Tonight's Dinner - Shrimp Stir Fry.

Tonight's dinner is Szechuan shrimp with cashews.

Here are my ingredients to add with the shrimp: 1/2 cup cashews 1/3 cup orange juice 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup Ponzu sauce 1 TB garlic, minced 1 small onion, sliced 1 small jar roasted red peppers, sliced 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar 3 TB Sriracha sauce scallions, sliced hot red pepper, minced 1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds

While I was getting all the ingredients for the shrimp stir fry ready, Mr. Hawthorne was fixing his rice.

Here, he's chopped onions, celery, and has some ginger ready.

He's simmering Lundberg Brown Basmati rice with 2 bay leaves.

The onions, celery, and ginger go into melted butter to saute.

The rice is absorbing the water nicely.

Raisins get added to the celery/onion mixture.

Then the rice gets added.

A bit of soy sauce goes in.

And a little cumin. Rice is done. Set aside and cover. Now, Rosie is up.

I heated up a bit of extra light olive oil and some sesame oil, then tossed in the shrimp for a quick stir fry. (You might want to under-fry the shrimp since they're going to be added back in later. After a quick toss in the oil, remove and set aside.

The cashews go in next for about a minute.

Add orange juice.

Soy sauce.

Ponzu sauce (citrus seasoned soy sauce).

Onions.

Garlic.

Roasted red peppers.

Add rice wine vinegar and reduce for 5 minutes.

Add in shrimp.

Then the Sriracha sauce.

Hot red pepper.

The green onions.

And finally add in the toasted sesame seeds and turn off heat.

Stir a bit to combine everything.

And serve with rice. OK. This is one of the recipes from my cooking classes. I would reduce the soy and Ponzu sauce by more than half because this was really salty. That said, the sweetness (from the raisins) of the rice complemented the saltiness of the shrimp dish.

Despite the saltiness, and I am not a fan of overly-salted foods, I still liked this and will make it again. I'll just hold WAY back on the soy and Ponzu. I liked the heat of the dish. And nuts are always a plus. If I'd thought about it, I'd have added some lemon zest into the rice just for good measure. (But, Mr. H. hates zest.) Good meal, but I'll be drinking a gallon or so of water tonight.

Sunflowers And Szechuan Shrimp.

Let's start off with my sunflowers, shall we?

I love the pattern of the seeds.

More sunflowers.

OK, enough of sunflowers.
Let's get to the food.

Remember my wontons from the other day?
I had some leftover along with the shrimp/pork cabbage stuffing, so I decided to finish that up.

And I decided to make a twist on the crab rangoon.
Since I had no crab, I'll be making no-crab-rangoons.
I stuffed my wontons with cream cheese, a little slice of provolone, a bit of snow pea, and a walnut.

Here are the stuffed egg rolls and the wontons, with, apparently, an extra bit of protein.
There appears to be a bug on the plate at top right.

Heat up your oil.
When bubbles come out of the end of a wooden spoon, your oil is ready.

Fry until golden brown.

Drain on paper towels.

My no-crab-rangoon was quite good.
Now this was just an appetizer.

On to the entree:
Szechuan Shrimp.

Try saying that 3 times fast.

Here are my ingredients:

sesame oil
cashews
orange juice
soy sauce
Ponzu sauce
garlic
onion
roasted red peppers
rice wine vinegar
chili garlic sauce
green onions

Oops. Forgot to include the crushed red pepper.
Here, I've sliced my onions, red pepper, and green onions and minced the garlic.

I juiced my orange and toasted my sesame seeds.

Peeled and deveined shrimp.

First, the shrimp go into a pan coated with the sesame oil.

Saute for about 3 minutes, remove shrimp from pan, and set aside.

Add cashews to pan and saute for about a minute.

Add orange juice. You know I had to get the picture of the steam.

Add about 1/4 cup of soy sauce.

Add 1/2 cup Ponzu sauce.
And what is Ponzu sauce you're asking.
Well, I'll tell you.
It's a citrus-seasoned soy sauce.
I found Kikkoman's Ponzu at my grocery store, but you can make your own, which I will do some day.

Here's the recipe:
(Which I got from one of our cooking classes at the NC Aquarium.)

2 cups soy sauce
1 cup orange juice
1 TB garlic
1/4 honey of sugar
1 raw chicken breast

Boil all ingredients until reduced and skim thick foam off top.
Sauce is done when no more foam is present.
Discard chicken breast (It will be very salty and dark and not a good texture for eating.).

Add in the onion and garlic.

Add in the roasted peppers.

Add 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add 3 TB chili garlic sauce.

Add in crushed red peppers.

Add the shrimpies back in and heat up.

Serve on a bed of rice with green onions and toasted sesame seeds on top.

I enjoyed this dish.
Nice and spicy.
Nice textures.
Wonderful flavors.
I will be making this again.

Why do my son's friends crawl out of the woodwork when dinner is served?
Needless to say, there were no leftovers.