Pretty Dinner

Walleye with Whole Foods brand "Asian Fish Seasoning" pan fried. Chard sauteed in a bit of rice vinegar. Curd rice* which is leftover Chinese takeout rice with yogurt and tomato pickle. Tomato pickle explanation can be found here.

*It may not be officially curd rice, but what it is what I call curd rice.

White Food

White Food: Ugly, impossible to photograph, boring.

Last night I made a very simple fish dish that tasted very good, but was totally not photo compatible.

White fish, with a colorless sauce, with white rice. Dear, dear, dear, how boring.

But it was good. I saw Bittman do it on PBS, so I replicated it without having any measurements.

Take a nice mild white fish and pan fry it quickly in olive oil making sure not to over cook it. We used wild caught Dover Sole (you should always use wild caught fish. Farmed fish has none of the nutritional benefits associated with fish like Omega-3s and is generally bad for the environment.) Make sure to season it generously with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, make the sauce, I used a couple tablespoons of butter melted. Add a tablespoon or so of capers, a tablespoon or so of red wine vinegar and two tablespoons of honey.

The sauce is very runny, which was perfect with the rice. The whole meal (we had rice already made) took about 7 minutes.

I Suck

Yeah, so it has been a month almost. Here's some things I made:

First up was boneless pork "ribs" with an Orange Asian Sauce.
This did not turn out well. The ribs were really a cut up pork loin. I was duped by the Whole Foods butcher. They ended up dry and not very good, but the sauce was great.

The broccoli was sauteed in a bottled black bean sauce. CJ said he liked it, so that means it must have been good. He claims to not like vegetables.

Next up is steamed fish. Whole Foods says that this Chilean Sea Bass isn't terrible and it isn't endangered. I really tried to make this pretty, but I failed.

It is cooked with quinoa, sugar snap peas, and a soy sauce reduction. It was very, very good and healthy.


This never was posted because the condiments are just too much. It obstructs the numminess.

This is a Mexican Pork Stew. It came straight from my Rick Bayless cookbook. It had a very smoky flavor due to chipotle peppers. A little spicy and nicely flavored, this was a hit. The Mexican cheese and avocado made the overall taste wonderful.

Cruise Food = Not Very Good

I spent the last five days on a Royal Caribbean cruise. While the cruise was fun, the service was great and the ship's workings amazing, the food was medicore at best.

Basically there are two places you can eat on the ship: the main dinning room and a buffet service cafe.

So, let's start with the buffet. Think Old Country Buffet. I ate every breakfast I made it to there and three lunches. While the food there was bad, I did have a couple things there. The eggs and bacon were good and I had a decent lamb curry at lunch. Otherwise the food was pretty bad.

So, the main dinning room. This is where we had all the dinners and two lunches. Blah. Meat was overdone. One night duck was on the menu. I asked if it is medium rare. I got a strange look and was told it was well done. Yeah, of course it is. The waiter still talked me into getting it. It was overcooked and dry. Boo to that.

I did have a very nice escargot appetizer. It was made with a garlic herb butter sauce and were done perfectly. I also had a tasty onion soup with gruyere toast. The desserts were also passable, though not amazing like they should have been.

The best meal we had was off the boat, after the cruise. We had a lot of time to kill in Fort Lauderdale. We stopped by some tourist trap fish place. I got the best fish and chips of my life. Well, the chips weren't that great, but the fish was awesome. Of course, I lost a tooth filling during the meal, but I guess it was worth it to have the first good meal in six days.

Happy New Year

Well, we brought in the New Year with a bang. Aside from the leaking dining room, I had two accidents in the kitchen in two hours. The first, I was peeling a squash and jammed the veggie peeler into my finger. That was the first time I drew blood in the kitchen. It hurt, it was bloody, it sucked.

Two hours later, while chopping an onion, I slipped with the knife and took off a large part of my left middle finger. While there was A LOT of blood, I didn't need stitches. I did get very gun shy around the knives and didn't finish my last dish.

But, New Year's Eve went well. We had a small gathering at our house. We thought CJ was to work the next day, but find out at the last minute that he didn't have. That was great news.

I started with a couple apps, Chicken Liver Pate and Fingerling Potatoes with Caviar.



The pate came from the new Martha Stewart New Classics cookbook. The cookbook is totally messed up and so was the recipe. I had to improvise because the recipe doesn't make sense, but it came out really well. We have been eating it since (it made a lot).

I stole the idea for the potatoes from Emily at a birthday party she threw. Thank God for Ikea and Asian supermarkets for low cost caviar.

Well, in all the excitement, I forgot to take pictures of the rest of what I made. We had a carrot soup that was very good, but like all carrot soups, reminded me of baby food. I made a large batch of roasted veggies, always easy and delicious. Finally, I made goulash. I base it on this recipe. Usually it is very good, but served on egg noodles, it just wasn't that great.

In addition to this, our fine guest brought delicious and awesome food. We had a red pepper spread to die for and an awesome chocolate and peanut butter pie. CJ made Kir Royales and there was lots of wine and champagne.

...

One more thing, CJ and I finally finished the living room. That means for the first time in almost a year we are eating dinner at a table, a dining room table.

Tonight it was trout and risotto. Tasty.

How We Roll

The other night, I brought home all the fixings for sushi, but not the patience for actually making it. Behold, lazy person sushi. Tastes the same, just not as pretty.

We Like Fish

We eat a lot of fish. I like to cook fish. I like to order it at restaurants.

Here's a sweet little meal I made the other day. Salmon, on a bed of watercress, with a mustard vinaigrette.

Tonight I made pan fried trout. Salt, pepper, olive oil, trout. Easiest dish in the world. The trout is local and bought at the farmers' market from the farmers. We made a side of farmers' market zucchini, potatoes, and onions too.

Grilled Trout And Love For The Farmer's Market

Grilled Trout, grilled by CJ.
Couscous with Curly Pea Pods (farmer's market), Spring Onions (farmer's market) and mint from my container garden.
Greens, also from the farmer's market.

Very tasty and healthy.

Super Fast Dinner

I read recently that most Americans spend less then 15 minutes preparing dinner every night. I wonder if that includes the time in the car to pick up the takeout?

Well, tonight, we were faster than those 15 minutes.
(I had a hard time with the focus.)

FISH TACOS!!! Take some fish, we used Striped Bass, and season it, we used salt, pepper, cumin and chili powder. A tiny bit of olive oil in a hot pan and sear the fish on both sides, cooking through. Remove the skin if necessary. Make tacos out of it. Simple. Low-fat. Lots of vitamins and stuff.

Obviously, variations on Mexican is a staple in this house.

Stealing More Recipes

My new favorite cooking blog is Last Night's Dinner. She makes the greatest looking food almost every night. Tonight, I stole a recipe from her and changed it only the tiniest bit.It is Halibut with at Tomato, Leek and Fennel sauce type thing. It was good. It would have been better if I would have been willing to open a bottle of wine, but I've been drinking Mojitos pretty exclusively and will be out of town 5 of the next 6 days, so it would have been a waste. I subbed White Wine Vinegar, and there was just too much tart.

I over cooked the Halibut a tiny bit. I do well with fish like Salmon that you can eat rare, there is a lot less perfection needed there. But I don't know if you can eat Halibut rare, or medium rare. I need to use this fish more, because it is so tasty.

Oh, and I need to learn to plate things better, this is obvious.

Anchovy Pizza

We made personal pizzas tonight. Mine was anchovy and mushroom. Tasty, and only 320 calories.

Snapper Nuggets

Tonight, CJ helped out and we made Red Snapper Nuggets with polenta and asparagus (and a beer).

The snapper was dipped in veggie egg beaters then a mixture of cornmeal, paprika, salt and pepper and pan fried. The asparagus was steamed. The polenta was one of those weird tubes, with water, garlic, fresh rosemary and a pat of butter added.
Obviously, I've chosen to take a new approach with my blog. There are lots of reasons why, but one of them is that I love to cook. I'm hoping I will do a better job of keeping this up because it is about something I love.

I'd like to point out, I like to cook, not bake. I don't really know how to bake. I try and make boxed brownies sometimes, but I never know when they are done. I do know some great bakeries.

Well, that said, I know lots of great food places, both restaurants and food suppliers. This may also be a journey through them also, definitely through the CSA we just signed up for: Double Rabbit Farm.