Weekend Wrap-up

We had a great weekend spent with some of our favorite people.  With everyones busy lives and schedules it is often hard to find the time to get together.  In fact, we had to put our dinner on the calendar about a month in advance in order to find a convenient evening for all of us!  So Rebecca & JT (the Swygerts) were able to finally come over and check out our new house and stay for dinner Friday night! 

Meet the Swygerts:

I decided that I would try to theme our dinner by cooking a cuisine that I am totally addicted to but haven't really prepared much of at home-THAI!  We have a restaurant down the street called Mai Thai and I am completely obsessed.  So I borrowed a wok from my friend and coworker, Amanda-(thanks, girl!) and got to work.  For our appetizer I made homemade shrimp potstickers.  Fresh chopped shrimp, ginger, garlic, green onion, bok choy and soy sauce all wrapped in a wonton wrapper.  We fried the bottom to start the cooking process and then steamed to finish cooking them. I was so proud of my little creations! 

This was the before pic:

The main entree was drunken noodles-my absolute fave from Mai Thai.  The meal itself actually contains zero alcohol, but gets its name because it is spicy enough to make you drink a lot and/or it's something you want to eat a lot of when you're intoxicated.  Well, intoxicated or not I can assure you this dish is something you need to try.  I crave this dish at least once a week these days.

Finding some of the ingredients you need in the regular grocery store might prove to be tough so I started off with a trip to the Asian Market close to my office.
Here it is :)

Drunken Noodles Ingredients:
*All measurements are approximate (as many of you know I don't really measure while cooking very much-it just adds to my dish pile and who wants more of those to clean?!)

1 medium red bell pepper (sliced)
1 medium green bell pepper (sliced)
1 small onion (sliced)
2 cups snow peas
3 green onions (minced)
4-5 garlic cloves (minced)
1.5-2lbs Sirloin sliced thin
1/2 lb flat wide rice noodles
1/4 cup thai basil (chopped)

Sauce:
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 tsp. sugar
3-5 tbsps. Sambal Oelek
2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

Directions:
Chop veggies and combine sauce ingredients so that when ready to cook everything is prepped and ready to go.  I used a sirloin steak-tender and pretty inexpensive.  In order to slice it thin it helps to throw in the freezer for a bit before hand.   

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the rice noodles. This specific brand said for 6-8 minutes.  While the noodles boil, saute the garlic and green onion in a little vegetable or canola oil over medium-high heat.  After a few minutes add the snow peas, onions and bell peppers.  Making sure vegetables are tender but still crisp, take them out of the pan and add the beef. 

The wok gets pretty hot and the beef is sliced thin so this doesn't take very long, maybe 2-3 minutes.  Once the beef is cooked through remove and add to reserved vegetables. Add the noodles and fry a little and pour over the sauce along with the basil.   Combine your meat and vegetables with the noodles and toss all together and you're done!  I went a little easy on the chili paste so we served a little Sriracha (my favorite hot sauce) on the side for anyone wanting extra heat.  It was pretty darn good if I do say so myself!  AND besides the prep work, the actual dish only takes about 15 minutes or less to prepare and I don't know about you...but that's a win in my book! Don't forget to take a cute pic while you're cooking:

Of course we didn't forget to take a picture while standing over a hot burner but I forgot to take a picture of the final product.  Here's what the finished product will look like-thanks google images!:

There are so many variations that can be made to this dish too.  Spice level can vary, vegetables can be added or omitted and you could certainly make this with other proteins or completely vegetarian.  This might not be the most authentic Thai preparation but it sure did satisfy my craving :)

We had a great time with the Swygerts catching up and trying some adventurous cooking.  Rebecca (Swygert) even made a coconut cream pie to compliment the meal.  DELICIOUS! We look forward to more regularly scheduled dinner dates soon! 

We had even MORE fun this weekend with TWO wedding showers.  More to come on that in my next post!  Until then, here's a fun picture of Rebecca and I from our wedding.  We're singing "Call Me Maybe," one of our favorite, yet way overplayed, summer songs.  Don't we look totally devoted to our performance?  Hilarious.