Shrimp Lettuce Wraps + Sesame Peanut Ginger Dressing

TACOS. There I said it again. I wanted to make tacos again this week (shocker) but I opted for a lighter twist. I swapped out my go-to corn tortillas for big pieces of butter lettuce. In actuality I made lettuce wraps (like I did here) but I used shrimp. They were just as easy to make & fun to eat as regular tacos except I felt a little bit better about the extra helpings.  I loaded mine with veggies & some sesame peanut ginger dressing. Click through to get the recipe for the tasty shrimp I made for these, plus the dressing! Yep you get two recipes today. You can use them together like I did or just make one or the other (ex: make the dressing to serve with salad all week long or make the shrimp & toss with some quinoa).

Better Home Cooking Basics: #52 Peel Fresh Ginger by Scraping the Skin with a Spoon.

Fresh ginger looks really weird. It's knobby & has a thin brown skin which looks like it would be difficult to peel with a regular veggie peeler - because it is. If you use a regular veggie peeler you will no doubt be taking chunks of the ginger with it. Put your veggie peeler away & open your silverware drawer. Take out a spoon - I like to use a teaspoon. Now balance the ginger between your hand & a cutting board & start to scrape the skin off with said spoon a little bit at a time. The skin will come off easily without sacrificing any of the ginger beneath it.


Get more of my better home cooking basics here.

Perfectly Fluffy Pumpkin Spiced Pancakes

This weekend the idea was to carb load so Chris could prepare for the Grete’s Great Gallop Sloan Kettering Half Marathon.  Even though I wasn’t running in the half marathon (I was a great cheerleader instead) I’ve never been one to say no to carbs. So we started our rainy Saturday with pumpkin pancakes. I’m not a huge fan of drinking sweet coffees (sorry for the buzzkill pumpkin spiced latte lovers) but I do love to chew things that taste like pumpkin like pumpkin pie, pumpkin loaf & now these pumpkin pancakes & drink regular flavored coffee with them. I jazzed up this recipe I found with some variations on the ingredients & the great tips I talked about here for making the fluffiest pancakes & the result was carb & flavor-tastic!

How are you celebrating with pumpkin this fall?

Smitten Kitchen's Carrot Cake with Maple-Cream Cheese Frosting

Spring is in the air with all lovely things I'm allergic to, to boot. In any event, sorry for lack there of posts. Truth be told I started this post before Chris & I took a long weekend in Florida last week, more on that later. Right now I'm writing in between gulps of hot water with lemon & honey (which sounds oh so Samantha from Sex & the City but when you're drinking it because you have a sore throat &  a bit of a bark (cough) it suddenly is a little less sexy).

Nevertheless, I'd rather go to a happy place - cupcakes!

In order to fully celebrate the first birthday of this here blog, I deemed it only proper to make cupcakes to share with the class (aka my office) & my number one supporter, Chris, of course.  So I searched for what is now my favorite carrot cake recipe: Smitten Kitchen's Carrot Cake with Maple-Cream Cheese Frosting.

The cake is really moist & yes your classmates will be reaching for the ones with the most icing because it traditionally just so good & this one's made with maple syrup (double good). Plus, there's carrots, raisins & walnuts in them - that makes it healthy right? Yes, let's call these health muffins - now it's ok if you eat ten.

Get the full recipe here  & click through for my (20+) photo story on making these yummy treats.

PS: Happy friday & happy (early) birthday to my gal Alexis!

Crab Cakes with Sriracha Mayo

The other night I crafted these crab cakes, or shall I call them crab piles, for a quick dinner.  It's true I should have let them sit in the fridge so they could stay together but who wants to eat at 10pm on a school night?  Not this girl & definitely not the guy she married.  So I carefully flipped my piles in a saute pan & well they still got a nice crispy crust & were tasty enough to serve & eat.

To learn how I (should have) made these crab cakes click through for the recipe!