until the time i tasted the food. the man who took my order over the phone was pleasant enough. the delivery time was average (about 40 minutes) and the delivery driver was courteous.

unfortunately, the food was of poor quality. the chunks of chicken in the general tso's chicken were more connnective tissue than meat. in fact, i cut open every piece of battered chicken in the dish and not one was a chunk of white breast meat. the savory and sweet brown sauce was fine, but since i refuse to eat cartilaginous, tough, gristly meat, i threw the whole container out. the shrimp chop suey was a tad better than the general tso's chicken, although it was unlike any chop suey i have ever had. the small, scarce shrimp and mushy vegetables were prepared in a brown sauce instead of the typical light white sauce most chinese places use. it just didn't seem right and since i was already put off with the general tso's chicken, i threw the chop suey out as well. the vegetable egg rolls were soggy, flavorless, and filled almost exclusively of cabbage. blech. into the trash they went.

i don't remember ever having thrown out restaurant prepared food because it was awful, so i was tempted to call chinamax to complain and ask for a refund. but i didn't want to go to that much trouble, so i didn't call. instead, i chalked the whole ordeal up to experience and vowed to never eat at chinamax again.

dishonorable mention

dirtiest restaurants: aunt sarah's family restaurant on jefferson davis hwy. in the massaponax area. the place was dark and dingy. the floors were dirty and sticky. the windows were greasy and smudged with handprints. there was a multitude of flies buzzing around the restaurant. it was disgusting. we won't be going back there.

spanky's in downtown fredericksburg. again, dark and dingy. all the decorative junk was covered with a thick layer of dirt. i wanted to shower after leaving that place.

worst margarita: carlos o'kelly's in fredericksburg. on a whim, my husband and i stopped off at carlos o'kelly's (dumb name for a mexican joint) to watch people karaoke. we had been warned never to eat there by a spouse of an employee, but we decided to go ahead and get drinks from the bar. we got what the restaurant claimed to be margaritas. the so-called margaritas were dispensed from a frozen drink machine and were horrific. they didn't have the lime flavor that's manditory for a margarita and i'm almost positive there was absolutely no tequila what-so-ever in that $5 drink. what a rip-off ! blech!

worst baked potato: orbits (r.i.p.) in downtown fredericksburg. we liked orbits. they had killer rueben sandwiches. on one visit we ordered a baked potato for our son. when the server brought out a tiny baked new potato i was flabbergasted. i'm still practically speechless about that incident.

posted by: artichoke72 at 17:17 | link | comments |
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