Wonton Noodle Soup

My Wonton Noodle Soup is a finalist at the Whole Foods Budget Recipe Challenge! Can you believe it?

Need your help, please. There are 6 finalists and the winner is decided by votes! And because I’m up against blog-friends, Karina, Rachel and Katy. They are all really pretty, super-talented and I love them dearly.

But.

I’m going to play dirty….real dirty.

I’m gonna throw out all I’ve got, baby.

The Bribe Card:

By voting (which is done by commenting) you get a chance to win $500 from Whole Foods.

The Cute Kid Card:

Here. Let me pimp out my kids again:
Andrew and Nathan helped me make the wontons.

Awwww…aren’t they cute? NOW GO VOTE FOR ME!

The Save You Money Card:

Wonton Noodle Soup only costs $2.98 per serving. Like, way cheaper than a Double Cheeseburger Meal Deal.

The Second Bribe Card:

Ok, so that first bribe really wasn’t from me. You are entered into the $500 drawing no matter who you vote for and the money comes from Whole Foods!  hehehe.

So, here’s the bribe. If I win (and I can only win IF YOU VOTE FOR ME!) I get TEN $25 Whole Foods gift certificates. I will give NINE of them away to random voters on Whole Food’s site.

Oh, what happened to the TENTH gift certificate? I’ve already promised the boys $25 worth of jelly beans if they told their teachers to vote for me.

The I’ll Do Your Ironing Card:

Um. No.

It’s a Close Race! (it really is!):

But please, purty pullleeeeeze come vote for the Wonton Noodle Soup recipe? You’ll have to register to vote and voting is simply done by commenting on the recipe at Whole Food’s site. You’ll automatically be entered to win the $500 Whole Food Prize plus my NINE $25 gift certificates.

(photo from Whole Foods when they tested my recipe)

Dude. What the hell are you still doing here? GO VOTE FOR ME ALREADY!

(click on photo for shot-by-shot food styling and photography analysis of some of the photos that led up to the “money shot”)

Chinese restaurants in China don’t really have Chinese Chicken Salad on their menus, it’s a creation of Chinese-American restaurants! According to Cecilia Chiang, author of The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco(one of my all time favorite Chinese American cookbooks), lettuce was rare and imported in China, and “salads” referred to pickled items. But, I still love a good Chinese Chicken Salad, especially if it’s got a tangy, sweet sauce and crunchy bits of fried wonton strips.

But please, Applebee’s restaurant, can we rename your “Oriental Chicken Salad” to something more hip? Asian Chicken Salad or Chinese Chicken Salad would be much better. Oriental is such a dated word…so..19th century!*

Recipe for Chinese Chicken Salad is below.

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Food Styling and Photography

Many of you requested that I continue posting my shot-by-shot analysis of all the failed photos that led up to this one that I like…my “money shot.” I also show you my photo setup - which really doesn’t change too much during the “NOT-winter” season. I use natural light as much as I can, and when dreary winter comes along, I switch to using my Lowel EGO lights.

Vegan Yum Yum just posted a fabulous write up on food photography - make sure you check it out.

In the meantime, here’s my shot-by-shot analysis of the Chinese Chicken Salad photos!

For more food photography posts, I have a whole category called “Food Photography/Blog Tips.”

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It’s Chinese Wonton Noodle Soup time! A great dish to make for the Beijing 2008 Olympics! This is recipe 5 in the series (see links at the end for the other recipes)

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Wrapping Wontons Videos

I’ve got two for you - I was on CBS on Tuesday - this was a BLAST! A 4 minute cooking segment cooking wonton noodle soup…but in not in a kitchen…here’s the video:
(link is right above photo when you get to CBS site)

And my regular segment on ABC7  Chinese Wonton Noodle Soup  just click on the “featured video” right below the recipe name. And yes, I flubbed saying the number eight in Mandarin! It’s “baa” not “baat” (which is how I say it in Cantonese).

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