Daring Month Three

Okay, maybe I'm a Negative Nancy, but to be entirely honest, I haven't really LOVED any the recipes I've been making with Daring Kitchen. (You can find how this mess adventure started here...) Until now, that is – I really really liked this one! Even though it's more what I consider to be Pammy-Food, I definitely liked – AND as an added bonus – the husband actually liked!!

The mandatories:

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

Ok, so maybe I'm the dumb kid, but I never really thought of making your own peanut butter being this easy! I started  up a small tin of salted, roasted peanuts, threw in the food processor for 2-3 minutes, after which it was still a little dry.

SO I added a tad of Canola oil.

Mmmm much better...

Taste-tester approved.

Really, really approved... (he kinda LOVES peanut butter...)

After washing my hands we get to making the sauce...

...tons and tons of garlic...

... my fav: vinegar...

... soy sauce, ginger, chili oil (instead of sesame oil, oh well), sugar, some water and in good Buffalo style, a healthy dose of Franks...

And because I'm a glutton for punishment and/or just overambitious...

we have chicken aaaaand...

ugh... I hate, hate, hate peeling and depooping uncooked shrimp... but I have a flashback, at the grocery store, when I'm about to buy them, of being in my mom's kitchen a few years ago... 

me: why are the shrimp grey?

mom: because they aren't cooked, Al...

me: oh... so why didn't you just buy the pink ones?

She pulls one out of the chicken broth she's boiling them in and gives it to me.

The taste is amazing.

me: ..... oooh

So half an hour later... here we are...

Some more slicing and dicing and we have:

bean thread noodles (oh yeah, already cooked those, forgot...), english cucumber, red pepper, flat leaf parsley (instead of basil, because I didn't have any, but it was from the CSA and the most fragrant, delicious parsley I've ever had)...

[a beer], cabbage and green onion (both also from the CSA, mmmmm)..

Add the peanut sauce, mix it all together, top with shrimp and/or chicken aaaaaaand:

Voila! With some lime... and it's amazing. I so heart. And definitely recommend. You can find the real recipe here.

Picky Eater Variation Note: For kids (or a husband with very picky tastes!) you can make linguine instead of bean thread noodles and keep all the accoutrements separate for them to decide which to add. Then toss in a bowl with the sauce and top with chicken and/or shrimp just the same. 

Hooray Daring Kitchen, you've got me hooked for another month!