A Day In The Life Of Ellen

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I have taste tested these in my kitchen MANY times and anyone who has tasted has said that it is virtually the same thing you will find in a hibachi kitchen.

Some of these combinations may sound strange, especially for the ginger salad dressing, but trust me. It all works GREAT and will give you the ability to mock a traditional Japanese steakhouse dinner at home. BTW....this is the ULTIMATE in date night meals.

When making it you will need the blender several times. I usually start by making the sauces (can be left out at room temp until time to serve) and salad dressing, just rinsing it out between uses. You can prep the fried rice ingredients early in the day and leave them covered in the refrigerator until ready to stir fry it.

Do not substitute the real butter for margarine for any of these. This is a splurge meal, after all. You can also use the same large frying pan to cook the shrimp appetizer, the fried rice and the hibachi steak. Just wipe it out between uses and serve the food in courses like you would get at a Japanese restaurant.

Soup

To mock the soup I just usually use some Knorr vegetable broth cubes and the water recommended on the package. When it simmers add some sliced mushrooms and sliced green onion and let it simmer until the veggies are tender.

Ginger Salad Dressing

1/2 cup minced onion
1/2 cup peanut oil
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 tbs water
2 tbs minced fresh ginger (do not substitute ginger powder)
2 tbs minced celery
2 tbs ketchup
4 tsp soy sauce (kikkoman is the best)
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until all ginger is pureed. Best if made an hour before, placed into a shaker container and chilled. Shake before using.

Shrimp Appetizer

Ingredients Per Portion
5 large srimp, peeled, cleaned, deveined
salt to taste
2 tbs peanut oil
1 tsp butter
1 tsp heavy cream
1 tbs fresh parsley, chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon

Heat oil in griddle (you don't have to use the full 2 tbs per portion if making multiple portions at once, just lightly coat the bottom of the pan). Sprinkle shrimp with salt to taste. Place shrimp in griddle and saute 3 minutes per side. Remove from griddle. Melt butter and add heavy cream, heating until warmed through. Cut shrimp into bite sized pieces and add back to the griddle. Add parsley. Cook 1-2 minutes longer and squeeze lemon juice over shrimp. Remove and serve. Great with ginger sauce.

Ginger Sauce

1/2 c soy sauce
1/4 c vinegar
1 small piece ginger root (1/8 tsp ginger powder can be used here)

Place all ingredients in electric blender and set at high speed until ginger is chopped.

Magic Mustard Sauce

1 tbs crushed toasted sesame seeds
3 tbs dried mustard
2 tbs hot water
3/4 c soy sauce
1/4 garlic clove crushed
3 tbs heavy cream whipped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place sesame seeds in a single layer on a flat pan and toast (keep an eye on them...they burn quickly). Mix mustard and water in a small mixing bowl until it forms a paste. Place in blender with sesame seeds, soy sauce and garlic. Blend at high speed for 1 minute. Remove and stir in whipped cream.

Fried Rice

4 cups cooked converted rice, chilled
1 c frozen peas, thawed
2 tbs finely grated carrot
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c diced onion
1 1/2 tbs butter
2 tbs soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Combine chilled rice, peas, carrots and onion in a bowl. Scramble eggs breaking into pea sized bites, remove from pan and add to rice mixture. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium high heat. Dump rice into pan and add soy sauce and salt and pepper. Cook rice for 6-8 minutes over heat, stirring often.

Hibachi Steak

Ingredients per portion
1 6 oz sirloin steak, boneless
1 tbs peanut oil
2 large mushrooms, sliced
salt and pepper to taste

Heat griddle and pour on oil to coat surface. Sear steak on both sides. Remove from pan, cut steak into strips and return to pan with mushroom slices to cook to desired doneness. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with magic mustard sauce.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy!

Ellen
XOXO

I've had a couple of people ask me for some recipes on Twitter recently. This recipe is similar to the cheddar biscuits you get at a famous seafood restaurant chain. I've been told that the garlic butter recipe is proprietary, but this is as darn close as you can get.

Biscuits
2 C Bisquick
1/2 c cold water
3/4 c grated sharp cheddar cheese

Baste With
1/4 c melted butter
1 t parsley flakes
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t Italian seasoning


Mix biscuit ingredients and drop by spoonfuls according to package directions. Bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Brush with melted butter mixture.

I never had a MySpace account. I checked it out once and found it to be too juvenile for me. When my friends started exploring FaceBook and were raving about it I took a look and decided it was more my speed. I signed up for an account, created my profile, posted a picture and sent out some friend requests.

It wasn't long before I had reconnected with about 100 friends from high school. Funny, because I didn't realize I was all that popular in high school. I enjoyed catching up, sharing family photos and chatting with everyone. I even attended a mini reunion and met up for lunch with a couple of girlfriends a few times.

There were only a few apps out there at the time and sending a round of drinks to friends on a Friday night or giving a virtual hug to someone who needed it was kind of fun. But then it all started getting out of hand.

My timeline was clogged with things like quiz results (who is like what celeb, five favorite fast food places, who would you have at your dinner table) and games (Mafia Wars, Bling, Vampire Bites). Nice that FaceBook incorporated games you could play together into its' site, but I really did not want to see who was passing what poker chip, secret vaults or weapons to whom. I wanted to see what my friends were doing and pass valuable information.

I also wound up with a nasty little chat stalker who would immediately start up a chat session every time I signed in to check out my friends updates. I think he lived on FaceBook just to harass me when I showed up. It got so bad that I disabled chat.

A friend of mine from FaceBook kept talking about how cool Twitter was so I decided to check it out. I created the account and profile and then just sat looking at it. I was completely lost and had NO idea what I was to do next. I gave up and went back to the FaceBook frustration.

Then came the infamous battle to 1 million followers between CNN and Ashton Kutcher. I figured I would help Mr. Kutcher out with my two cents worth, so I logged into my abandoned Twitter account and followed him. I noticed that my account had picked up some followers, so I followed them too. Over the next few days I slowly started getting the hang of things. I watched who others were talking to and started following and to my delight some of them started following me back. I started sending @replies to people and they responded! I was hooked.

I worked very carefully to build the number of people following me by being sure I responded to anyone who sent me a tweet, by following back others when they followed me and by retweeting my new friends often if they had information to share.

Then one day I discovered something grand. Kirstie Alley was on Twitter. I'd been a fan of hers for years, since back in her Cheers days. Every time she was on TV doing those Pier 1 commercials I told my husband that it would be my dream to hang out with her for a day, that she would be so much fun. And just as I suspected, she is an incredibly fun person. It shows on Twitter. The day Kirstie sent me my first reply I literally almost fell off of the sofa.

After I started following her and watched who she chatted with, I started following some of those folks too. By doing that, I discovered some of my best friends on Twitter. Many of my friends and family do not understand how you can truly connect with and care about people over a social networking website. My only response to them is that they should not knock it before they try it.

Twitter is an excellent source of information also. Breaking news is tweeted regularly and I often find out about things happening in the world well before I can ever get to the TV or internet. People also tweet web links full of useful stuff.

So, to sum things up, for the ultimate in chat on steroids, interaction with folks you would not ever get to meet in real life and the best immediate source of information, Twitter wins over FaceBook for me hands down. Now, I know some of you have farms to attend to so I will quit my rant here. ;)

Thanks for reading!

Ellen
XOXO

Hi! I'm Ellen.

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