Chili-spiced Shrimp Won Ton Soup &Stir-fried Chicken with Thai Basil: A Paranormal Meal (its beyond)

So this week I made two dishes a won ton soup and stir fried chicken. Both were extremely easy to make; the meal took about an hour to make. I shared this lovely meal with my good friend Kelsey Kirchmann!

Chili-spiced Shrimp Won Ton Soup

Ingredients

WON TONS

12 (or more) wonton skins- I bought mine from Dekalb Farmer's market in the freezer section

6 oz cooked, shelled shrimp

1 garlic clove, minced

2 scallions. finely chopped

1 TBSP soy sauce (I used low sodium)

1TBSP fish sauce

1 TBSP chopped cilantro 

1 small egg yolk, save that egg white!

SOUP

1 TBSP dried red pepper flakes

3 scallions, chopped

4 cups chicken stock (or beef stock)

1 TBSP fish sauce

1 TBSP soy sauce

1 TBSP rice wine

cilantro, garnish

Chop the shrimp as finely as possible. Mix shrimp with garlic, scallion, soy sauce, fish sauce, cilantro and egg yolk in a bowl. That was easy! Now to the tricky part, the won ton skins. Keep the won tons refrigerated until you need them! Lay them out on a flat surface and put about a dollop (about 1 TBSP) of the shrimp mixture in the center. It's ok if its a little too much. You'll get the hang of it. Brush the edges with the egg white (ahh see I told you to save it!). Fold the won ton into a triangle and seal the edges. Next bring the bottom corners of the triangle around to meet in the center, secure with some egg white glue and Voila! You have a perfect/semi-perfect won ton. Mine were pretty irregular, but guess what it doesn't affect the taste!

To make the soup, place the stock, fish sauce, soy sauce and rice wine in a large pan and bring to a boil. I used stock cubes, which made a difference. My broth ended up being really really salty; but I just added some more hot water and it was perfect. Add the pepper flakes and the chopped scallions to the broth. Then drop the won tons into the pan and simmer for about 4-5 minutes. Plate/bowl it up and garnish that booger with some cilantro. BAM!! Done. This dish only takes as long as it takes you to fold a won ton and boil some water!

Stir-fried Chicken with Thai Basil

Ingredients

1 lb chicken breast, skinless, boneless

2 tbsp olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 scallions, finely chopped

1/2 TBSP dried red pepper flakes

1 red bell pepper ( I like red better than green; its up to you), seeded and thinly sliced

a heaping 1/2 cup fresh basil (Thai basil is recommended), coarsely chopped

2 TBSP fish sauce

steamed rice (as much as you want)

First, cut the chicken breast into thin strips. Heat oil in your pre-heated wok and add the garlic and scallions. Cook them for about 2 minutes and then add the red pepper flakes and bell pepper, cook for another 2 minutes. Add the chicken and cook until browned. Stir in the basil and fish sauce and finish cooking the chicken. Serve over rice. That was soooo easy right? And quick! It'll probably take you about 15 minutes, more or less if you're a fast or slow chopper. 

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Paranormal Activity 4

My Score: 6.0

IMDB Score: 4.7/10 (it wasn't that bad)

Rating: R

Favorite Line: "He's weird" to say the least

Director: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman

Stars: Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively

It’s getting close to Halloween and I love my scary movies so I’ll be reviewing creepy movies, both new and old, for my next 2 posts. I’ve totally been sucked into the whole Paranormal Activity hype. I know some people think the Paranormal Activity movies are stupid and not scary at all like “Oooh the ghost or whatever just pulled her toe…not scary.” But you know what? Can we be real for a second? Ok.

                                                                   Real. Talk.

If any of these things happened to you, you would have pooped your pants. Don’t Lie. How many times have you felt like someone was watching you or that you weren't alone in your home?

How many times have you stared at that person shaped shadow in your room and then breathed a silent sigh of relief when you realized it was just that coat and scarf you left hanging on your chair?

When that thump in the night makes you pause because you’re home alone! You know what I’m talking about. Don’t lie! Yeah you can chuckle it off when you discover it was just a book falling off your shelf but you were actually scared over something so “stupid”!

That’s why I think the Paranormal Activity movies are so scary. They tap into what darkness or scary force might be behind the shadow in the room, that feeling that you’re falling in the middle of a nap, or that book falling off a shelf. All of these silly, momentarily creepy things just become even creepier and actually dangerous when the characters in these movies try to investigate and unveil what that force may be.

So now just a brief synopsis of the first 3 movies ***SPOILER ALERT*** If you've seen all of the movies skip on to 4!

Paranormal Activity 1: Small weird stuff happens. Boyfriend gets camera and tapes weird stuff. Boyfriend messes with demon/ghost thing against Girlfriend (Katy)’s wishes. Demon/ghost thing gets bigger, badder, faster, stronger. Demon/ghost thing possesses Katy. Katy eats her boyfriend’s face. Her whereabouts are unknown.

Paranormal Activity 2: The movie is a prequel to the first movie. Thus Katy and boyfriend are still alive. Her sister, brother-in-law and niece have a new addition to the family, a bouncing baby boy named Hunter.  When they bring the baby home the house is “broken” into and a lot of their stuff is destroyed. So they install security cameras! Weird creepy stuff starts happening, small at first and then stuff gets REAL. The niece is the main investigator in this film. She discovers that her great grandmother was possibly a witch and made a deal with a demon to give it the family’s first son in return for wealth and power. Duh duh DAAAH. The demon is gonna get that baby. No one believes her until her step mother (the sister of Katy) is possessed by the demon. Etcetera, etcetera the only way to get rid of the demon is to send it on over to poor unsuspecting Katy. So Red Rover Red Rover….the whole first movie happened. BUT that didn’t work. Katy’s whereabouts are now KNOWN. She comes over to her sister’s house and kills everybody but (the niece who was on a field trip; can we say lucky?) and takes the baby. Katy and Hunter’s whereabouts are UNKNOWN.

Paranormal Activity 3: Yet another prequel to both movies. This movie goes to the very beginning, well kind of. Katy and her sister are little kids; their mother has a boyfriend who films weddings and bah mitzvahs for a living. Katy’s sister has an imaginary friend, Toby, who isn’t so imaginary or friendly. Weird stuff starts happening so the boyfriend uses his dated cameras to configure makeshift security cameras. Stuff gets even more REAL than in all of the other movies!! It was freaky y’all. Their mom doesn’t believe until her whole kitchen table and chairs almost crush her (watch the movie if you want to know what I’m talking about). So to grandmother’s house they go! This is the first time any of these characters have made it out of the house in all of the movies. But little did they know grandma IS a witch who made a deal with Toby? I don’t have that straight yet. Grandma and her gang of old witch ladies, with the help of Toby of course, kill the mom and the boyfriend. Katy and her sister live happily ever after (?) with their grandmother and apparently forget all that’s happened to them. Thus Paranormal Activity 1 and 2 exist.

So here we are with Paranormal Activity 4! I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to see this one. For months after watching the previews over and over I would either decide I was going to see it or I definitely wasn’t! But I did. This was thankfully not another prequel; it picked up where the second movie left off (Katy took baby Hunter and their whereabouts are UNKNOWN).  We have a new family seemingly unrelated to Katy and her sister. A teenage girl, her little brother and her parents live across the street from Katy and her “son”. The son is really weird; no surprise there. He sneaks over to the neighbor’s house at all times of the day and night and talks to his “imaginary friend”; sound familiar?  

So suddenly Katy has to be rushed to the hospital and stay there under observation for a few days. So the little boy has to stay with the family across the street he’s been creeping on this whole time. The mother’s explanation for allowing the little boy to stay at their house is that he has no family (CHEA cuz they’ve all been brutally murdered by Katy and this kid’s imaginary friend!). THIS MAKES NO SENSE. I would have just said “heck no lady I don’t know you and I don’t know you’re life…” but out of the kindness of her heart this lady opens her home to this child. The little boy creeps around the house talking to his imaginary friend, TOBY, and it weirds the teenage girl out. So naturally she wants to videotape her household. Her boyfriend has apparently been videotaping all of their skype sessions, which is CREEPIER than this little boy walking around the house. Can we just talk about how weird that is for a second? Anyways, he changes the settings on the 3 apple laptops and they set them up in the house to monitor the little boy. This is stupid. Number one, why does a five year old have a MAC (computer #1)? I don’t even have a MAC; and who uses a laptop just for recipes (computer #2)??? And can we talk about how much energy they’re wasting leaving these laptops plugged in? Not to mention no one moved the laptop once. Laptops are mobile! That’s their appeal as opposed to a desktop. Yet everyone in the family, except for the teenage girl who clumsily and awkwardly walked around with her laptop, left the laptops alone (on the middle of the kitchen countertop). One cool and creative feature they added to the personal camera filming was the XBOX 360 kinect night vision setting. Once the lights were turned off and some setting was set on the game system tiny bulbs of light filled the room. What’s the purpose of this? Duh, so we can see the supernatural! For some reason this family also left on the XBOX at all times. Made no sense; their electric bill had to be crazy.

Energy wasting aside, the movie actually started off really slow and took forever to build up. I was actually FALLING ASLEEP, which I NEVER do. I don’t believe in wasting $10+ on a movie and missing any part of it whether it’s horrible or not. So on a particularly dull part, I got up, bought some candy and a coke, stretched a little and returned to my seat ready to be thrilled. And it did get better!

I won’t spoil anymore of the movie for people that are waiting to see the movie. But you get to see a little more of Toby or I should say you begin to understand the many faces and forms of Toby. Toby becomes even more devious (how you say? Watch the movie); that was cool and scary. Also a little more of the family history is discovered about Katy. You still don’t understand some things about what happened between Hunter’s toddler years to his 5 year old self. In the end, after watching this movie you’ll be more suspicious of anything going missing in your house and spontaneously appearing later on AND you’ll be watching your back while you skype with your friends. I actually really liked Paranormal Activity 4! I might watch it again just in case I actually missed something significant during the dull parts. I jumped quite a few times. My face probably did look crazy like the people in the previews, especially towards the end of the movie. AND YES I SCREAMED! I wasn’t the only one, even though it felt like it because everyone in the theater screamed at the exact same time I did. I went to see this movie with my two best friends, so it definitely made it substantially more bearable as opposed to seeing it solo and having to return to an empty house. But my scream was REAL and totally justified. Yeah I laughed afterwards, but I was SKERD!

There WILL be a Paranormal Activity 5. That’s all I’m gonna say. Go see it if you dare! Muahahahahaha.

Vietnamese Lemon Grass Shrimp & Tilapia: A Dinner you Can't Refuse

Ok Y'all this is my first dinner and movie blog post! I'm really excited :) The reason I'm writing this blog is because I LOVE food (Southeast and South Asian food in particular) and I LOVE movies!! So while in the past I've considered myself to be a pretty good cook and a knowledgeable movie buff I recently realized that my cooking expertise was limited to boiling pasta, microwaving Ramen and ordering out and my movie list consisted of the re-makes of the re-makes of the classics. Thus, I've taken on the yummy and thrilling feat of attacking 2-4 new recipes a month from my Vietnamese, Thai and Indian Cookbooks and a 365 long list of movies that should be watched before you call yourself a movie buff (according to IMDB). I will be completely honest with my recipes; I am an amateur chef in the making so I'll let you know what I burned or found challenging to make! I will give you the low-down on each movie; if I love it I love it if I hate it I'll let you know that too! My movie selection will range from black and white to current movies out in theaters today!! I hope you enjoy my new hobby and find my recipe and movie choices interesting and entertaining enough to try yourself! So Bon Apetit and Enjoy the Show!

*** Fun Blog Facts: Matthew Wright illustrated my seasoned wok & bunchayum is a play on my favorite Vietnamese dish Bun Cha****

Vietnamese Spicy Lemongrass Shrimp & Tilapia accompanied with Sauteed Spinach and Aromatic Rice

My first meal y'all!! Its extremely delicious and easy to make. Sweetness, fragrant lemongrass and fish sauce are very indicative of Vietnamese food. I hope you enjoy :)

Spicy Lemmon Grass Shrimp & Tilapia 

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs fresh medium shrimp; peeled & deveined

2 tbsp oil

2 tsp minced garlic

1/4 tsp salt

cilantro

Marinade Ingredients

2 tsp fish sauce

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp dried red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

2 stalks lemongrass (outer hard parts should be removed and the inner tender portion should be sliced thinly)

1 tsp minced garlic

First combine all of the marinade ingredients in a large bowl and mix them really well with a whisk. Next layer in the raw tilapia and then add in the raw shrimp on top. Shake the bowl to make sure all of the fish is soaked with the mixture. Sit the mixture in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile you can tackle the other side dishes of your dinner!

Next, heat oil in a wok over high heat and stir fry the garlic until it smells yummy and looks golden brown (approx. 30 sec.). I first sauteed the fish about 2 min each side or at least until the fish is tender and flaky and no longer raw looking in the center. I then set the fish on paper towels to get rid of some of the oil. I'd actually recommend using a thicker fish like cod or something as opposed to tilapia, which is really fragile. However, my tilapia was DABOMB! Next saute the shrimp and all of the marinade for about 2-3 minutes until pink but don't over cook them! They'll be tough! Also watch out for the oil when adding the shrimp and fish because the oil will splash and burn!! Add fish and shrimp in a container together and set aside or plate it up if you're ready :) It smells sooooo good you'll probably want to taste one or two or three shrimp! But try and wait to eat it all together; it'll be worth it.

Sauteed Spinach

Ingredients

1/4 tsp butter (I used light butter)

as much minced garlic as you want; I really like garlic so I did about a tablespoon

olive oil (eye ball it to coat the saute pan)

salt and pepper to taste

fresh or frozen spinach (fresh spinach is actually way better!)

Remove stems from spinach after washing if using fresh spinach. If using frozen spinach just prepare according to the instructions on the package. Add butter and garlic to the saute pan and let simmer until golden brown and yummy smelling! Add the oil then spinach and stir in coating with the butter, oil and garlic. Then cover and steam for about a minute. Plate it up!!! Its a delicious spin on the roughage every healthy colon needs :) 

Fried Aromatic Rice

Ingredients 

Jasmine rice (cooked in a steamer; about two cups)

butter

1/2 tbsp ginger

1/4 tsp garlic

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup chicken broth/stock

1/4 tsp fish sauce

1/4 tsp oyster sauce

1/4 cup diced green onion

a dash of soy sauce

pepper to taste

Its actually recommended to cook your rice a day in advance and keep it in the fridge to dry it out and make it easier to absorb all the delicious flavors. But I just steamed mine really quick in my rice cooker then covered it and stuck it in the back of my fridge while I made everything else. Still tasted really great! Get that wok out; preferably with the seasonings and brown junk from cooking the shrimp and add the olive oil. Scrape up the drippings and add the ginger and garlic. Saute a minute or so or until you get that yummy smell! Then dump in the rice, butter and chicken broth. Mix everything really well! Add oyster sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce. The sauces are all pretty salty so I don't add salt. Add a little pepper then finally add the green onion and give it one last stir. Be careful that the rice doesn't burn!

Now plate this delicious joker up!!! I was dancing around at this point because I knew it was going to be absolutely delicious. Just tear up some cilantro over all of it (I looooooooove cilantro) and its set :) This meal really took no time at all; 45 minutes tops if you're quick about the prep steps. I'm a grad student so none of my dishes will take longer than an hour. Lot's of studying and life to catch up on so I don't want to spend hours in the kitchen you know because "Ain't nobody got time for that!" This meal also lasted me lunch and dinner for like 3 days (never got tired of it) because I'm a grad student and I like to make meals that last me a while so I can save money!

I hope you enjoy! This meal was super easy, super fast and super delicious! I hope you enjoy!

Check out my movie that goes along with this dish below! The Godfather!!

The Godfather (1972)

My Score: 8.9/10
IMDB Score: 9.2/10
Rating: R
Favorite Line: "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse"--cliche but hey it's a classic!
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan

Okay okay okay! I know its crazy that I haven't seen The Godfather until now but hey it is what it is. Everytime it came on television it was always the second or third installment or 30 min into the movie. I don't believe in watching a movie for the first time at any part other than the very beginning! So I watched it. It was really good, no surprise there. I finally get all of these pop culture references: "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse" "For justice we go to Don Corleone." and "Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your home on the wedding day of your daughter. And may their first child be a masculine child". The raspy voice of Don Corleone, the horse head in the bed, the strong family ties...everything made this movie great.

Don Corleone is definitely one cool cat. His love and commitment to his friends and family was endearing. However this dude was also scary. My mouth remained open for most of the movie in terror and disbelief at the consequences of overstepping boundaries, showing disrespect and betrayal. There is much violence in this movie so its definitely not for the weak stomached. I mean its not on the level of a Quentin Tarantino film but its definitely got its fill of shootouts, spewing  blood and choke-outs. The most heart wrenching parts were SPOILER ALERT when Michael's first wife was blown up in his car, Sonny was gunned down at toll booth and Don Corleone died in the garden playing with his grandson.SPOILER OVER This is in my opinion definitely a man's movie. The women in this film had no power whatsoever and were basically portrayed as naiive, fragile baby-makers. Spousal abuse and infidelity is one of the hallmarks of the family unit in this movie. 

Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and James Caan's performances were phenomenal! I truly enjoyed watching them play these complex and dynamic characters. I actually didn't feel like I was watching Al Pacino in a role; I was watching the life of Michael Corleone. Al Pacino's performance was soooo good I forgot that it was him playing a character. Side note: I didn't realize Dianne Keaton was in this movie!! She seems like she's always been old; but there she is! I barely recognized her. She was also fantastic and believable.

The only downfall for me is the length of this movie. It was a little too long for me; almost 3 hours!!! I'm a 2 to  2 hours and a half kind of movie viewer. I had to take some stretching breaks and some snack breaks. It was still not as long as Titanic and it was slightly shorter than Avatar; but overwhelmingly better than both!

Overall this movie was fantastic. I completely understand why its a must see classic! Go see it if you haven't!! It's on Amazon for $2.99 :)