Step, Logan Square, Chicago
Since our kitchen cabinets are so tall and I can’t reach past the second shelf, my dad made me this step for the kitchen. It’s helping a lot! And it also works good to get a good angle when photographing food in the kitchen.
Tags:Chicago·condo·logan square
A couple weeks ago we were watching Food Network and for about 10 seconds they showed someone wrapping a shrimp in some sort of wonton or wrap or roll. This got a brain worm in Dallas’ head that he wanted to make it for Thanksgiving… never mind that he never had before and didn’t have any sort of recipe.
Last weekend when we rented car to go to Wisconsin we also ran errands. We ended up going to Costco, Jewel and Whole Foods to get everything we needed… it turned out we were making spring rolls, which I didn’t even realize until we were buying the spring roll skins. About mid week Dallas made a couple rolls and we taste tested.
On Thanksgiving we started making spring rolls. Well, Dallas did most of the work. I just chopped up a few things and prepared the skins. We made a few with different ingredients and sauces and adjusted until we got to something we really liked. In the end we did shrimp marinated in 7 Paths Sesame Ginger Sauce, diced jalapenos, chopped cilantro, chopped leaf lettuce, diced water chestnut and chopped green onion. We tried a bit of Thai chili sauce but it was too hot with the jalapenos. For a dipping sauce we used Iron Chef Sesame Garlic Sauce because it was a bit thicker and it had a sweetness that offset the spiciness of the jalapenos.
What we didn’t think about is how labor intensive the rolls are. Not hard to make, but tedious. I mean, you have to stuff and roll each one and get a technique down. .. which our technique was a little sloppy. .. but at the end? Everyone seemed to love them. It was a fun, unique addition to our meal and was fresh and light in comparison to the other comfort foods that we eat at Thanksgiving.
A couple notes: We got two different kinds of spring roll skins. The ones on the left in the photo below were square and a bit thicker. The ones on the right were round and a bit thinner. Dallas preferred rolling with the thinner round skins.
Not the most attractive presentation, but we layered the rolls between sheets of damp paper towel so that they wouldn’t dry out. Dallas saw online that you were supposed to serve spring rolls within a few hours or they’d get dry. Using plastic wrap and damp paper towel helped keep them moist even until the next day when Dallas and I and Jill and Brian ate the leftovers.
Tags:cooking and baking·costco·dallas·food network·jewel·shrimp·spring roll·whole foods
Brian Carving the Turkey, Wrigleyville, Chicago
Quinn, Wrigleyville, Chicago
Quinn & Dallas, Wrigleyville, Chicago
Dallas: “Quit interrupting me while I’m watching the Cowboys!”
At the adult table: Chad, Quinn, Jen, Brian, Jill, Meg (and me)
At the kid table/sports enthusiasts table/unmarried guy table: Chen-Je, Limey, Dallas
This year we didn’t go to Vegas for Thanksgiving because we just bought our condo. We didn’t go to my brother’s house because he spends Thanksgiving in Stevens Point, WI, with his wife’s family. We didn’t go to my parents’ house because Dallas only had one day off and we didn’t want to spend it driving 4.5 hours each way. Every year Brian and Jill have Thanksgiving dinner for their family and friends who are in town. We had lots of fun visiting with everyone, playing with Quinn and Vegas (Brian & Jill’s dog), watching 3 football games, and playing cards. Quinn’s new thing is to kiss everyone. It’s not even a kiss really. He leans his head next to yours and says “Mwah!” So cute. Everyone was bragging that they’d gotten more kisses from Quinn than anyone else.
The food at dinner was so delicious. Jill made an oven turkey and Brian made a fried one. Jill also made green bean casserole and stuffing. Jen made butternut squash soup and mashed potatoes. Chad baked pumpkin pie. Kristin’s mom made a pie and sent it over. Meg made a cranberry jello mold. I brought a bottle of Sasha’s wine (Eno Wines) from and baked cookies. Dallas made spring rolls (more on that later). Chen-Je brought several bottles of wine. I remember really liking the Alamos Malbec.
It was kind of nice to call a cab Thanksgiving night and go home. I don’t think I’ve gone home on Thanksgiving night for years!
Tags:brian·chad·chen-je·Chicago·cowboys·dallas·football·jen·jill·limey·meg·quinn·thanksgiving·turkey·vegas·wine·wrigleyville
I remember back in the late 80s or early 90s a recipe went around for Mrs. Field’s Chocolate Chip cookies. There was some sort of tale that went something like this:
So-and-so called Mrs. Fields Cookies and asked for their cookie recipe. She was told there was a two-fifty charge for the recipe. She assumed it was $2.50 and she charged it to her VISA. It was not $2.50 but $250.00. In order to get her money’s worth, she is passing the recipe out to everyone.
I’ve heard this story in all sorts of version attached to all sorts of recipes and sometimes it is Nieman-Marcus substituted in for Mrs. Fields. Snopes has a lot of information on the legend, which, btw, is not true. I found this recipe in my old recipe box. It said I got it from Jody Coppersmith, a friend of my parents who lived down the road from us, closer to Bean City. I’m not sure how she got the recipe or how it got passed from person to person.. somehow I ended up writing down this version of the recipe and going with it. No matter the origins or the unlikelihood that it’s authentic, it’s a keeper for sure!
I know I just said that we get most of our recipes online, but I do have an old recipe box filled with all kinds of recipes I collected 10 – 20 years ago. Yes, 20. I baked a lot as a teenager. In many ways the recipe box is more of a memory box because I always note when I made the recipe on the back. Makes me think I should add a comment to cooking posts every time I remake a recipe.
In September I pulled out the recipe for Mrs. Field’s Chocolate Chip Cookies and made them for my birthday party. To mix it up a little I used Ghirardelli white and semi-sweet chocolate chips. The cookies were a big hit and flew off the try in 3 seconds. I decided to make them again last night to bring to Thanksgiving Dinner tonight. It seems that there are a lot of pies being made, but I think we’ll be visiting all day, so I thought cookies would be a good snacking dessert.
One other note: Contrary to the directions on the recipe card above, I usually mix the wet ingredients with the sugars and mix the dry ingredients separately and then combine them.
Tags:mrs fields·mrs fields chocolate chip cookie·Nostalgia·thanksgiving
Club Lago, River North, Chicago
It’s a pretty slow day in the office with the holiday coming up, so us suckers who were stuck here (there were only a few) went out for lunch at Club Lago. I liked this place. It had a nice family, old-timey Italian restaurant feel to it. I think the menu is different every day. A couple of my coworkers used to work nearby at former jobs and have been going to Club Lago for years. I didn’t have it but Eric said the eggplant Parmesan will blow your mind. He had it today and his head is still there atop his shoulders, so maybe not.. but pretty dang good, in his opinion. Aside from the food it was nice to just get out of the office and spend some time with coworkers not talking about projects.