Tasty, Healthy Shrimp Cakes

I'm going to cut to the chase, skip the story, and tell you that this recipe was excellent — please try it! It was easy to make, healthy, very fresh, and so so (so) good. My recipe is adapted from Cooking Light (but I promise it doesn't taste like diet food).

Thai Beef Rolls

In an effort to use up my basil before the weather turns cooler for the season, I found a recipe for Thai Basil Rolls on Serious Eats. These rolls have a great Thai flavor — made tastier by a sweet and spicy dipping sauce.

We had these for a light dinner, but they would make a great appetizer!

Tasty Turkey Chili

In honor of the first day of fall, I decided to make a pot of turkey chili. It has a slightly different flavor than traditional chili and is a nice, healthy option for lunch or dinner! Like most soups and chili, it's actually tastier after being in the fridge overnight.

I'm not sure where I got this recipe, but I acquired it about 5 years ago when I was counting Points (it's 4 points for a cup, by the way!).

When possible, I try to buy "no salt added" products so I can season everything on my own. I used no salt tomatoes and corn in this recipe.

Homemade Pizza

All summer I said I was going to try grilled pizza. We got a sweet new grill at our engagement party, and I was set to use it Saturday night — until I was informed that the grill christianing would be reserved for a juicy steak. Um, yeah. Anyway...

Plan B? Homemade pizzas in the oven! Same ingredients, still delicious, and a lot of fun to put together! The key to making delicious pizza is definitely in the dough and toppings — fresh-picked, if possible!

Here's the list of ingredients that you'll need from start to finish:

• Active dry yeast
• Sugar
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Course salt and ground pepper
• All-purpose flour
• Garlic
• Whole peeled tomatoes (1 can)
• Lots of fresh herbs (I used basil)
• Whatever you want for toppings  

Read Me! Like Me!

Too desparate? Duly noted. 

Ever since I discovered the "Stats" section of Blogger, I've become obsessed with fond of looking at how people find my humble blog, where they're from, and which posts are most popular. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked when I saw the range of countries that my blog has reached! Among those listed...

So I want to give an international shout out if any of you are reading — guten tag, bonjour, buenos dias, g'day, ni hao, and privyet friends! And if you got to my page in error and quickly hit the back button, that's cool too (although, Nicaragua, you visited my page 16 times this week, so it doesn't seem like a fluke to me).

Anyway (and this one's for you Kristine!), there's another fun feature in Stats that lets you see the search terms that people typed into Google to find the blog. Now Kristine has posted her very entertaining finds in her recent blog post and has challenged her readers to do the same. However, much to my chagrin (yeah, I said chagrin), mine aren't funny. Anything funny about someone Googling "cruffin recipe"? No. Not so much. Unless you think it's funny that Brad and I thought we made the word cruffin up. Sad trombone.

The only one that's worth mentioning is:

"how to make school meatloaf"

Now, maybe it's been too long since I've been in school, but is the meatloaf so memorable that you'd try to Google the recipe? And is there one singular recipe for all school meatloaf? I have so many questions for this Googler. All I know is that fate brought us together.

Summer Squash Cake

I know, I know. You're probably thinking, "Enough of your veggie-filled sweet treats!"

But I need you to trust me that this "loaf cake" (as Martha calls it) is freakin amazing delicious. It has a very unique flavor, as most of the breads/cakes that I've made with veg tend to have a spicy flavor (i.e. cinnamon, nutmeg). However this cake's flavor is sweet and moist and has a hint of pistachio and fennel seed.

And can I just put it out there that I do.not.like yellow squash. Can't eat the stuff. Don't like the taste; can't stand the smell.

The recipe comes from Martha, one of my favs, and is called Two-Colored Squash Loaf Cake. Martha, darling, please don't be offended, but the name of your recipe leaves something to be desired. You're already messing with people by throwing a whole lot of squash into a cake. Perhaps a friendlier name (i.e., one that doesn't have the word "loaf" in it) is more suitable? That's my only complaint — and I've taken it upon myself to rename the recipe.

Restaurant Review: Fat Salmon

If there's one thing Brad and I love, it's going out for sushi! This weekend, we made our second trip to Fat Salmon, located in the Washington Square West neighborhood (719 Walnut Street). The first time we went, Fat Salmon was a BYO that had applied for a liquor license but was waiting for it to be approved. To our disappointment, this weekend was the first weekend that they were no longer a BYO — boo! We knew it was inevitable though.

We started with the shrimp tempura appetizer — B ate the shrimp, and I ate the veggies! Perfect! It was very tasty, and I was very pleased with the variety, including a red and green pepper ring, sweet potato slices, zucchini, broccoli, and green beans.

We ordered five rolls to share for dinner (what can I say — he's a hungry guy):

• Rock 'N Roll: Tuna, salmon, cucumber inside; crunchy and eel sauce on top.
• Rolling Fire: Shrimp tempura, cucumber inside; broiled spicy scallop sauce with crab stick and scallion on top — spicy spicy!
• Mr. French Kiss: Spicy crab stick with scallion, masago, and crunchy inside; shrimp, bacon — yes you read that right — and onion tempura on top.
• Lobster Tail Tempura: See the picture below — that mother had to be 2 inches in diameter!
• Nami: Salmon, cucumber, spicy sauce inside; avocado on top.