Shrimp Scampi

If you are looking for a special dinner for two you really cannot go wrong with shrimp scampi and I figured that it was the perfect time to update my old recipe! Shrimp scampi is a really simple pasta dish consisting of shrimp sauteed in a buttery, garlic, white wine and lemon sauce that is just to die for! Although this recipe is super quick and easy it is perfect for entertaining or for special dinners for two in addition to being a great weeknight meal. Really it takes more time to cook the pasta than it does to make the shrimp and sauce so dinner is on the table in less than 20 minutes! I like to hit the scampi up with some red pepper flakes for a touch of heat along with some lemon zest and parsley for garnish. No matter how you cut it, this dish is sure to impress and they will never know how easy it was to make!

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Pad Thai

Pad Thai, a Thai style stir fried rice noodle dish, has to be one of my all time favourite meals and I always enjoy using its ingredient and flavour combinations in other dishes. With all of the Pad Thai style dishes that I have been making as of late I was reminded that I needed to update the original Pad Thai recipe along with it's 5 year old photo. Given my obsession with Pad Thai it's a good thing that it's so easy to make at home and the only 'exotic' ingredients that you really need to track down are the tamarind concentrate and the fish sauce which can be replaced by more commonly available lime juice and soy sauce in a pinch. One of the great things about Pad Thai is it's amazingly magical balance of sour, salty, sweet and spicy created by the tamarind, fish sauce, sugar and chili sauce. All said and told, Pad Thai really only takes less than 10 minutes to cook and things go quickly after the first ingredient hits the pan so the secret to success is in making sure that you have all of the ingredients ready to go before you start cooking. It's so easy to enjoy Pad Thai at home, even on a busy weeknight and with this recipe it is sure to become one of your favourite meals as well!

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Dan Dan Mian (Noodles in Spicy Chinese Peanut Pork Sauce)

The bang bang chicken that I made a few days ago reminded me of another one of my favourite Sichuan dishes, dan dan mian and that is not too surprising given how similar they are. Dan dan mian or dandan noodles is a Chinese Sichuan dish consisting of pork and preserved vegetables in a spicy chili oil based sauce with Sichuan peppercorns that is served over noodles. There are many different variations on dan dan noodles and one common one is to add sesame paste which makes the sauce very similar to the bang bang chicken sauce.

I first came across dan dan noodles on Appetite for China a number of years ago and I had to make it right away! Unfortunately I was never completely satisfied with the photo that I took to go along with the recipe so I seized the impending Chinese New Year as an excuse to update the photos! While I was doing some more research on dan dan mian I came across several photos where it looked like the sauce was much more broth-y almost like more of a soup as opposed to the thicker almost ragu like sauce that I had always encountered. I liked the sound of the more soup like version and so I added a bit more chicken broth to the recipe than I normally do and it turned out great!

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