Wok Express - Cedar Park

I mentioned in passing, in a previous blog, that we have a favorite Chinese take out. Actually, they also do delivery. Wok Express opened in 2002, when we were living in Cedar Park, we tried them as soon as we heard about them and they have been a favorite ever since. What is amazing is how consistently good their food is, only once did we have cause to complain because it arrived cold, and we got a free entree to compensate for that.


When we moved to Leander we were resigned to going to pick up our meal, but discovered that they actually do deliver all the way out here.

Rice and fortune cookie

We have tried most of the items on their menu and all have been great value for money. We now have our few favorites and will generally stick to one or other of them. The portions are huge, and one appetizer and one entree would actually be sufficient for all three of us, however we normally order two entrees for variety and have enough left over for lunch the next day. I have found that it also freezes well though I don't recommend storing it for very long.

Egg Roll (pork) 1.25

They have the most amazing egg rolls, all meals come with one egg roll, steamed rice and one fortune cookie. When we get a Chinese delivery we always use disposable plates and plastic knives and forks, reducing to an absolute minimum the amount of work involved in cleanup

Spicy Chicken Wings (8) 5.95

We normally start with spicey chicken wings or teriyaki chicken, both are really good and the prices are great.

Kung Pao trip delight

One of our favorites is Kung Pao triple delight: marinated chicken, beef and shrimp stirfried with celery, carrots, water chestnuts, and peanuts in a spicy brown sauce. The photo is supposed to be one serving, as I said, it is enough for three.

Hunan Shrimp

Another favorite is the Lover's Special,  On one side, stir fry white chicken breast meat and shrimp with Chinese vegetables in a white wine sauce; on the other side, beef and chicken is stir fried with vegetables in a brown sauce. On this particular occasion we had Hunan Shrimp, marinated shrimp stir fried with vegetables in a spicy brown sauce.

I highly recommend Wok Express. Give them a try, you won't be disappointed.

They are located at The Commons at Buttercup Creek
200 Buttercup Creek Blvd.  Suite 117
Cedar Park, TX  78613

Chipotle Mexican Grill - Cedar Park

We were keen to try Chipotle because their policies towards both their food and their employees are very applaudable. They claim on their website:  "...It means that whenever possible we use meat from animals raised without the use of antibiotics or added hormones... And it means that we source organic and local produce when practical. And that we use dairy from cows raised without the use of synthetic hormones..."

The use of  "whenever possible" and "when practical", while removing any conviction that the food will be organic, is at least honest. I really like that they supply detailed information on the nutritional value of their menu here and, if their claims on their employment policies are true, then I really do not mind paying their somewhat higher prices for their food.

As always, we studied the menu online before heading to dinner, I have mentioned before that I wish that restaurants would serve smaller portions, at least with Chipotle's menu we could reduce the amount of food served by ordering two meals between the three of us.  We ordered crispy carnitas (pork) tacos - that is 3 to a serving, and soft, beef fajita tacos, also 3 to a serving, and one empty 'plate', (plastic, paper lined basket) - we added the optional guacamole (pricey at $1.80). Then we each had one crispy and one soft taco. This was more than enough for me, in fact I could only manage one and half tacos, Larry had two and half and he also ordered a margarita, though unfortunately they didn't serve frozen, only on the rocks. No wine, cold or otherwise, so I settled for a beer.

The food was served up very quickly, not the margarita, for some reason that took nearly as long as it took us to eat before it arrived.

I really wanted to like the food, given all the information on their website, but I didn't, the pork was not as tender as it could have been, and there was very little flavor to it,  the beef was not quite so flavorless, but wasn't great either. The salsa and guac were good. While I do enjoy breakfast tacos, they are not my first choice for dinner, but the chicken tacos served by our local bar-b-q restaurant, Smokey Mo's, are terrific and sad to say, even Taco Cabana's tacos are better, and cheaper, than Chipotle, however they may not be nearly as good for us 'whenever possible'.

Healthier banana nut muffins

.. OK, slightly healthier.

I freeze bananas when they are starting to get over ripe, and then use them to make banana nut muffins - works really well, if you let them defrost at room temperature first, then remove the top, you can squeeze them out like toothpaste, no mashing required.

4 frozen bananas defrosted
one third of a cup of melted Fleischmann's With Olive Oil
1 cup of Splenda brown sugar
2 eggs beaten
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
half teaspoon of ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
half cup of wholemeal flour
quarter cup of flax meal
quarter cup of qia (Nature's Path Qi'a: Chia Buckwheat and Hemp Cereal, Cranberry Vanilla - really good)
quarter cup of oatmeal
quarter cup of chopped pecan nuts
quarter cup of chopped dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F

lightly grease a muffin pan with olive oil spray wiped with paper towel

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the flour.
Add the flour, mix until combined
pour into a muffin pan and bake for 30 minutes

Marco's Pizza - Leander

Marco's Pizza Leander

Friday night is our regular date night, usually.  This Friday we were definitely NOT going outside the house. Texas weather is wonderful, usually. The normal high for today would be 64 degrees F.  Today that was not the case, with a low of 23 and a high of 34, the rain that fell overnight and instantly froze didn't really get an opportunity to melt.  

Delivery was our unanimous decision. Now, I don't like pizza, in fact I really dislike it quite a lot, on the other hand, my husband and mother in law love it.  It used to be they would fill up on it while I was off visiting my family in Europe, but now that we have found Marco's the problem is solved.  Apparently, if you like pizza, I have it on good authority that their's is delicious.  I assure you, their salads are pretty good, for a pizza delivery restaurant, in fact they are better than our local Italian delivery salads.  Last time we did this I had the ceasar salad, this time I chose the 'small' greek salad with some buffalo wings.  The salad was great, though I don't like the prepackaged dressings, as they come on the side I can apply my own dressing.  The wings were pretty good too - a little greasy, but edible and the sauce was great, if you like hot buffalo wings and I do.

We order online, select our preferred delivery time, and as they are located less than two miles from our house, delivery is always on time and the food, at least the food that is supposed to be hot, is hot. Naturally, the salad was cold.

And, as you can see, there is more than enough for dinner for the three of us, plus pizza left for Larry's lunch and salad for lunch for me for the next two days, if I want it.  All that for $40 including tip.

Leftovers

So, my daughter challenged me to create a meal out of left overs.  How? she said, 'You have always been so good at making magical meals out of leftovers' and naturally I saw that as a challenge.

What was left over?

Some sausages - (a little charred) French sausages, sort of like the sausages known as Italian in the US, quite nice, not greasy, spicy and meaty, left from the French barbecue, a little bit of duck from that barbecue and also beef and lamb from same event.

I poked around in her fridge and found a huge bag of my most favorite Chicory (Belgian Endive) almost all of which were way far gone, but two ears were still good. Beautiful sweet French onions, really they were more like shallots which I love, and new potatoes, lots of them.


So, I cleaned and chopped the two ears of chicory, about 10 small onions, and 10 potatoes (peeled of course). I heated some oil in a skillet and added mixed herbs, cumin and a lot of curry powder and some salt and pepper.

Once this mixture was good and hot I added the chopped potatoes (if you are lucky enough to have a granddaughter, allow her to help with the copping), onions and chicory and sauteed them 'til they started to brown constantly stirring. Then I added the chopped barbecued meats and a cup .. actually a mug of red wine (if in doubt, add red wine) a mug of water, and allow the wine to cook, taste and then make your daughter taste, discuss and agree to add a small carton of tomato paste and a small carton of cream. Stir well, bring back to the boil and taste again - perfect! cover and let simmer.

Simmer for 20 minutes then turn off the heat and let sit till ready to eat. It will continue to cook for at least another hour.  So, then get your daughter to cook some rice, reheat the leftovers and serve, preferably with some (lots of) cheap, good French wine.

My grandson (the skinny one) had a double serving so I know he liked it :) - it was good.

Mouton's Southern Bistro - Leander

Mouton's Southern Bistro 

We were not here for the music
as you can see from the sky, we eat early

This location on the old 183 to Leander used to be Moody's Breakfast House. I am not sure if it changed hands or just names. To me it seems identical apart from a paint job inside, and my husband pointed out there was new flooring. Every thing else seems the same, Moody's only served breakfast and lunch, Mounton's does lunch and dinner, and only serves breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.

Crawfish Dip

If you like fried food you will probably really enjoy their dinner menu. We started with the Crawfish Dip, not fried, served with French bread. It was very nice. Crawfish, bell pepper, onion in cream cheese served warm.

I do like French bread, but I do not like my bread to be served already buttered. And I use the term 'buttered' loosely, for it was definitely not butter. It had the aftertaste of margarine and I can't stand that. As the bread had been lightly grilled the margarine had soaked into it and really didn't taste good to me.

I don't do fried, so I found one item on the Speciality section of the menu that did appeal to me, even though I usually avoid pasta I do like alligator so when I spied the Bayou Pasta with grilled alligator, tomatoes, trinity, artichoke hearts and asparagus in a jambalaya cream sauce, I was prepared to try it. The pasta was fettuccine. Served with garlic bread.

Bayou Pasta

I was sad to discover when my plate arrived, that there was no obvious sign of alligator steak. I had hoped to see a whole piece of meat sitting on a bed of pasta. The serving was huge, way more than I could eat. I searched and found about half a dozen tiny pieces of alligator, almost too small to really get the flavor.

I like alligator meat, specially if it is cooked well. I suspect this meat was cut into tiny pieces because chewing it would have been just that - chewing. It was very tough and tasteless.

The jambalaya cream sauce on the other hand was delicious. I enjoyed the artichoke hearts and some of the other vegetables (trinity for those who are not familiar with Cajun, is usually a mixture of onions, celery and bell pepper). There was so much food on my plate that I had barely made a dent in it when I was too full to eat any more. I did risk one taste of the garlic bread, which I really do like but unfortunately it was just the same as the lightly grilled French bread with margarine. I tasted absolutely no garlic from it, just margarine.  Happily the glass of cabernet was at room temperature and was very good.

Sheridan Shrimp

Both my mother in law and my husband enjoyed their selections, Sheridan Shrimp for Mildred and Shell Beach Platter for Larry. Both of their dishes contained battered and fried food, served with fries and cole slaw. They do like fried foods and I guess, because I don't do fried, they need to get their fix from time to time so we will return because I can find a salad from their menu that should work for me.


Though I do think some of the prices were slightly high, they were not outrageous. The most expensive dish was the Shell Beach Platter at $14.99.  The entire bill was under $60 which included a glass of wine and a bottle of beer.

Shell Beach Platter

One thing we did enjoy was reading the Vegetarian Menu, which had two salads, a Surf and a Turf salad, each listed the Vegetarian items, then the add-on items, which were Crawfish, Shrimp and Catfish for the Surf and Bacon, Chicken Breast and Bistro Medallions  for the Turf, which naturally immediately moved these salads from under the Vegetarian heading and into another section of the menu. I will try one of those next time, though I will probably stick to the strict Vegetarian item as I suspect the add ons will be fried.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

If you like mushrooms, which I do, you will like these.

3 Portobello Mushrooms
1 tomato finely chopped
1 tomatillo finely chopped
1 tablespoon of finely chopped sweet onion
1 teaspoon of finely chopped parsley
1 teaspoon of finely chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon of mustard (I use Dijon)
salt & pepper
two tablespoons of grated cheese

ready for the oven

preheat oven to 425 degrees F
mix the chopped tomato, tomatillo, onion, parsley & cilantro with half the cheese
add the salt & pepper and mustard and mix well
remove the stalk from the mushrooms
fill with the mixed veggies
sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the top of the mushrooms
Place mushrooms in a baking tin lined with foil
cook for 15 minutes

ready to eat

that's it!