Takeout with the Tos #13

I'm including this week's takeout menu and costs but the real story is going to be about one dish in particular.

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce: $17.99

Bok Choy: $14.99

Mushroom, Bamboo, Carrot Stir Fry: $14.99

Braised Pork and Tofu Puffs (not pictured): $20.99

Baked Drumsticks (8 ct): $12.99

Take-Out Total: $81.95

Tax: $6.76

Grand Total:  $88.71

 

My husband baked these drumsticks. My kids really liked it. They turned out well!

These were my two main vegetable dishes this week. I cut the bok choy into strips to create a different texture. I liked it, but I'm not sure the extra time was worth the result. But I'm glad I tried it once.

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce

 

 

My picture doesn't do the dish justice. My kids also don't eat peas so there's nothing green. I completely forgot about this dish until I was flipping through the Woks of Life cookbook and saw this recipe. I've always loved that slurry-sauce texture for this dish and anything similar. I don't actually follow the recipe anymore because I just make it the way I want to, but this recipe is still special to me.

My mother died 21 years ago. My dad hired a nanny to watch us after school and cook for our family, but that arrangement lasted a mere month. Maybe only weeks. The memory is hazy now unless I go back and flip through the journals. After the nanny had to quit, my dad had to figure out a way to feed us. He ended up cooking on Sunday afternoons for the entire week.    `

Yup, that's right. I follow the same routine now that my dad did for many years. He would cook multiple dishes and we would eat it as long as it would last through the week. Sounds familiar, right? I remember packing lunch my junior and senior year of high school. I went out and bought myself a glass Pyrex dish with a red lid. 

This is what my "lunch container" looked like in high school. Microwave friendly so I could heat it up at school. 

I knew it had the possibility of leaking, and I didn't have a lunch box so it had to go in a plastic bag into my backpack. I was ingenious enough to pack and store it correctly in my backpack. Half was rice, the other half were the meats and vegetables. I'd make sure to put it in my backpack with the rice side down. That way, if the juices started to run, the rice would absorb it and nothing would leak. 

I had two favorite dishes he made. The first was a shrimp and green peas stir fry. Simply done, maybe added some soy sauce. It was yummy. The second was a dish made with frozen mixed vegetables and ground beef. He made a sauce to go with it which was the slurry-sauce I loved. Whenever he made this dish, I got really excited to pack it for lunch. 

During my last year of college, I lived in an apartment with three other girls. I did my own cooking that year and made simple meals for myself. The first dish I wanted to cook was this dish my dad made with the ground beef and mixed vegetables. I did exactly that - stuck ground beef and mixed vegetables into a pot and cooked them. However, I couldn't get the sauce. My dad didn't follow any recipes so there wasn't anything to share with me. At the time, I had no idea about the powers of corn starch and water and how it changes when heat is added. So I made....ground beef and mixed vegetables with no sauce. That was the moment I realized cooking was a lot harder than I thought it to be.

Fast forward 14 years later, and I understand much more about cooking than I did when I first started in college.  This dish, shrimp with lobster sauce, will always remind me of the years my dad cooked, and the dish which instigated my love/hate relationship with cooking.  My dad doesn't cook much anymore if at all. I've shared some of my cooking with him. He doesn't share his thoughts or even express opinions, but I hope he's impressed. What he started 21 years ago, I continue today with my family.