Easy Shrimp Fried Rice

Needed:
12 shrimp, or you could do chicken, tofu, or no meat at all
3 C prepared rice ( white or long grain brown is fine, follow directions on rice package. Some recipes suggest day old rice.)
3/4 C shredded carrot pieces
3/4 C frozen peas
4 green onions chopped
3 cloves garlic pressed
2 tsp garlic powder
4 eggs ( or egg whites)
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp garlic olive oil divided
3 tbl low sodium soy sauce
1 tsp thai garlic sauce ( optional)

What to do:
1. Whisk egg with 2 tsp sesame oil in a small dish then set aside.
2. Heat 1 tsp of the sesame oil or garlic olive oil in a wok or sauté pan. Sauté shrimp, season with garlic powder and oregano if you like. Cook about 3 minutes each side until pink all the way through. Put on a cutting plate to the side and cut into bite size pieces when cooled.
3. Heat remaining oil add veggies and onions. Stir fry until tender, add garlic and garlic powder
and sauté 30 seconds more. Push the garlic veggie mix aside and add egg in to pan to scramble.
4. Once egg is scrambled add cooked meat, rice and soy sauce, toss to coat and combine all together.

 Recipe adapted from

Read more

Tomatoes A La Carte'

Whats needed:

2 roma tomatoes, washed and ends cut off. Sliced 

Garlic olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Sea Salt

2 TBL red onion diced small and thin

3 garlic cloves minced

1-2 TBL chopped fresh basil

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

What to do: 

On a plate layer ingredients in the order listed above from top to bottom, (tomato slices, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt, red onion, garlic minced). Add fresh basil and cheese last. Sprinkle 1TBL of fresh Parmesan over tomato slices after basil. This makes for a great snack or we use it in place of a salad some nights as our veggie with dinner. Enjoy!

Read more

Easy Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies

What's needed:
2 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
8oz butter at room temperature ( I used natural Irish butter from Costco)
1/2 C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 to 1 whole vanilla bean, halved length wise and seeds scraped out into bowl

What to do:
- In a stand mixer, cream together butter and powdered sugar. This make take the mixer a couple minutes. Mix until mixture is light and fluffy.
- Scrap down sides of mixing bowl and mix one more time.
- Mix in vanilla and vanilla beans. Scrap down sides again.
- Sift in dry mixture, flour and salt, into creamed butter mixture. Make sure not to over mix! Mix until sifted flour is just incorporated.
- Turn dough out onto parchment or wax paper in a ball and pat down.

- Cover with wax paper and roll out into a square or whatever shape you like to cut out your cookies, until dough is 1/4" in thickness. This eliminates having to use flour.
- I rolled mine into a square to cut straight squares out as I found on the recipe from sweetlavnerbakeshoppe.com
- Carefully place large flat rolled out disk on cutting board and place in fridge for atleast 10-20 minutes.
-  Remove wax paper on top and cut cookies with out cutting the parchment below.
- Line your baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat oven to 325*F.
- Place cookies on lined baking sheet about a 1/2 inch apart, they do not spread. If wanting to add decorations do that now and press in to cookies a little.
- Place back in fridge to firm up another 5-10 minutes. You can re roll out the scraps to make more cookies, but you may want to put the extra dough back in the fridge again after rolling out, it will be pretty soft at this point.
- Bake 12-17 minutes, check on them at 10 minutes since everyones oven is different. They are done when firm and golden blonde color. Then let cool on wire rack and enjoy!

My mom loved them with a cup of coffee!

Recipe completely adapted from sweelavenerbakeshoppe.com

Read more