Garlic Shrimp with Spinach and Shiitake

Although someone recently told me that I am too young to be reading Prevention magazine, it is nonetheless one of my favorite magazines. One of the great things about it is the recipes. I tried this one last week and it was a winner:

Garlic Shrimp with Spinach and Shiitake

Makes 4 servings, 200 calories each

• 2 T reduced sodium soy sauce


• 2 T sherry or 1 T rice wine vinegar (I used Shaoxing Cooking Wine)


• 1 t packed brown sugar


• 2 1/2 t toasted sesame oil


• 1/2 lb fresh shiitake mushroom caps, sliced 1/4 inch thick


• 1 lb medium shrimp, peeled and deveined


• 4 cloves garlic, minced (I crushed mine with a garlic press)


• 1 T finely shopped fresh ginger


• 9 oz baby spinach leaves

1. Whisk together the soy sauce, sherry, and sugar in a small bowl.


2. Heat oil in a wok or large nonstick skillet over high medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and stir-fry 2 minutes. Add shrimp, garlic, and ginger and stir-fry 1 minute. Add spinach and soy mixture and continue stir-frying until spinach has just wilted (shrimp will be cooked), about 1 minute.
3. Serving recommendation: serve with brown Basmati or Jasmine rice and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Buddha's Belly 3X

There is a new restaurant near the Pier / Promenade area of Santa Monica that we really like. It's called Buddha's Belly. We like it so much that we've been there for dinner three times in the past two weeks. The other reason for this is that there simply aren't very many good restaurants in that area. And, since we're in that area so often, this is pretty much the default now when we're there and we're hungry.

It's a pan-Asian restaurant with good atmosphere and best of all a very nice combination of Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and California flavors sprinkled throughout the dishes. Plus, it is very reasonably priced, so you could go there any time you feel like it. The only downside is on Saturday night we showed up with five people and the wait was about forty minutes. They're just not set up for groups. But, if you have up to four peeps, you should easily get a nice booth near the window and be happy. Oh, and they have a bar so you could just wait there and have a few : )

Here are some of the dishes we've tried:

Appetizers:
Albacore and Avocado Spring Roll
This thing rocks!! It just melts in your mouth and has a great combination of flavors.

Chilled Vietnamese Rolls
I had to try these since I love these kinds of rolls so much. They were good. The fried onions added a nice touch. The two sauces that came with it were very good.

Salads:
Spicy Thai Beef Salad
Good, the beef was delicious, not a ton of it. Maybe a few too many onions but overall quite tasty.

Vegan Tofu Salad
Tasty, I would have liked some more "stuff" in it. Good if you're not super hungry or as a side-dish.

Rice and Noodles:
Roasted Garlic Fried Rice
Woah.. awesome! Plenty of cloves of roasted garlic in a Chinese-style fried rice. Great side-dish.

Singapore Seafood Noodles
These are squid-ink (purple), kind of thick, vermicelli noodles with plenty of seafood, and the right touch of heat. You could really tastes the five-spice powder in here, and I'm totally into that right now so I loved it.

Yakisoba (w/beef)
These are good if you like Chines lo-mein, because that's what it reminded me off. I'm not nuts about lo-mein in general.

Spicy Peanut Noodles
I didn't like these, although my boyfriend gobbled them up. I thought it was way too peanut-y.

Thai Green Curry Chicken and Jasmine Rice
This should really be listed under Entrees because it's a square meal. You get a bowl of white meat chicken in a delicious coconut curry sauce with lightly cooked fresh veggies such as Japanese eggplant (which is a fave of mine) and others. Generous side of Jasmine rice (not too fragrant though). Great. My boyfriend loved this dish.

Buddha's Belly
205 Broadway
Santa Monica, CA
310-458-2500

also at:
7475 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
323-931-8588

Rachael Ray's Five Spice Sesame Sliced Tuna and Avocado

This recipe has all of my favorite flavors so I had to try it. It's pretty quick and easy to prepare.. it's one of Rachael's fifteen minute meals from her latest book. I also added an asian cabbage salad and some rice to the complete the meal, which added some extra time, but not too much.

Chinese five-spice powder is wonderfully aromatic and sort of like Indian curry: once all the spices come together it really creates a new flavor and you don't really taste the individual spices. It contains cinnamon, star anise, fennel, ginger, and cloves (plus mine has white pepper and licorice.. that makes seven but go figure).



Five-Spice Sesame Sliced Tuna and Avocado
Serves 2-3

• 1/3 cup Balsamic vinegar
• 3 Tablespoons honey
• 1/4 tamari (aged soy sauce)
• 1 avocado
• (optional) little bit of lime juice
• 2 Tablespoons veggie oil
• 2-3, 4-6 oz tuna steaks (ahi or albacore)
• 2 teaspoons Chinese 5-spice powder
• Salt and black pepper
• 1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds
• 1/4 chopped chives
• Lettuce or cabbage to serve with if you are not making the cabbage salad below.

1. Combine the vinegar, honey, and tamari in a small saucepan. Bring to a bubble over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat and simmer for 6-7 minutes, until syrupy. Remove from heat.
   
2. Halve and peel the avocado, then slice or cube them, whichever you prefer. If you have lime juice, squeeze a little bit over them to prevent browning.
   
3. Heat the oil in a skillet over high heat. Season the tuna with the 5-spice powder, salt, and pepper and cook for 1-2 minutes on each side for rare, 5-6 minites for well-done. Combine the sesame seeds and chives in a shallow bowl. Slice the tuna thick and turn each slice in the sesame seeds and chives to coat.
   
4. Serve with lettuce, cabbage, salad and or rice. Drizzle with the balsamic-soy dressing.

Asian Cabbage Salad
Serves 4

• 1/2 small-medium green cabbage
• 3 scallions, chopped
• 2 Tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 Table spoons toasted sesame seeds

1. Chop the cabbage (don't forget to peel and toss the top layer as well as toss the core).
2. Toss everything together except for the sesame seeds.
3. Sprinkle the seeds on when serving.

Squid with Ginger and Scallions

I just whipped up an awesome rice bowl for lunch so I thought I would throw it up here for you folks. It was inspired by a dish I used to get all the time in Boston's Chinatown eatery, a less-then fancy food court with cheap but amazing food that I believe has now closed. Anywho... the main idea with this dish is that the scallions and ginger are not just flavorings, they are almost like the veggies in the meal. That is, instead of chopping everything up into tiny little pieces, there are generous, large slices of both the ginger and scallion. Of course, if you're not super akin to either of these things I suppose you could chop things up small, or just don't make it at all. : )

Squid with Ginger and Scallions
Serves 1

• 1 cup cleaned squid pieces (rings and tentacles, frozen is fine)
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1 t white miso paste
• 1 t corn starch
• 1/2 t tamari (thick soy sauce, or use 1 t of regular)
• 1 t mirin
  
• 2 scallions
• 1 inch of fresh ginger
• 1 serving of cooked rice
• toasted sesame seeds (optional)

1. Heat up a pan on medium heat with a little bit of veggie oil or spray.
2. If using frozen squid, throw it in now and let it cook for about 5 minutes. If using fresh squid, hold off.
3. Mix the water, miso paste, corn starch, tamari and mirin in a small bowl until smooth.
4. Slice the ginger and scallions.
5. Throw the ginger and scallions in the pan and now the fresh squid if that's what you used.
6. Cook everything almost through on medium to high heat.
7. Give the sauce a final stir and then throw it in, stir fry until the sauce comes to a boil, then turn it down to low for a minute.
8. You're ready to eat! Serve it over hot Japanese rice sprinkled with the sesame seeds.