Shrimp Wonton Soup

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A comforting and delicious recipe for shrimp wonton soup that’s not only easy, but healthy and filling with only 110 calories for a huge serving! 

Shrimp Wonton Soup- delicious, easy, and healthy with only 110 calories for a huge serving!

Are you hungry yet?

Specifically, are you hungry for a healthy and comforting soup that’s filled to the brim with flavor and steamy-hot homemade shrimp wontons? Yeah? Me too.

I know I mentioned this in my last post, but I’ve been in a bit of a food blogging funk for the last two weeks or so. A combination of diving into the portrait photography world and a weekend camping trip in Big Bear have sucked up most of my time and interest, and to be honest, cooking in a hot kitchen just doesn’t seem to be too appealing to me. Yup, California is embracing the Fall with 90 degree weather, which is putting a major damper on my plans for #OMGpumpkinspicelattesEVERYDAY and cold-weather food. 

Shrimp Wonton Soup- delicious, easy, and healthy with only 110 calories for a huge serving!

Sometimes, though, you get a craving at 7:30 in the morning for a big steamy bowl of shrimp wonton soup and nothing, not even hothothot weather or the fact that you haven’t had your morning coffee yet so you can barely type out a text messages canceling your morning gym session with your boyfriend because you’re taking a “rest day” from all the strenuous chewing you’ve been doing the last few days (don’t want to exert myself too much, you know how it is) can stop you from making it. What am I even saying? 

Sorry, it’s hard to concentrate with photos like this staring you in the face. Like, COME TO MAMA. 

Shrimp Wonton Soup- delicious, easy, and healthy with only 110 calories for a huge serving!

This is one of those recipes that’s just plain good. It fills you up and makes you feel full, but not overly weighed down since it’s made with a broth base, filled with perfectly cooked fresh veggies, and a lean shrimp filling. One bite into a tender wonton with a small sip of broth and trust me, you will be in lightened-up comfort food heaven! Talk about a perfect combination of health and deliciousness- this is my kind of meal.

I know wontons can seem a bit intimidating to make at first, but they’re easy as pie. You can find pre-made wonton skins in the refrigerated asian section at most grocery stores and they honestly come together in a flash! 

One small note with this recipe, it should be served immediately or within 30 minutes of cooking the wontons in the broth or else they will absorb too much of the liquid if left to soak! Eaters beware!

Shrimp Wonton Soup- delicious, easy, and healthy with only 110 calories for a huge serving!

 

Easy Crispy Pork Wontons

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Easy Crispy Pork Wontons- these are a family favorite and my mom has made over 2,000 of them in the last 10 years! DELICIOUS!

I think I’ve made it pretty obvious by now that I love food (big surprise there, me having a food blog and whatnot). All the flavors, textures, seasonings- GAH. I’m drooling just thinking about it and attribute my love of food completely from growing up in a family that also just happens to be food-obsessed.

In fact, we plan family get-togethers based on the food we’ll be eating that day and holidays are just one big excuse to stuff ourselves silly. Christmas means big meat roasts, homemade bread, and my Auntie Stephanie’s delicious and fluffy mashed potatoes. The 4th of July means asian-style BBQ ribs, sashimi, and octopus salad (I know, eclectic). Growing up, Friday nights were always reserved for dinner at my Obachan’s house, and dooooonn’t even get me started on Thanksgiving. In fact, our biggest nightmare is not having enough food at one of our parties. Terrifying 😯 .

Easy Crispy Pork Wontons- these are a family favorite and my mom has made over 2,000 of them in the last 10 years! DELICIOUS!

These pork wontons are a family-favorite that never fail to disappear by the time everyone packs up to leave to head back home. They’re the kind of appetizer that gets people gathering around the table, munching away, as soon as they’re brought out. They have the potential to ruin a party since everybody is to busy eating to talk and socialize. And I mean, who could blame us?! They deliver maximum golden-brown crispness with a delicious pork and garlic filling and ooooohhhh my gosh you guys! The sweet and salty explosion in your mouth when you dip them in sweet chili sauce is unreal. It’s fried deliciousness at it’s best!

Easy Crispy Pork Wontons- these are a family favorite and my mom has made over 2,000 of them in the last 10 years! DELICIOUS!

I got this recipe from my mom, who is by no means a stranger to wontons. She’s a 2nd grade teacher and likes to go above-and-beyond for her students and always makes a huge 200+ batch with them for Chinese New Year. She prepares the meat filling at home, then brings in the prepared wonton dough and has them fill and crimp them, then sends them with some of the teaching assistants over to the kitchen to fry them up for everyone to enjoy. Since she’s done it for the last 10 years, that calculates out to be… at least 2000 wontons for her students alone!? I guess you could call her a wonton expert and this recipe tried and true!

Easy Crispy Pork Wontons- these are a family favorite and my mom has made over 2,000 of them in the last 10 years! DELICIOUS!

If you’ve never worked with wontons before, you can usually find pre-made dough in your local grocery store in the refrigerated section by the tofu under packages titled “wonton/gyoza skins or wrappers”. They make your job much easier and help these wontons come together in a flash!

Easy Crispy Pork Wontons- these are a family favorite and my mom has made over 2,000 of them in the last 10 years! DELICIOUS!

 

Lightened-Up Cheesy Garlic Noodles

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Lightened-Up Cheesy Garlic Noodles

Guess who got an A+ in productivity today? THIS GIRL. I’ve been up and running and knocking things off my to-do list left and right. POW POW.

I got up and did a few bloggy things over a homemade latte, went on a gorgeous 3 mile run at the beach, picked up some props for my photos from Michael’s, went to the grocery store, started typing up the newest income report, unsuccessfully made homemade banana chips (womp womp womp), but countered that failure with a big success: Lightened-Up Cheesy Garlic Noodles.

I also ate a copious amount of homemade pie and turned my brain into boogers with all the Keeping Up with the Kardashians I’ve been watching. So there’s that as well 😯 .

So anyways, I’m eating these noodles in front of the tv and am getting a little too wrapped up in Khloe’s love life. In this episode, her sisters secretly set up a profile for her on an online dating site and are setting her up with some randoms. That’s the way to true love, my friends.

Lightened-Up Cheesy Garlic Noodles

I think I’m developing a Netflix problem. Since I can get a ton of series instantly, I’ve been binge watching like no other. I’ve learned that if I want to get anything done at all, I need to completely shut off the tv. I try to convince myself that I will reply to emails and type up lab reports after juuust one more show, but Netflix automatically plays the next episode for you unless you click out after a few seconds. And once another episode starts, it’s like rude or something to turn it off. Right?

Mindless reality tv also lends itself to mindless eating and, looking down at the pot (who uses actual plates these days…pshh) I’m already halfway through the entire batch. WOOPS. But can you blame me?! Cheese yummyness. Garlic. GAH. It’s so simple and comes together in just 20 minutes, yet I could eat it all day err’day. I want to swim in a pool of cheesy garlic noodles.

And by swim I mean eat my way through it.

So here’s to a super easy, super speedy, super delicious dinner or lunch that just happens to be on the lighter side as well in terms of calories. WOO!

Lightened-Up Cheesy Garlic Noodles

 

Healthy Asian Lettuce Wraps

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Healthy Asian Lettuce Wraps

So it turns out that strong black coffee is not meant to be had at 9:30 at night.

Granted, I did have a long-ish lab report to do and had an ochem midterm today so I needed some liquid energy, but two cups was probably overdoing it. Just know that at the moment, I’m practically bouncing off the walls.

One good thing about being so hyped up on caffeine? I have the energy to get up this here tasty post at 1:30 a.m. 😯 .

ANYWAYS. Let’s bounce towards the main point of this post: Healthy Asian Lettuce Wraps

When it comes to different cuisines, asian food has always held a special place in my heart. Maybe it stems from all those weekly family gatherings at my obachan’s house, or maybe it comes from the delicious sweet and salty flavors that are characteristic of a lot of asian dishes (sugar+soy sauce on everything, please), but I just plain luuuuuuuuurrrrrve Japanese/Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean dishes.

Healthy Asian Lettuce Wraps

I know I’ve said this before, but growing up with a Japanese mom and Norwegian dad lends itself to a pretty weird culture mix. Holidays involved Japanese festivals and dressing up in traditional Japanese clothing along with marching in my little bunard dress waving Norsk flags around for syttende mai (the Norwegian national day). Weekly dinners involved copious amounts of steak and potatoes, as well as hot sukiyaki, curry, and sashimi topped with raw salmon eggs and octopus at my obachan’s house. I don’t think I even tried more all-American fare like meatloaf or baked beans until I started dating Kyle and eating over at his house, even though I’ve lived in the US almost all my life.

NorwegianJapanese collage

Even Christmas was celebrated differently. Unlike most families that get together on Christmas day, the festivities for my extended family start on Christmas Eve. We all fit into one house that’s practically bursting at its seams with all the people and love in it and open presents after a fantastic dinner. It wasn’t till I got older that I realized that most kids had to wait till the next morning to open presents and have the traditional Christmas celebrations (muhahah).

Since Christmas day is always left open, we have a family tradition of going out to a nice Chinese restaurant for a big lunch. One of my favorite dishes have always been their delicious lettuce wraps which include a mouthwatering sweet and salty ground beef that’s filled with crunchy water chestnuts. As soon as the waiter would bring the dish to the table, my cousins and I would make a beeline to serve ourselves a heaping pile on a crisp piece of lettuce and spoon a little extra sauce on top. <—— –the BEST.

These are a spin off of those taste lettuce wraps, only they’re much more pimped out thanks to the addition of toppings like roughly chopped peanuts and crunchy carrots for extra texture. AND they’re healthified. Lean ground beef (or your choice of meat, pork and chicken would work great as well) cooked with a little olive oil for healthy fats and, if you’re looking for a dinner that’s low in carbs, the lettuce wraps make the dish come out with only 7g of carbs per wrap naturally. I made a big batch for dinner tonight and Kyle and I inhaled all of it within a day.

I’m telling you, these wraps are that good!

Healthy Asian Lettuce Wraps


Best-Ever Sticky Asian Ribs

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You know those foods you could just eat forever?

Like THESE.

Best-Ever Sticky Asian Ribs! This recipe has been in my family for over 30 years and is an all-time favorite!

 

Ever since I was little, barbeques meant two things around my house: lots of family and lots of good food. I grew up living just five minutes away from both my obachan and ojiichan (Japanese grandparents) and a handful of my cousins, so family get-togethers were a weekly event. It was only for special holidays, though, that my mom or obachan would make these Best-Ever Sticky Asian Ribs. Have I mentioned we’ve had this recipe in the family for over 30 years? I hardly ever make a recipe more than once or twice since I like to explore new flavor combinations, but these always keep me coming back for more. If you haven’t caught my drift yet, these ribs are one of my all-time favorite foods <3.  Sweet and salty combinations make my world go round and the BEST pairing in my opinion is sugar and soy sauce. Go ahead and forget alllll about salted caramel or dark chocolate sea salt truffles, because this, my friends, is where it’s at.

Best-Ever Sticky Asian Ribs! This recipe has been in my family for over 30 years and is an all-time favorite!

Now let’s get one thing straight. These ribs aren’t tea party food or food you want to eat on your first date with Ryan Gosling. They’re gooey and deliciously messy and you end up with half your face covered in sauce and oops… how did that chunk of meat get in my hair? It’s beautiful, really. This is a recipe meant to be shared with family and people you’re comfortable with fighting for the last piece because trust me, it’ll happen. Family Collage So go on and grab a rib (or ten), some family, and a year’s worth of napkins and get ready for your tastebuds to go straight up to the golden gates!