Tonight's Dinner - Clam Chowder And Shrimp Spring Rolls.

You know, when Mr. Hawthorne and I are eating breakfast, the inevitable question comes up: "What do you want to eat for lunch?" When we eat lunch, the question is: "What's for dinner?" It's a survival thing. You just never know where your next meal is coming from. Being supreme omnivores, we're always looking forward to the next meal, no matter in what form it comes to us. Such was the case at dinner time tonight. Mr. Hawthorne decided upon the menu. He wanted to get out the spring rolls and do a shrimp thingie with them. Then, he wanted CLAM CHOWDER. Let's start with the clam chowder.

Mr. H. cut up bits of bacon and fried 'em up.

Then he finely chopped onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes.

Tossed the veggies in with the bacon.

Added buttah.

Sauteed, then added some water.

Oh, FOR GOD'S SAKE. What's he putting in there now?

It's a FREAKIN' BOUILLON CUBE!!!!! Breathe, Rosie. Let the good air in. Let the bad air out. Be calm. Le sigh.

Then, a can of clams goes in.

Some Old Bay Seasoning.

A bit more butter.

Some sherry.

And finally some cream.

Oh my. A few toasted croutons. And this is absolute goodness in a bowl. Delicious. I can taste everything. The veggies, the pepper (I forgot to mention Mr. H. added freshly ground pepper.), the sherry, the clams, the cream. A conglomeration of flavors that all stand out on their own. It is truly wonderful. Next, I started making sauces for the shrimp spring rolls.

My first sauce consists of rice vinegar, Tamari soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and a little red firecracker.

Here's the ginger, garlic, and hot pepper.

Add in the seasoned rice vinegar.

Then the Tamari.

A bit of sugar is needed.

Ahhh. My dipping sauce and delicious little shrimpie dippers.

I liked the first picture so much, I had to get a vertical of it.

Now, on to more sauces. On the far left, I'm going to mix a chili garlic with the orange marmalade.

On the left, I have my chili/marmalade sauce, then duck sauce, then my rice vinegar/soy/red pepper sauce. In the wings are Wasabi sauce and the green herbal paste I made for Mr. Xmaskatie's salmon the other night.

Here, I have celery infused oil, basil infused oil ( in the squirt bottles) and paprika infused oil in the forefront. I learned about infused oils in my very first cooking class. A very good lesson, it was.

Now, the chowder is done. The dips are done. Let's move on to the spring rolls.

Mr. H. : "Where did you put the SPRING ROLL SHEETS?" R: "I'm sure they're here somewhere."

Mr. H : "Where??!!??" R: "I'm lookin'. Mr. H. : "Well, you're not lookin' hard enough. You've probably thrown them away." Hehe. Whenever he can't find something, he accuses me of throwing it away. Idiot. After looking for the damn things for 30 minutes, I finally found them where I knew they were, but couldn't find them the first ten times I looked. Don't you hate it when that happens? They were in the hall closet. First place I looked. Didn't see 'em. Then, finally, there they were. In plain sight. All of a sudden.

So, let's get started with shrimp spring rolls.

Here are the tapioca sheets.

See through.

Take the sheets and let them sit in water to soften.

Fixin's for the shrimp roll stuffing: lettuce, cucmber, carrots, and celery. But on typing this, after the fact, Mr. H. didn't use the celery.

Mr. Hawthorne peeled, seeded, and sliced the cucumber.

Then, he did the carrots in a mini-mandoline.

Sliced carrots. Ready.

Place carrots on a lettuce leaf.

Add sliced cukes.

Then add the shrimp.

Place the diaphanous sheet of tapioca on a a base.

Start rolling the lettuce leaf up.

Place on the spring roll sheet. Let's try it again.

This was the first time Mr. Hawthorne had made these. I was giving him directions from the peanut gallery, and he was not following any of them. He did pretty damn good.

Shrimp spring rolls. Ready to eat.

Yeah, they could've been a bit a tighter. But YOU try doing this.

Here's my plated shrimp roll. With wasabi, duck sauce, garlic/chili/orange marmalade sauce, paprika infused oil, celery infused oil, basil infused oil, and my vinegar/tamari/ginger/garlic/hot pepper.

I love this.

Just pick up that spring roll, mess up all the lovely dots of flavor on the plate, and stuff in your mug.

Close up.

Close up with the sauces/flavors on it. What can I say? Mr. Hawthorne did all this, except for the sauces. It was delightful. The chowder was delicious. So many flavors were brought to the table. The spring rolls were wonderful. The sauces were outrageous. Mr. Hawthorne and I are a team. We work for a common good. Food. And we attain Nirvana at times. I taught him well. And apparently, he listened. Ladies, they can be trained. It just takes time. And patience.

Bon Appetit!