Chef Whann’s Creepy Crawly Dinners

Happy Halloween

Hungry?

This is a favorite meal of mine to make, due to its creativity and simplicity. Like a one pot meal, this is mostly a one roasting pan meal with the exception of boiling the noodles and broccoli and frying the Spam. The ingredients are virtually endless and can feed a crowd if needed without much effort. It also includes your meat, veggies, and pasta, so there is no need for any other dish. I hope you like this recipe as much as we do!

Be Careful of Things that Crawl In And Out,

Chef Gordon Whann

—————————————————————–

A Perfect Creepy Crawly Dinner for Halloween

Gordon’s Creepy Crawly Lo Mein…

…Fully Loaded!

————————————————————————-

The Worms Crawl In

And the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout,

they eat your eyes, they eat your nose, they eat the jelly between your toes….

The ones that crawl out are fat and stout, your eyes fall in and your hair falls out.

Your brain comes tumbling down your snout….

And your eyes fall out and your teeth decay,

and that is the end of a perfect day…. 🙂

(Taken From The Hearse Song)

————————————————————————

Gordon’s Creepy Crawly Lo Mein

These are the Pumpkin Rice noodles I found at our local Asian grocery store, which go perfectly with our Halloween dinner.

————————————————————————

As you can see, we used a number of ingredients, but you don’t have to in order to have a great tasting meal. We used noodles and vegetables that fit our Creepy Crawly theme. Also, the ingredients will cook down, so the volume of ingredients will be significantly reduced by the time you have finished the cooking process. We had so many ingredients, I had to use two roasting pans to cook it all.

All of our Many Ingredients

————————————————————————

Let’s Get Started

—————————————————————–

Here are our Ingredients:

1 Small pkg. Snow Peas

2 Tbsp. Peanut Oil

1 Can Hickory Smoked Spam – sliced into 1/4 inch slices (9 slices)

1/2 Yellow Bell Pepper – Thin Slices

1/2 Green Bell Pepper – Thin Slices

1/2 Orange Bell Pepper – Thin Slices

3-4 Roasted Garlic Cloves – Smashed

4-5 Garlic Cloves – Sliced Thinly

1 Medium Red Onion – Sliced

1/2 Red Cabbage – Sliced Thinly

2 large Handful Bean Sprouts

1 Small pkg. Enoki Mushrooms

10-12 Shiitake Mushrooms – Sliced

4 Tbsp. Roasted Garlic Infused Olive Oil

4 Tbsp. Sesame Oil

5 Tbsp. Oyster Sauce

5-6 Tbsp. Soy Sauce – Aloha Brand

1/2 Tbsp. Roasted Garlic Powder

3 Tbsp Roasted Sesame Seeds

8-10 Broccoli Florette’s – par-boiled until just tender

2-3 Tbsp. Sea Salt

1 pkg. Thin Spaghetti – Ronzoni brand “Super Greens”

1 pkg. Chow Mein Stir Fry Noodles

1 pkg. Wide Bean Thread Noodles

1 Small Bag Carrot Sticks

1 Can Baby Corn Cobs

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

3 Tbsp. Black Sesame Seeds

5-6 Green Onions – Sliced Thinly

————————————————————–

Garnish with:

Flowering Chives

Edible White Flowers

Broccoli Florets

——————————————————————————

Look At All The Ingredients!

All Washed And Ready

Washing The Snow Peas

—————————————————————————–

Prep by cleaning and chopping your vegetables.

These are the Chive Flowers we use which I found at our local Asian Food grocery store.

Ready to Fry the SPAM

Here I cut the Spam into 1/4 inch thick slices with makes 9 pieces. There are many flavors of SPAM so use the one which fits your theme.

Here I fried the SPAM in peanut oil over medium high heat for about 8 min. on each side or until they are cooked as shown.

Cute Spooky Whann 🙂

—————————————————————

While the SPAM cooks, you can use this time to continue to cut up your vegetables. When the SPAM has finished frying, place them on a plate with paper towels to absorb any excess grease.

————————————————————–

Here the SPAM is frying and looking great.

————————————————————————

We had some leftover Roasted Garlic, so I thought it would be great to have in the dish.

Slice your Fresh Garlic and Red Onions thinly so it cooks fast in the roasting pan.

————————————————————————-

Slice your Red Cabbage in half, remove the core, then slice half the cabbage thinly as shown.

—————————————————————————-

These are the Enoki Mushrooms which look like little ghosts.

To prepare these, slice off the base as shown. Some may have a larger base than others.

———————————————————————-

Be sure to rinse off your Bean Sprouts

Our Red Cabbage, Sliced Bell Peppers, and Red Onion

———————————————————————–

Here I rinsed then sliced the Shiitake Mushrooms. These provide a great flavor to the dish.

To start, I placed a few Tbsp. of Roasted Garlic infused Olive Oil into a large roasting pan.

I Have Two Pans Here

Then I added a few Tbsp. of Sesame Oil to the pans.

Now, add a little of your Soy Sauce to the pans. I will add more of these last three ingredients as the ingredients cook.

Add your Roasted Garlic Powder…

…then your Sesame Seeds.

The oils will help the ingredients from sticking and begin to flavor the vegetables.

Turn your oven to 400’F.

Now, it is time to load the pans with your main ingredients that will take longest to cook.

————————————————————————-

Here you can see I add the Bell Peppers, Cabbage, and Onions.

Mix all the ingredients well. This can be done with your clean hands so your don’t make a mess.

Now, place one of the roasting pans in the oven for about 25 min.

Here you can see the second roasting pan full of the ingredients.

——————————————————————-

While the vegetables are roasting, you can prep the Broccoli Florets.

————————————————————-

After about 25 min. of cooking, add your Carrot Sticks. You should start to see some of the vegetables liquid at the bottom of the pan, which means they are reducing in size.

——————————————————————-

Using a large pot, begin to boil some water for your Broccoli.

———————————————————————

Drain your can of Baby Corn and add them to the pans. Use tongs to turn the vegetables over.

Place the pans back in the Oven

———————————————————————–

———————————————————————

Cook them for another 10 min.

—————————————————————

Now that the water is boiling add your Broccoli and cook for about 5 min. or until just tender and bright green.

When done, remove them from the boiling water and place in a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.

—————————————————————-

You can reuse the water to cook the green vegetable pasta which will add to flavor the dinner even more.

Cook the pasta as per the package directions.

———————————————————————–

Remove the roasting vegetables…

…and add your Shiitake Mushrooms.

You can also add more of your Olive Oil, Sesame Oil and Soy Sauce as needed after tasting it.

————————————————————————-

Remove From Oven to Stir

——————————————————————————-

Having stirred the pans of vegetables well, place them back into the oven for another 5 minutes or so.

————————————————————————-

Hawaiian Sea Salt

Here I am getting another large pot of water ready to boil my other noodles.

Add some Sea Salt to the water to flavor the noodles.

Here I am placing a Tbsp. or so of Sesame Oil and Garlic Olive Oil into a bowl, to keep the pasta from sticking together. It will also help to directly flavor the noodles. Boil the noodles as per package directions.

Drain the noodles well.

Then add them to your bowl with the oils. Toss the noodles in the oil until well coated.

————————————————————

Here, I changed the water in the pot and brought it back up to boil. When at temperature, I added the Pumpkin Noodles and cooked them as per package directions.

—————————————————————————-