I do many things, but when I'm doing what I love – it is cooking! Welcome to my happy place filled with all things delicious!
One of the kiddos wanted waffles for breakfast Sunday – so, waffles is what she got.
To make the waffles, we use the same batter as when we make pancakes – take a look at the post for my banana pancakes. For these waffles, just leave the bananas and cinnamon.
Then, just add in the amount of chocolate chips and walnuts you want (or any variation thereof) and you’re good to go. Cook the waffles in your waffle iron, per the instructions and serve with butter and syrup, if desired.
This isn’t a new recipe, but a derivative of recipes I’ve shared before – take a look at the recipe for my banana pancakes and just make your pancakes without the bananas! Or, use your own go to recipe for pancakes (or even frozen pancakes) – whatever works for you!
The post is really about how I like to eat my ‘plain’ pancakes – with cookie butter!
I buy my cookie butter at Trader Joe’s, but I’ve recently seen that Walmart is selling cookie butter – I haven’t tried it though.
This is like having a dessert for breakfast!!
I’ve talked about the Alouette Smokey Jalapeno cheese before – I used it when I made shrimp and grits, using it. This stuff is good!
I was looking for something quick, and kind of snacky (Is that a word? If it isn’t, it should be!), for lunch. I decided to use some of the wontons I had on hand and I had just picked up some of the Alouette Smokey Jalapeno cheese – it seemed like a match made in heaven.
I was just making these for me, for lunch – but, they would make a perfect appetizer, if you wanted to make a bunch of them. I decided to make 6 wontons (but accidentally took 7 out of the pack – 7 it is!).
I put about a tsp of the cheese in each wonton.
I wasn’t quite sure how to close them up – the first one, I just folded over into a triangle, but wasn’t quite sold on it. Then I decided to pinch the corners together, kind of like crab rangoon appetizers that I’ve had at Chinese restaurants. To close them up, just put a little bit of water where I was punching the wontons together.
I could have fried them – but, I decided to do them in the oven. In order to make them a little crispy, I did spray them with avocado spray.
I baked them in a 400 degree oven, for 15 minutes, on parchment paper. They were perfectly crispy!
Even the bottom of them were browned, since my avocado spray went on a little heavier than intended and I made sure to rub the wontons on the overspray – getting avocado oil on the bottom.
This was super easy – and now I want to do it with different Alouette cheeses!!
As happens sometimes, I was alone and needing to cook just for myself. I decided that I wanted a vegetarian dish, and Asian seemed nice. That’s something that my family doesn’t tend to enjoy as much as I do. They like Asian food – but, I really like Asian food.
The key to this dish is the sauce. I like spicy – and this is definitely a bit spicy – so feel free to adjust to your tastes.
The sauce consists of soy sauce, sesame oil, sweet chili sauce, rice vinegar, green onion and for spice some red pepper flakes and sriracha. The pepper flakes and sriracha didn’t make it into this first picture, but they made it into the sauce at the end.
I started by cooking the noodles. While the noodles were cooking I heated my wok. You want a hot wok and I find it works best when I preheat it. My wok is a cast iron wok, but any wok (or even a pan that can handle a high temperature) will do.
To start the stir fun, I added the oil into the wok. I used grapeseed oil because it can handle high heat. Peanut oil would work well too. Once the oil was hot, I added in the garlic and cooked it for a minute.
After the garlic was cooked (this doesn’t take long – and you want to work fast, as with most stir fry recipes), I added in the mushrooms and cooked them for about 5 minutes. The wok is very hot – so keep stirring so that things don’t stick and don’t burn.
After the mushrooms were finished, I tossed in the noodles and the sauce. It only takes a minute or two to stir fry everything.
I topped the noodles with some sesame seeds and few more green onions. A perfect, very fast, and delicious vegetarian meal for one!
Spicy Asian Noodles with Mushrooms for One
Linguine (or similar) pasta – 1/4 of a box, give or take
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tbsp grapeseed oil (you want an oil that can handle a high heat)
Sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp sweet chili sauce
1/2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tbsp green onions
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp sriracha
Garnishments
Sesame seeds
Green Onions
I’ve seen this on the menu at several restaurants, all slightly different – grilled shrimp, fried shrimp, broiled shrimp, for example – but, the one thing that seems to stay the same is the bang bang sauce.
I knew that the bang bang sauce had mayonnaise (I know that seems odd for pasta, but trust me, it’s good!), sweet chili sauce and sriarcha. I decided to add a little garlic, red pepper flakes and a little bit of lime juice to mine.
Another thing that I’ve seen varied is the type of pasta. I chose to add linguine. To me – spaghetti is too thin to really ‘hold’ the sauce and short pastas just don’t seem ‘right’ to me. So linguine it was!
Since I was cooking just for myself (probably for my lunch and my dinner), I decided to make this recipe a ‘for two’ (or 1 really hungry person!) recipe. So, all of my ingredients are sized accordingly. I could have made a larger dish, but I don’t love reheating shrimp.
I use frozen shrimp, so I took out enough shrimp for the dish and defrosted them in cold water.
While the shrimp were defrosting, I started my pasta. I added about 1/2 of a full box of linguine to well salted, boiling water.
While the pasta was cooking, I put together my bang bang sauce – I’m not going to lie – I could have eaten this by the spoon! It’s GOOD! As noted above, I used mayonnaise, sweet chili sauce, sriracha, red pepper flakes, garlic and a bit of lime juice.
And, I just whisked it all together and set it aside.
After my shrimp were thawed, I sauteed them in a hot pan with 1/2 tbsp of butter.
Just before putting them in the pan, I seasoned them with a little bit of salt and pepper (I didn’t want to use any seasonings that would compete with the bang bang sauce).
It doesn’t take long to cook shrimp, so don’t walk away!
By the time my sauce was done and my shrimp were cooked, my pasta was done. I have a pasta pot, with the pasta insert, which makes it so easy when you’re ready to toss pasta into a pan with the sauce.
I just drained the pasta and poured it into the skillet with the shrimp. Then I added in the bang bang sauce (in hind sight, I probably would have added the bang bang sauce to the shrimp first).
With tongs, I just stirred everything through.
Because I like spice, I added a few more red pepper flakes and sriracha, before eating!
Bang Bang Shrimp Pasta (for 2)
1/2 box linguine
12-15 shrimp (can use frozen – defrost prior to cooking)
1/2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper
Sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tbsp sweet chili sauce
1/2 – 1 tsp sriracha (I used a little more than that)
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp lime juice
Red pepper flakes, to taste
Michelle Can Cook! 