***
UPDATE!

8/8 This morning I woke up and Scott surprised me by telling me, "pack 3 days of clothing, we’re going on a surprise trip!" Soooo coooool! We’re just about to leave but I wanted to tell you that I’ll spin the random number generator wheel as soon as I have a moment with Internet access after 3pm.

I have no idea where he’s taking me!! I’m in VEGAS, baby!!!!

xoxoxo,

Jaden

Winners have been announced!!!

***

It’s my birthday and I wanna give away a cool gift!

Watch my video for details:

Here’s what’s up for grabs - the wonderful Flip Video Ultra 30 Minute It’s about the size of a deck of cards:

Here’s what you need to do:

It’s my birthday on 8/8/08 and I’m compiling a version of Bittman’s 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less Except, Asian style. Here are my differences:

• Dish has to be Asian style or inspired: Chinese, Japanese, Indian Korean, Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Filipino, Indonesian,Pakistani, Armenian, Mongolian, Tibetan, Iranian, Hong Kongnese (heehee), Cambodian, fusion etc.etc. (whew)
• Dish has to be ready in 15 minutes or less. Bittman’s 10 minutes just seems really short and as a mother of 2, I get distracted by a kid once every 5 minutes anyways.
• Submit a simple, light, quick meal OR a dish that goes with rice.  You don’t have to count rice steaming time. Most Asian meals are accompanied by rice and rice takes about 20-30 minutes to make. So don’t worry about the rice time. Just type in "Serve with rice" in your recipe
• Write the recipe Bittmann style - like this

Steamed Mussels Put three pounds of washed mussels in a pot with 2 tablespoons of Thai curry paste, 2 cups of coconut milk, garlic cloves, Thai basil leaves and chopped tomatoes. Steam until mussels open. Serve with bread or rice. The simpler and more elegant the recipe is, the better. You can link to a recipe, but please at least describe what you’re linking to. Name your recipe too!

• Submit by my birthday, August 8th 3pm EST. Contest open to anyone in the world. I’ll be using the handy Random Number Generator to pick a winner. YOU CAN ENTER ONCE A DAY!!! Come back everyday and submit a new 15 minute recipe if you’d like.
• BONUS! If you blog or Twitter about this contest, you can have an extra entry. Just come back and link to what you’ve posted or just write that you Twitter’d about it

***

Here are of my favorite "15 Minute Asian Light Meals"

of course, no photo needed for your entry..

Lettuce Cups Stir-fry 3/4 lb ground chicken with diced red onion, diced water chestnuts, garlic, ginger, 2 tbl oyster sauce and 1 tsp Chinese rice wine. Drain juices, serve in crisp, cold lettuce cups, top with mandarin orange slices

Unagi-don Broil defrosted Japanase unagi until hot and the top nicely carmelized, about 5-7 minutes. Serve over rice, top with Kabayaki sauce and shredded nori.

Will you please enter??

*** Other great recipes!

Ground Beef with Beijing Sauce Over Noodles

Stir Fried Shrimp, Eggs and Peas + Stir Fry Secrets

Pan Fried Shrimp and Pork Potstickers

Xiao Long Bao - Steamed Shanghai Soup Dumplings

Wonton Noodle Soup

from Steamy Kitchen food column in Tampa Tribune

If I had to just choose one thing, “my killer app” in the kitchen, it would be salt. It doesn’t matter what cuisine I’m cooking, salt is the basis of flavor in a savory dish. Call me a salt snob, but I stay away from the regular table salt, mainly because it tastes like crap! The granules are way too fine, the anti-caking agent just sounds gross and added iodine is sooooo 1920’s. The taste reminds me of…um…getting smacked in the face with a salt lick dipped in a vat of bitters?

Normally, I use kosher salt in the kitchen, mainly because of the texture and cheap price. I really like the feel of kosher salt in my fingers as I’m seasoning, and I’ve learned to season by sight, feel and taste. I’m just too lazy to bust out the measuring spoons, because each time, I have to wash and wipe dry the set of awkward, clanging, dangling spoons for fear of tainting the oregano with chili powder or powdered sugar with vanilla extract. How inefficient! Wouldn’t it be cool if spice jars came with twist lids that doled out the spice in teaspoon increments? What a great product idea. And if you steal my idea, at least take me out to dinner. But I digress.

I also use sea salt and serve sea salt at the table. Sea salt is evaporated sea water, and you’d be surprised at how many different types of sea salt there are, Australia’s Murray River pink salt crystals, salt from the tropical salt beds of Bali, grey salt from France and even Hawaiian black lava salt. The colors are naturally occurring and the taste? Imagine standing at the clear, blue water’s edge in the Mediterranean, closing your eyes and letting the crashing waves mist your face. I call that $12.95 for an 8oz vacation!

Normally, because of its price, I reserve sea salt as a “finishing salt” to sprinkle on a dish either at the table or after the cooking process. But guess what I discovered at the market? Affordable sea salt that is shaped and textured just like kosher salt. Look for Alessi Fine Sea Salt at the market or Pure Ocean sold by Seasalt.com. Pure Ocean is Kosher certified, if that’s important to you. If you see other brands of sea salt at the market, look at the label and make sure that the only ingredient is salt.

So, now that sea salt is finally affordable enough to play with, let’s take it one step further and talk about combining spices and herbs with sea salt to create flavored salts. One of my favorites is orange and lemon zest, which is perfect for summertime dishes and keeps in a jar for months.

It’s great on any seafood, steamed vegetables or grilled chicken. Cut back on the amount of salt that you normally use during cooking and instead, sprinkle the Citrus Flavored Sea Salt on top of the dish to finish. You can certainly cook with the flavored sea salt, but using it as a finishing salt really lets the flavors sing.

The formula is simple - spice or dried herbs + fine ground sea salt. If you’re using fresh ingredients (like citrus zest) make sure you dry them out in the oven first. Other combinations that work well: Chili powder + lime zest; toasted and ground Sichuan peppercorn or even lavender + mint, which is great on lamb or eggs. If you don’t want to make you own, check out

SeaSalt.com - they have some fabulous fusion flavors like Espresso Brava (great on steaks), Spicy Curry, Vintage Merlot, Chili Verde, Black Truffle, Thai Ginger, Smoked Serrano and Soy Sauce Salt.

Curry Salt

2 teaspoons curry powder + 1/4 very fine sea salt

Make sure you get the “fine sea salt” when working with a powder spice. If you can’t find the “fine” grind, then just throw it in the food processor or spice grinder and pulse a few times. This salt is excellent on roasted cauliflower!

Sichuan Peppercorn Salt

Sichuan Peppercorn or Szechuan Peppercorn is really not a peppercorn at all - its a berry from a bush that will make your tongue and lips tingle and numb when you eat them. Yes, its legal. No, you can’t snort it. When you dry-roast the peppercorns, your entire house will smell heavenly…woodsy, citrusy, earthy…so incredibly aromatic

Dry toast 1/4 cup of Sichuan Peppercorn in a dry skillet over medium-high heat. Make sure you don’t burn the spice! It should take about 5 minutes and you’ll see a bit of smoke. Let cool and grind in spice grinder or food processor and combine with equal amount of sea salt.

Sichuan Peppercorn is great in:

Sichuan Peppercorn Roasted Chicken

Grilled Giant Prawns with Sichuan Peppercorn Dipping Salt

Citrus Flavored Sea Salt

2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons orange zest
¼ cup sea salt (fine)

Preheat oven to 200F. Set a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet and spread out the lemon and orange zest. Bake for 30 minutes or until the zest has dried. Combine with sea salt. Store in covered glass jar on counter.

Wow, this stuff is great on just about anything - chicken, fish, vegetables, pork…I use this salt the most in my cooking because it’s just lifts any dish that I make with a bright, cheerful color and fragrance!

Great with carrots:

Honey Ginger Carrots with Citrus Salt

Matcha Green Tea Salt

1 teaspoon matcha green tea powder + 1/4 very fine sea salt (you may have to grind your sea salt in food processor or spice grinder if you don’t get the fine sea salt)

Matcha or Maccha is Japanese green tea powder made from the highest quality of green tea leaves. Its a stunning and lovely mossy color which makes such a pretty finishing salt, especially if you use a white plate and also sprinkle some directly on the plate. Matcha powder + sea salt + couple pulses in food processor if you are using course sea salt

You know what is so totally divine? Your favorite chocolate truffle or chocolate bar + dip in Matcha Salt. So very different!

Use with dishes that are light in texture and flavor, like eggs, tofu, fish, since this salt’s flavor is more delicate and subtle. It gives a beautiful floral, grassy, sweet and soothing aroma. You can buy Matcha powder at your local Asian market. Sometimes coffee/tea shops will carry as well. But…matcha green tea powder is not the same as green tea leaves. Ask specifically for “matcha powder.” Its a little expensive. I paid $7.50 for 1.4 oz jar at a Japanese market in Los Angeles (which will last me a long time as I only used about 1 teaspoon in my mixture. Don’t get the super-premium stuff, it would be a waste to use the expensive powder for the salts. Buy online at Amazon (this is the brand I got). Use your leftover powder to make:

White Chocolate Matcha Ice Cream.

**

And if you haven’t read this yet:

“WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?” Come read the responses from readers - guaranteed to make you laugh!

Wow, almost 400 entries in the Cooking Light Complete Cookbook contest! Very cool. I cannot believe all the strange, exotic food combinations that you all entered. If you haven’t read through the entries, take a look, it’s fun to see all the weird flavor combos that you all enjoy.

I’m announcing the winners right here in video form! In fact, this is the very first Steamy Kitchen home made video ever published (i.e. not X-rated)

Steamy Kitchen Cooking Light Winners from Jaden Hair on Vimeo.

And who are the owners of these lucky numbers? Read on….

The first winner is:

# 245 MamaMia Says:
May 7th, 2008 at 11:56 am e

My strange combo is spam and mango in a sandwich!

Actually, MamaMia, did you know that Spam is one my favorite foods in the whole world? I even wrote An Ode to Spam in the Style of Seuss

The second winner is:

# 59 patti Says:
April 26th, 2008 at 12:16 am e

going way back to old school ghetto style. vienna sausage, sticky rice and planter’s cheese balls (from the can). discovered this combo in elementary school when i couldn’t cook anything, so i just opened things up and ate.

oh, and green mangoes or oranges with salt and tabasco.

oh again…c/o my hawaiian friends…gummy bears dusted with li hing mui. try it with dried apricots too!

but i still do the fried rice with ketchup on occasion.

(i think i’m making myself nauseous)

I must say that I’ve never tried sticky rice + cheese balls combo. I wonder if we could make a sort of sushi out of it? What shall we call it?
(pssst…I eat gummy bears dipped in li hing mui too!)

And the final winner is:

# 114 Alejandra Says:
April 27th, 2008 at 1:39 am e

This is just such a wonderful question! OK here are my favorite weirdo-combos:

1.) Snickers bars chopped into little pieces and sprinkled onto a cream cheese-slathered onion bagel (must be onion), schmooshed into a sandwich and washed down with Orangina.

2.) Scrambled eggs topped with LOTS of mayo, white truffle oil, and cayenne pepper. Seriously, I mean LOTS of mayo. Like so much I can’t do it in front of other people.

3.) Alfalfa sprout, dill pickle slices, and mayo sandwiches on soft whole wheat bread. I ate this combination of sandwich every day for lunch and dinner for two months when I was in the fourth grade. My parents were kind of like “Well what other child requests alfalfa sprouts on whole wheat?” and just let me have it. Then one day i randomly woke up and requested chicken.

5.) EZ Cheez on Wheat Thins topped with one M&M (Each chip must be sprayed one at a time in fun little florets and peaks). This was my favorite snack when I got the “munchies” in college.

Oh and to the “ice chewer” above: I also have an odd love of Sunny D over crushed ice. MUST be crushed ice and MUST be Sunny D.

OMG and I forgot the biggest and weirdest of all!!! Despite the fact that I’m (oddly and coincidentally) working on a post about it now (but I’ll leave a sneak peak here). It’s a legacy from my grandmother: Cheddar cheese melted in coffee. You drop the cubes of cheese in along with the cream and sugar, then drink the coffee and when you are done you scoop the gooey salty sweety coffee-flavored cheese out and serve on a cracker (export sodas were a favorite). SO good!! I’ll have more about this on my blog soon (ish).

WOW, you’ve given us a great insight into your eating. I think the only one that’s weirding me out is the massive amounts of mayo. But hey, the Snickers bar in cream cheese on bagel sounds awesome.

***

Vote for which strange concoction I should try

We had so many awesome entries, and here are some of my favorites. Place your vote and I’ll even post a video. hehehe…I’ll make the concoction and see if the kids like it. They are SO going to hate me! I might as well earmark another $600 for future therapy bills, but maybe it will be worth it? I’m such a devious mom!!! And yes, I’m giving a nice prize to whoever wins this!

# 252 Kate Says:
Pea soup with ketchup ( my grandfather started me on this)

# 282 Terri Egelund Says:
Peanut butter, mayonnaise and sprinked sugar sandwich. Can’t get enough of them.

# 293 Melissa Reeder Says:
Mixing ranch dressing, Cheese Nips and peanut butter together and using a pickle to eat the mixture.

# 73 ayelet Says:
mine is cornflakes, milk and tabasco.

# 158 Jennyran Says:
PB and Onion with Anchovies, or smoked oysters. Easy on the Pb, and stack it all on Dill Pickle Tasty Mini rice crackers.

# 178 tori lo Says:
this great aussie burger joint called ruby’s in nyc has this signature burger called the whaley’s which is a burger with beets, sweet chili sauce, a fried egg, and pineapple.

[poll=4]

This Saturday morning, I had every intention of waking up bright and early to post the winners. But the boys wanted to make breakfast for MiMi and PaPa (Scott’s parents), who are visiting from Buffalo, NY.

How could I say no to this face?

They made German Oven Pancakes for breakfast.

Okay, I know. Enough about breakfast, how about the winners?

Kona Kampachi Winners

Many thanks to the Dr. Michael Daniel’s Parapsychic Random Number Generator. By the way, did you know that Parapsychology means: “the scientific study of paranormal phenomena”?? A little spooky. I wonder how Dr. D feels about me using his psychic random number generator to draw for fish winners? Maybe I should send him some fish too? Because it would really suck to be abducted by aliens or have an out of body experience.

That’s just bad ju-ju.

Let’s spit out the numbers!

BOYS! I need some help here! The numbers are too small to see!

# 111 Emily Says: April 2nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm eAnd this would be my entry. I would DEARLY love to try something other than canned tuna, frozen tilapia from The Mysterious Beyond, and salmon. I don’t even think there IS a fishmonger local to me…unless you count the bait shop down the road.

The next winner is…..

I know that you’ve not known me that long, but you’ve gotta believe that when I squeal in excitement like a monkey in heat - it’s good. Real good.

See those cards? My photos, my designs, and inside? My recipes!

Ok, ok. Let me share with you how I did it, because it was sooo easy and you could do the same. OMG, where do I start? I’ll just show you.

All you have to do is:

1. Upload photo/graphic for front of card
2. Type in the inside text. The font can even be in your own handwriting.
3. Choose recipient(s). Click SEND.

The company called Send Out Cards prints, stuffs, stamps and sends out your card. No licking envelopes, finding a stamp or buying ugly greeting cards at the store.

And a few days later, your recipient gets a real card in the mail. No more stupid spyware infected e-cards! YEAH!

The cost is 1/3 the cost of a greeting card at the store, starting at $0.31 for one card (meaning you don’t have to buy in bulk. cards are professionally printed and sent one at a time)

Here’s the front of one of the cards:

They are glossy, thick (like the expensive Hallmark cards) and the photo quality is amazing. I customized the front of this one with, “Sunday Morning with the Boys.”

The Inside

This particular card I chose to be tri-fold and inserted more photos and told a story about how the boys made German Oven Pancakes. Basically, I turned my blog post into a beautiful card and sent it to my Mom, who loved it. This tri-fold card cost me $1.24 to make and send + $0.41 postage.

A bi-fold card

You send in your handwriting and signature. If you have messy chicken-scratch handwriting, you can use one of their fonts instead (like that one above). Insert a jpg of your business card if you want. This bi-fold card costs me $0.93 to make and send + $0.41 postage.

Here’s my handwriting font

And noooo, I can’t tell you what the rest of the card said!!!

The envelope

No more licking stamps or trying to find an envelope.

A postcard + lots of templates!

Forget food - put a pic of your cute pet or an old photo of your son at 4 months old flipping his Mama off. He couldn’t even say one word yet, but didn’t need to, I guess. (yeah, that’s Nathan) There are over 12,000 frames, layouts, designs to choose from. I just uploaded the booger-butt’s photo, chose a frame to customize it. This postcard cost me $0.62 + $0.26 postage. I thought this frame was cute for a postcard, because I couldn’t find one that said, “This is what I think of diaper rash.”

Nathan’s signature

Ok, another food porn card:

Blogs, emails and websites are nice, but there’s just nothing like getting a real card in the mail. E-cards just suck in general. The Send Out Cards system is all web-based, and you can import in your contact database. Create and send a card to 1 person or 1000 in less than a minute. The price per card is the same. Thank you’s, Christmas, birthdays, just because, business, etc.

Live Demo!

Join me on a phone + web demonstration Monday March 10th evening 6:30pm PST/9:30pm EST. My friend, Jules and I will be doing a live demonstration of SendOutCards, the company who is responsible for this awesome card system. I’ll be customizing the demo just for food bloggers.

For the demo, just listen in (you don’t even have to talk!) and watch on the screen as we walk you step by step. I’ll be giving you some of my points to send out cards of your own!

And yeah, I KNOW. SendOutCards corp website sucks. But I promise you that you will absolutely loooove my demo!

To keep the group small and manageable, I’m limiting it to just a handful of people on the line, so if you are interested, email me directly at jaden@steamykitchen.com to RSVP and I’ll forward you the web conference details. I do make nice little referral fee for anyone who want to use this system - which I am very, very happy to share right back to whoever participates in the call! (just send me some chocolates!)

You can send cards internationally, and I will have a separate call for people who live outside the U.S.

Can’t wait to show you!!!

***

p.s. No, this isn’t my big announcement….BUT I PROMISE, I’LL REVEAL THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT SOON. And to answer your emails that I’ve been getting:

I’m not pregnant

This card thing is NOT my company - THOUGH I wish it was cuz I’d be a gazillionaire!

Though the big announcement does involve a “Dear John” letter (not to my loving husband, of course) and I will announce it NEXT WEDNESDAY <– hint hint