I'm back for the New Year -- the Chinese New Year! :)

It's been months since I've blogged about anything, and I've missed it so much.  It's not that I stopped cooking or baking, but I've been super busy with my kid's schedules, my own things and life in general.  I had originally hoped to get back to blogging at the start of 2012, but of course that didn't happen, but here I am just a month late!  Better late than never!   The good news...I have tons of new recipes to blog about in the coming weeks!   The bad news....my food pictures still suck!  So I apologize!  

Let's Get Cooking!!!!


In honor of Chinese New Year,  tomorrow....my first post will be filled with a lot of PAO (or POW!)

A while back I had made (and blogged about) Kung Pao Chicken, so I decided to try it with shrimp this time!  It didn't disappoint!   I had originally gotten the chicken recipe from Sing For Your Supper, and I know I've mentioned it before but her recipes are great!  It's worth taking a stroll over there and checking out what she has cooking!

So I did exactly the same recipe, just swapped the chicken with approx. 1 pound of large, deveined shrimp.
As usual I served it with fried rice (my fav!) and my husband and I both enjoyed it very much!    The perfect combo of sweet, nutty and spicy.    This recipe is nice because you can adjust how much spice you want in your life and it's still very good!  My little ones aren't huge fans of spicy foods, so I cut back the red pepper flakes on this one, but it was still pretty POWerful!  Ha Ha Ha!

Kung Pao Shrimp
1lb uncooked, deveined, shell removed large shrimp.

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 teaspoons sesame oil

3 tablespoons of Vidalia onion chopped


3 garlic cloves (minced)

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (I used less than she called for b/c 2 of my taste tasters are my kids)

½ teaspoon ground ginger

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

1/3 cup dry roasted peanuts

Combine shrimp and cornstarch in a small bowl and toss to coat. Heat sesame oil in wok (or large deep-dish skillet) over medium heat, add shrimp and stir fry approx.  5-7 minutes (or until pink and fully cooked).    Remove shrimp from wok.

Add onions, garlic, red pepper flakes and ginger to the wok and stir fry for 15 seconds.

Combine vinegar, soy sauce and sugar in a small bowl. Mix well and add the sauce to the wok.

Return shrimp to the wok and coat with sauce. Stir in roasted peanuts. Heat thoroughly.  Place over white or fried rice.  


ENJOY!!!  Happy Chinese New Year!

~Gianna~