I think it’s been awhile since I have done a mystery challenge.  I guess it’s time to get back to my roots.  Plus, I had some lamb that was going to expire, so I had my daughter pick out other ingredients to go with it.  She chose the following:

 

I was having a craving for some Japanese after hearing that Mimi was celebrating Chinese New Year with an amazing feast featured here, so I decided to make my own Asian fusion meal. I had a little bit of wontons leftover from the time I stuffed them with chicken and cabbage.  This time I was going to do it with cream cheese.  I sauteed the green onions a bit to bring out their flavor, then I mixed in soy sauce, garlic, and cream cheese. My daughter volunteered (by volunteered, I mean I told her she needed something to do) to wrap them, so I showed her a couple of times and put her to work. My daughter tasted a little and said, “I think I like the smell, not the taste…but can I lick my fingers?” She did a pretty good job, no worse than me, that is.  It even inspired her to say she wanted to be a chef, but I’m not holding my breath.  Just this year, she’s gone from Dr. to midwife to Vet to Chef and by the time she was finished making the wontons, she wanted to be a teacher. As she was telling me how “easy” it was to be a chef and a teacher, I put the wontons in the oven at 350°.

While the wontons were getting crispy, I made rice and started on my lamb.  Now let me tell you about how I like my lamb.  If you put anything more that salt and pepper on them, they are ruined.  I like them gamey straight from the fields of Scotland.  I have to taste the flavor of the lamb along with the grass that it ate.  That is all.

What I did with the grapefruit was something special.  I remembered that Mimi, my muse, had told me a couple of weeks ago that she made kimchi aioli which sounded interesting to me, especially since I had some that was homemade (not by me) rotting away in my fridge.  I blended it with the grapefruit and vegenaise (vegan mayonnaise) as well as salt and pepper.

At this point, I started to get a stomachache from something I might have eaten earlier in the day and was indisposed for a little while, which allowed me to burn some of my rice (because I forgot to turn it down to simmer) and overcook my wontons.  In the end, though, my meal wasn’t half bad (I didn’t eat any of it, though, again stomach issues).  My daughter, however, enjoyed it, yelling from the table to me in the bathroom, “Your food is REAL good, Mama!” She ate everything on her plate and even asked for more aioli for dipping. Alas, I’ll never know how good it was, but if the kid likes it, it’s a success!