Szechuan Green Beans with Ground Turkey

It's been a while since I posted a recipe....We've been enjoying this delicious dish over the past two days. It is very simple and takes only about 20 minutes to make but it definitely jumped into my top 5 favorite Asian recipes to prepare at home. The original recipe calls for ground pork but I never seem to have this on hand so substituted ground turkey instead. I've made it with ground beef too and it turned out great. The best part about it is that I got Graham to eat (and maybe actually enjoy) green beans! ;o) The recipes is nice and spicy and so we paired it with a Gewurztraminer. Try it!

Szechuan Green Beans with Ground Turkey
(Adapted slightly from Cooking Light Magazine)
1 pound lean ground turkey (or pork or beef)
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
2 tablespoons peanut oil, divided
1 ½ lbs green beans
1 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh garlic, divided
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
4 teaspoons sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper, divided
2 Tbsp + 2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
4 cups hot cooked white rice

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add green beans and fry with ½ tsp garlic and 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes until beans crisp tender. Set aside in bowl.

Heat remaining oil in skillet and turkey (or ground meat) mixture and garlic; cook 3 minutes or until meat loses its pink color, stirring to crumble. Add beans and toss to mix.

Combine hoisin and next 3 ingredients (through soy sauce) in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add hoisin mixture to pan. Cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring frequently. Serve over rice.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup pork mixture and 1/2 cup rice)

Szechuan Green Beans with Ground Turkey

It's been a while since I posted a recipe....We've been enjoying this delicious dish over the past two days. It is very simple and takes only about 20 minutes to make but it definitely jumped into my top 5 favorite Asian recipes to prepare at home. The best part about it is that I got Graham to eat (and maybe actually enjoy) green beans! ;o) The recipes is nice and spicy and so we paired it with a Gewurztraminer. Try it!


Szechuan Green Beans with Ground Pork

1 pound lean ground pork or turkey
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
2 tablespoons peanut oil, divided
1 ½ lbs green beans
1 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh garlic, divided
4 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper, divided
4 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
2 cups hot cooked white rice

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add green beans and fry with ½ tsp garlic & ½ tsp red pepper flakes until beans crisp tender. Set aside in bowl.

Heat remaining oil in skillet and add pork (or turkey) mixture and garlic; cook 3 minutes or until meat loses its pink color, stirring to crumble. Add beans and toss to mix.

Combine hoisin and next 3 ingredients (through soy sauce) in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add hoisin mixture to pan. Cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring frequently. Serve over rice.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup pork mixture and 1/2 cup rice)

I Just Love This Guy!

I mean, look at him....sometimes he just makes me giggle. I think he's awfully clever, a bit random but always cute. Here are some classic "Graham Moments" in the Crozier household:

I just applied for a job!

That's all I'll say for now....but I'm super excited!

I'm a Foodie

If you ever find yourself in front of me in the grocery store checkout line, I'll admit it, I'll be judging you. There is so much you can learn about a person by the groceries that they buy. Maybe that's why I always thought it be fun to be a grocery checker.....I'd spend all day dreaming up the recipes that the customers were buying ingredients to prepare. Anyway, sometimes I get excited by what I see laid out before me on the grocery belt; other times, I'm disgusted. Like for instance, the other day I was behind a lady who was buying 5 bags of white hot dog buns, a 12 pack of orange soda, some sort of fake juice, a box of Nutragrain bars and a whole bunch of other non-nutritious food items. There were definitely NO veggies and NO fruit..... This leads me to my next thought...

I'm very frustrated with the state of the American food supply today. You can find any sort of health claim that you want on the food labels (a lot of them with definite fine print that most consumers don't know about!!) It's no wonder the general population is so confused when it comes to nutrition! We see the word "grain" in "Nutragrain" and assume that = health. Plus various companies are added all sorts of supplements/fortifications to unhealthy foods to make them seem "good for you." You can now get vitamins in your pop and fiber in your ice cream! What's up with that!? Granted, certain types of fiber are very good and necessary for you as they may play a role in preventing many different diseases. But not all fiber types are equal and I'm afraid to admit that a lot of us are being dooped.

So to go along with this topic, I've recently become very excited about the idea of participating in a produce delivery service (CSA--community supported agriculture). There are a number of different farms in the area that have CSA programs where you pay a certain amount to have a whole box full of fresh local produce delivered weekly to your door. It's all seasonal so you never know quite what is coming but a lot of them provide recipes for the varieties of produce include. Some of the farms I'm interested in include http://www.fullcirclefarm.com/ourcsa.html or http://www.newrootsorganics.com/about.html. For my birthday this year (18 days people!), I'd be super excited about receiving this service for a week, a month (or even better for the remainder of summer!) Ahh yes, a box full of vitamins and fiber-- the way we were to get it.

My Garden

I have been super excited about having my own garden ever since we got married. Unfortunately, living in a condo and having limited yard space makes it difficult to do much of anything garden-related. I have tons of pots on the patio which are growing herbs, lettuce, carrots, green beans, tomatoes and zucchini. They are doing as well as can be expected for "potted veggies" but I am still anxious to someday have a house with a big yard where I can create raised beds for growing produce. Anyway, so because I dedicated all of our pots to vegetables, our yard has looked very green without a lot of color....but NOT ANYMORE! I spent the last 3 days alleviating that problem. After a couple of trips to Lowes, Home Depot, Molbak's and Flower World, my yard now is BEAUTIFUL!!! Check it out:

Summer Sky Coneflower

Tickseed (yellow) & Sunny Border Blue (blue)

Phlox

Shasta Daisy

Foxglove

Black-Eyed Susans

Hydrangea

Basil

There are a number of other plants that are not pictured yet because I'm waiting for them to bloom. I am so happy with the results! Poor Graham told me it was okay for me to buy "some" plants while he was at work to add color to the yard, but I don't think he had any idea how many plants I would end up with. There goes the bonus money he earned by picking up an extra shift at work...! Oh well, he seemed impressed with the end product and it really has picked up my mood having so many pretty flowers outside my window. The good thing is that they are all perennials so, as long as I take good care of them, they should return year after year.

Busy Week

This week has been a busy one. First off, an official Happy 25th Birthday (last Tuesday) to my husband Graham!! Most of our activity this week revolved around birthday celebrations--one with me, one with friends, one with his family, one with my family. Phew! I already told you about our trip to Oregon which was the first celebration. Last weekend we got together with a bunch of friends and spent the afternoon at Juanita Beach in Kirkland, had a BBQ and then frozen yogurt and a movie back at our place. Unfortunately, the camera battery was dead at the time and so I don't have pictures.
On his actual birthday, I made Graham his favorite breakfast, Dutch Babies. Kinda racist in my opinion, but always a hit:

That evening, we hosted a dinner birthday party with his family, cousins and grandparents (totaling 12 people). We don't have seats for 12 really so we lugged our leather chairs and a card table out side and made-do with what we had. I let Graham pick his birthday dessert from our Creme Brulee cookbook (which was what he wanted), but I'm pretty sure he picked the hardest recipe in there! It took forever but people seemed to enjoy the dessert, despite the fact that I was 2 desserts short (more people showed up than were expected so my sister-in-law Tash and I just had ice cream). Here's Graham with his dessert:



As gifts, Graham received I think a total of about 7 polo shirts (wow was everyone on the same track or what!!??) I also gave him a subscription to Dwell Magazine which is the uber modern home architecture-type magazine that is pretty green as far as its designs go. Graham has been dreaming lately of someday building our own house with radiant heating, solar panels and the like. It'd certainly be cool, but for now, he's just dreaming.

Last night we celebrated the July birthday with my family in this gorgeous new beach park we've discovered in Bellevue (called Meydenbauer Beach Park). We swam in the lake, played bocci ball as well as Graham's new game of ladder golf which my parents made and gave him, threw the frisbee and had BBQed steaks. I made a salad with my first head of romaine lettuce from my garden! Anyway, it was fun to watch my brothers interact with their brother-in-laws. My 21 year old brother was doing backwards flips off the picnic table which made the lifeguard scream. I don't think she realized it was intentional... Here are pictures of all three of the birthday celebrants. My brother-in-law Michael will be 26 on the 26th and my Mom just turned.....uh, 35 (??) yesterday (I'm not allowed to reveal her true age plus she doesn't look it anyway so you wouldn't believe me even if I told you). I love my family!

Willamette Valley Wine Tasting--Graham's Bday Part 1

This past Sunday, I took Graham on a "weekend" away to begin the celebrations of his 1/4 century birthday. Because he's so hard to shop for (the only thing I've ever given him that he consistently uses is his wedding ring), I finally decided that I was not going to buy him anything but rather "give" him a memory. He knew I was taking him somewhere, but he didn't find out where until we were on the road. But you can only go south on I-5 so far before you realize that you're probably going to end up in Oregon (although Tacoma would certainly have been a good 2nd option).

The Benson, where we stayed:

We arrived at our 4 star hotel downtown Portland (The Benson) and I handed a very confused Graham 2 cans of beans and towed him down the the river to catch the last night of the Waterfront Blues Festival (the beans were our entry "fee"--a donation to the food bank). We had a great time eating African food and listening to all sort of crazy blues music. What a great place to people watch for hippie Portlanderites!

By the river:

Not quite a hippie, but pretty close:

But the theme of our weekend was actually not Portland itself, but more the surrounding Willamette Valley. To clue Graham in of what was to come, I presented him with a basket of 3 different wines (2 of which were local Oregon wines), wine glasses, cheeses, a cheese board and knife, chocolates, fruit and bread. The next morning we headed for McMinnville where we had breakfast at the coolest place called the Wildwood Cafe.

Me at the cafe, planning out the day to come:Yes those really are egg beaters hanging from the ceiling. I had granola encrusted french toast that was literally 2 inches thick (Barney, this even beat the cinnamon swirl french toast you love!) Next we headed back to Dundee where we began our wine tasting and touring at Erath Winery. We probably tried 8 different wines, specifically the region's famous Pinot Noir. I usually do not like red wines but their Pinot Noirs were wonderful (especially the most expensive bottles--I must have a very refined palate!) We enjoyed the scenery and the view of Mt Hood. It is gorgeous up there!

At Erath Vineyards:

We drove briefly through Sokol Blosser vineyards and then stopped at Argyle where we sampled sparkling wines. I think these are my new favorite and I'm going to have to experiment with what types of foods to pair them with! Somehow they ferment them long enough so the bottles carbonate themselves--nothing is added. Yum!We ended at Duck Pond Winery where we tried quite a few more wines. (At this point I was just trying the first taste and dumping the rest since I was the one driving). We sat outside for awhile, rather relaxed, enjoying the sunshine before we headed back to Portland. Of course we stopped at the outlet malls on the way for some shopping. We had super yummy Thai food for dinner at this modern place in the Pearl District a few blocks from our hotel.
I left Tuesday open so that Graham could pick whatever he wanted to do. He decided on a drive to the Tillamook Cheese Factory followed by an afternoon at Cannon Beach.

Petting the cows:

We had a beautiful drive and had a wonderful picnic of bread and cheese and fruit and wine at the beach (probably not entirely legal but the wine was hidden in styrofoam cups). What fun!

Our picnic in the sun:

Our 1st camping trip

This past Sunday through Tuesday, Graham and I ventured out on our very 1st camping trip together as a married couple. We went with our friends the Moodys to Kalaloch (on the Olympic Peninsula) and had a fabulous time. Unfortunately, we didn't register for camping gear for our wedding (Graham was too tired by the time we reached that part of the store), so we had to fork over the big bucks to get some basic necessities. I never believe what the box says when looking at tents. I know from past experience that when they claim it "sleeps 2" you'd be pretty lucky to fit even one person comfortably. We decided to alleviate any guessing and make sure we invested in a tent with plenty of room. So we ended up with a tent to sleep 6...and it certainly was a palace!! But we had plenty of space for our air mattress, bags and even to run laps if we wanted. The best part about it is that it's green of all colors! Of course I would have preferred a lighter green shade, but this one blends in better with the forest I guess. Setting up the thing wouldn't have been so bad if Graham hadn't kept discovering poo on his hands. Somehow as we were connecting the poles, they dipped in hidden pet poo from previous campers. Poor Graham had to run to the restroom twice to clean it off his hands will I stood in the middle of the pole-less tent, holding up the walls.

Anyway, we ended up picking the one place in all of Washington that wasn't sunny and hot! When we arrived, the fog over the ocean was so thick you could hardly see the water. We still played on the beach and had a great time. I woke up early both mornings and went walking on the beach. On the 2nd morning, I was walking along, searching for a sand dollar when I noticed a couple very large-looking seagulls. Upon closer look, I realized they had white heads and were not seagulls after all but EAGLES! I tried to sneak up as close to them as possible to get pictures but unfortunately a 3rd eagle was standing guard in the tree and started squawking out warnings that I was coming. I did get this picture but it is kind of hard to see. It really is a bald eagle though, I promise!