Asian Extravagaza

I am going to have a WILD night!

I am so excited, I can hardly contain myself!

For dinner this evening, I will be enjoying some fresh shrimp spring rolls with peanut sauce as an appetizer. Then I will be frying myself up some chicken pad thai for dinner. Oh Lord, help me, I am so exited. Dessert might be another spring roll.

Really though, I have no good reason to be so elated, the last times I tried to make these dishes, they were utterly TERRIBLE. Just disgusting. But I'm so excited, surely they will turn out well today?!

I think I'm actually quivering with excitement over here.

I'm pretty obsessed with a few food blogs right now, and of course, with all things I get obsessed with, I so clearly see myself succeeding in that very area. Knitting, cooking, music, writing, counseling, etc. I'm so much like my dad. I just get so excited about something, spend so much time and money on it and then by the time I've gotten pretty good at it, I give it up. Now, I've matured a bit, so some of these things have had a little staying power, but food blogging I refuse to try.

Okay, not true, what I refuse to do is throw myself into it willy nilly and think I can make it my life's ambition. But I will try a little.

I know I'm going in all the wrong order here with this entry. No pictures, no completed recipes. This isn't so much a food blog, but a food tease. AND, I'm doing two dishes at once. So many rules broken, but it's okay. This is why. 1) It's my blog 2) no one reads this 3) if someone stumbled on it, maybe they would feel the excitement I feel now as I sit and type this out. Oh why must I rot at work when there is delightful Asian cuisine to be made?!

So I hopped to the local Asian grocery store to pick up the goods. I almost forgot limes, but remembered in the nick of time. What I did forget, however, was mint, which is damn near essential in those spring rolls. What I'm gonna do is beg some off of the local pho restaurant by my MIL's house. Is that tacky? YES. Do I care? well, YES. But I'm desperate. OH! I can have my husband pick some up. He stinking works at a grocery store. Okay, moving on. So I found everything I need, even the tamarind paste, which ultimately lead to my downfall the last time I attempted Pad Thai. I really wasn't aware there was a variety of ways tamarind was packaged (pulp vs paste). I was following a different recipe than the one from chezpim.com, and it didn't mention a difference. Well, things when very poorly when my sauce was fishy, sour, pulpy, and grainy. This recipe also never talked about heating these ingredients up to disolve the sugar and take the nast out of the fish sauce. Wouldn't have helped the pulp situation though, so it's a good thing I bought a back up jar of sauce. Whoo, saved by the sauce. But not this time friends, no, Im prepared and stupidly confident that I will have success tonight! Why?! Because I couldn't afford a back up sauce this time and I found tamarind already in a paste! Thank you Jesus! So now I don't have to do that step either. Life is good. But I am not following Ms. Pim's advice with the wok. I know I should, but I didn't have the $20 to spring on it. I have a cleverly disguised pan at home parading as a "wok", but it really is just like every other thick bottomed pan I own, just with steep sides. None of this quick transfer of heat business... Whatever. It'll work. It HAS to.

Oh, and I bought some tongs today as well. Yup, I'm a real chef now, baby. Where's my freakin' show?!

I'll let you know how it goes. Hell, I'll even take pictures...