Spring Rolls with Peanut Dipping Suace

 Mark and I recently took a french cooking class in Woodenville, WA. The chef that instructed the fun class was from the Seattle area as well. We of course asked "what is your favorite restaurant in downtown Seattle"? He said with no hesitation.... Long Provincial on 2nd and Stewart. Well, our condo is literally 1 block from Longs, a place that we have walked right past for 4 years and never walked into. The next night we went. A wonderful Vietnamese restaurant that has now become one of our very favorites. Very intriguing decor and live jellyfish, carved furniture with banana palms.

 One of the most amazing items we love on the menu is the Spring Rolls. Now it is a bit more carbs than I want to have so I decided to recreate it at home..... Drum Roll Please.....These were off the charts and so easy!!!

Spring Rolls
meat filling
1 1/2 lb gr turkey (gr chicken or pork)
1/2 med onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground pepper
1 TBL Thai basil, finely chopped
1 tsp grated fresh ginger

Other Fillings
match stick size slices
crimini mushrooms
green onion or chives
cucumber
carrot-optional (I do not use carrots)
Thai basil leaves
mint leaves
cilantro
Kelp Noodles

Butter Lettuce leaves for rolling

Peanut Dipping Sauce

6 TBL organic natural peanut butter-sugar free1 TBL soy sauce
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes (or to taste)
hot water to desired thinness

 
Preparation:  Mix all ground meat filling ingredients in a bowl. The easiest way is to just squish it together with  your hands. Saute over medium heat. Place in a bowl and cool in frig. Cut your other fillings making them like match stick size as much as possible.
Boil water. Put peanut butter into small bowl. Add soy sauce to peanut butter, stir and add enough water to your desired thinness for dipping sauce. (I like to use Trader Joe's Valencia Peanut Butter with Roasted Flax seeds). Refrigerate.
Place a spoonful of the ground meat on 1 or 2 butter lettuce leaves. Add your other fillings. Do not over fill or it will not roll well.  Roll the leaves around the filling. You may want to secure with a bamboo pick or small shish kabob stick.

Serve with dipping sauce in individual small bowls.

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I do not use the rice paper that would be used on the commonly known Vietnamese spring rolls, however you won't miss it with the amazing flavors in these. As for the rice noodles inside, I have discovered the Kelp Noodle. It is exactly a duplicate of a rice noodle without the carbs and calories. It has a slight crunch that is perfect in a spring roll.

List Happy Hour Seattle

So we often find ourselves flying into Seattle after being home in CA for a few weeks to an empty frig and of course no fresh food of any kind. What to do, what to do. Well we have over the last few years discovered the happy hour scene these days is all about the food and less about the drinks like in the past. We have many favorites that I will slowly post about. Most will even custom their happy hour items to suit a low carb intended diet. I say intended because we are quite aware that there may be a bit of sugar or carb here and there slipped in that you are not intending on but for the most part you can do great.
Last night we stopped in at List just 3 blocks from our condo in Belltown. They have a nice small area for outside seating if your lucky enough to get one of the few tables. I am very good at hovering so we do often end up out there when they weather is nice. The food here is fabulous and is not difficult to tweak your order to a low carb fare.         

The sea bass and prawns come on a bed a wonderful garlic kale and white beans. We just ordered no beans, extra kale.
Now these are just small plates so you want to order several, but if you are there for happy hour the price is accommodating.
These were great small plates to share.  All in all it was a very good choice when we find ourselves needing to eat at a restaurant which we do often with as much as we travel. They key is be creative, most restaurants will work with you. So, happy hour at List is from 4 to 6:30/9pm-midnight and Sunday-Monday all day. A great find.

Zucchini Noodles & Homemade Chicken Sausage

I went out and ran home with a Zucchini noodle maker yesterday. It is actually a french fry maker so the noodles are a little larger. I was not sure we would like it as well as the one that makes a smaller version but it was on sale for 14.99 at Sur La Table. We found we LOVE it. I actually have another one on order from Amazon that will be here next week however since I live in two locations I decided to go ahead and try this one out. I am so glad I did.

I also brought home organic ground chicken and decided to make sausage out of it and toss together a stir fry just to try out the new zucchini noodles.... WOW!!! The chicken sausage was so easy to put together and had the exact sausage taste you would expect from your favorite breakfast sausage.
It was an amazing dish together. Mark loved it so much he was looking through the frig today for lunch hoping there were leftovers. I had to promise to make it again soon.

Mark loves the flavor of the Jimmy Dean Maple flavored sausage and I like sausage with a little kick so I went looking for ways to recreate it. I think this first try is my keeper. We both felt this combination it hit the target.

Housemade chicken sausage & zucchini noodle stir fry

Homemade Chicken Sausage

1 lb ground chicken
1tsp fennel seed
3/4 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp sage
1/2 tsp marjoram
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp dried chili peppers
1/4 tsp heaping gr all spice
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 TBS sugar free maple syrup

Zucchini Stir Fry

4 med zucchinis
1 med white onion
1 lb crimini mushrooms

Preperation: With hands mix all sausage ingredients together so herbs are blended.
Brown sausage in non stick skillet or wok. Take out and set aside. Add Zucchini to pan, toss for about 1 min add mushrooms and onions. Stir fry for 1 min and add back in sausage. Continue cooking until desired doneness on vegetables. We like our a little al dente.

 variations: can use any combination of stir fry veggies

Basic Grilled Romaine

Ok, so I know I already posted a Crabby Grilled Romain but it was not show cased, it was kinda tucked beneath the amazing rib BBQ. Grilled Romain is such a main event in our home now that it must have a top billing. The basic salad is phenomenal all by itself but you can get so creative with whatever you can come up with to top it off with.
Fire up the BBQ or an indoor grill and voila!!! Plain salad into ohhhhh ahhhhh salad.


Grilled Romaine

Basic Grilled Romaine

4 Romaine heads
  Vinaigrette
1/2 cup Olive Oil
1/4 cup Red wine vinegar
2tsp Fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme or oregano) or
1tsp mixed dried herbs
3/4 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
    _________
Finishing Salt of choice (I love smoked salts)
Shaved Parmesan or Romano to finish
Lemon wedge

Preperation: Combine vinaigrette ingredients. I like to whip up my dressing in my little bullet blender.
Anything you have will work great.
Take off the loose outside leaves of the romaine heads. Rinse and pat dry with paper towels. Cut length wise keeping end core intact to hold leaves together.
Flat side down drizzle a bit of the vinaigrette over romaine, rub it over outside of leaves. Turn over to flat side up and drizzle just a bit again to get a little down into leaves.
Grill on BBQ or indoor grill on all sides until charred. Watch this close only takes a couple of minutes.
Drizzle more dressing to taste, sprinkle on finishing salt and shaved Parmesan. Serve with a lemon wedge or two.
We usually love to eat 2 halfs each however if you have guests and a large menu for the meal then 1 half would do.
Serves 4- 2 halfs / Serves 8-1 half

In honor of Mom and Great BBQ

     I have been away from blogging for a bit as we recently had to drive my mother up here to the northwest to place her in a care facility due to progressed dementia. I have flown back and forth for a couple of months now and of course not on the computer much at all during this very difficult transition. My father has now sold their home by us in the Coachella Valley and is in the process of moving up here to be by my mom. We are very blessed that I have a sister who is the director of a wonderful care facility (Rosemont) in Yelm, WA where I grew up. I am so glad my Mom is able to be in such a place where she is being taken such good care of. Although we live in the desert in CA, we work here in the Seattle/Tacoma area so I am able to come up regularly and go visit her and my family that still live in Yelm. I am so very grateful that they are there to see her daily. My mother has been my inspiration in the kitchen in many ways. She was considered the most fabulous cook in our town. We would often have huge crowds of 50 or more people and my mom and dad would have amazing BBQ's with my mom cooking all the fixings to go with. Her pies would go for several hundred dollars at the pie auctions for our church fund raisers. Far more than anyone else's. She was FAMOUS for her cooking and baking.

Now saying all that, she did not know what all the carbs and sugars can do to our bodies. She just knew good old fashioned southern cooking. Then came diabetes. She learned from the doctor to cut out the sugars etc.... and did so, but frankly through mainstream medicine was never told anything about how carbohydrates convert to sugar in our bloodstream. The outcome has been many diabetes complications including the extreme dementia she now lives with.

Seeing what diabetes has done to my mother and knowing it is strongly inherited is what motivated me to go beyond the mainstream philosophies of what causes this disease (and so many more) and brought me to the research of what the wrong carbohydrates will do to our bodies long term. After a few years of Mark and I living a healthier lifestyle and so many of our friends wanting recipes of our way of eating,  "TheLCKitchen" was launched.

MOM...IN HONOR OF YOU...

THANK YOU FOR MY LOVE OF FOOD, FAMILY, FRIENDS AND MOST OF ALL...GOD!!!!

Spare Ribs

Mark and I live in the desert however we work in the Northwest. We build apartment communities in the Seattle/Tacoma area so we as well have a condo downtown Seattle. Since I am used to the 115-120 degree weather at our home in the desert this time of year, it was the best time to be up here in Seattle with a new project starting and to visit my mother.

Between trips down from Seattle to Yelm to visit my mom I broke out the BBQ at the condo in Seattle. The Blue Angels were practicing for Sea Fair while I was out on my 21st floor patio . What a show....I am about eye level with them as they roar by. Wanted to cook outside to watch the show and just enjoy the absolutely wonderful sunny day up here.

Slow Cooked Spare Ribs

2-lg racks spare ribs

Seasoning-I use Jocko's Seasoning

1/4 cp olive oil

1-TB SF Liquid Smoke

1 can light Beer

Seasoning or salt & pepper

Preheat oven 200. Brown spare rib racks on both sides on BBQ'er. Just browned good, not to cook. On the stove add all other ingredients and simmer just a couple of minutes. Place Rib racks in a dutch oven or heavy roasting pan with a tight lid. I cut mine in half. I like to place a small rack in the bottom to raise it just a little out of the juice.( I am wanting it to braise but not boil in the liquid). If you don't have that it is not imperative.
Bast each slab with basting and pour the rest of the basting over the top. Place on lid tight or foil tight. Cook in oven at least 3-4 hours. The longer the better.


Grilled Crabby Salad

3 TB olive oil (I use lemon or lime infused olive oil)
1 TB vinegar choice
1 tsp rosemary
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 lb crab of choice (we love fresh)
toasted almond slices

Cut romaine in half & take off loose leaves. Combine ooil, vinegar, rosemary, salt & pepper. Brush all over romaine half's. Grill on BBQ grill (med/high) on both sides for 1 to 2 minutes each side. Just till it gets grill marks. Place serving plates top with crab, almonds and drizzle desired amount of dressing.

Amazing dinner.