You can make this. Yes, you. The one who doesn’t have a lot of time, or a lot of ingredients. If you can set aside 15 minutes and get the produce, you will like this.
Seriously.
The best part about this recipe is you don’t need much more skill than being able to cut things in half, and know how to use a stovetop and oven.
Seriously.
Continue reading Roasted Brussels sprouts, sausage, and hazelnuts in less than an hour
This is one of those recipes that, with one simple substitution (vegetable instead of chicken stock) and one omission (bacon), is easily a vegan meal.
The upside to living with a gluten-free, dairy-free person is that we eat fresh and eat well. We also eat quite a few meatless meals, but still enjoy a full omnivore diet. And really, aren’t most things better with bacon?
A couple weeks ago, our CSA farm share supplied us with some really nice leeks and potatoes, so we made soup.
In searching for vegan soups, several folks added onion, which I found intriguing, but only one I came across included grated onion. Though there was no real explanation or reasoning behind it, I added the grated onion. I didn’t notice much of a difference, so you can probably just dice it to save yourself some time and cleanup.
One bunch leeks (three)
One medium yellow onion, grated or finely diced
Dried dill from Penzey’s
Penzey’s caraway seeds. In my opinion, no potato soup should exclude caraway.
One sprig of fresh rosemary, or to taste
Trader Joe’s uncured bacon
Approx. 8oz of Mimicreme Vegan Cream (this one:)
Approx 16 oz. Kitchen Basics unsalted chicken stock (replace with vegetable stock for vegan)
Fresh chives for garnish
Does everyone have a professional photographer friend? Sure seems that way. I’m lucky, because I’ve known mine most of my life, and he’s pretty damn good. Over the summer, I went to my first-ever estate sale. Stephanie and I had to stand in line to get in, for chrissakes. After about an hour searching through the life of someone we didn’t know, we decided that we weren’t really serial estate sale people, and that’s a Good Thing. However, we didn’t walk out empty-handed. We bought a middle eastern-style tagine, which is a cone-shaped cooking vessel. Incidentally, the boys were coming over that night to hang out, and Michael, the photographer, strongly hinted in an email that he wanted some food shots for his online portfolio.
Photo by Michael Einreinhof, Arclight Images
The tagine, and the food, clearly were the focus of the evening.
Interestingly enough, both the cooking vessel and the stew are called tagines. This one was laden with relatively cheap cuts of lamb neck, herbs grown right on our deck. and vegetables from our CSA farm share. I mean, what else can you do with ground cherries? Dried fruit work especially well in this type of dish, and by simply deleting the lamb and adding some more beans like chick peas, you can easily transform this to a vegan dish. It is also gluten- and dairy-free. You can cook with the tagine right on the stovetop, and then serve from it at the table for a great presentation.
Photo by Michael Einreinhof, Arclight Images
I don’t work with recipes, so there’s no actual "recipe" to share. I often take my influence from several different web sites and TV shows. Instead, I’ll list the ingredients; keep it simple and be creative!
Tips:
Am I the only technical writer that doesn’t feel like writing or blogging when they get home? Lately, I feel like that’s the case.
I comfort myself in the fact that I’m making good food.
Summer’s over. I’m not happy about it.
Overall, I think it’s been a mediocre year, musically.
I updated from WordPress 2.9 to 3.01. I backed up my database. It was a click. It was good. The dashboard looks the same; am I missing something?
Android 2.2 Froyo is a nice upgrade. It actually looks like they put sometime into the user experience. Today I noticed a little “You declined this call” message at the top of the screen. Nice.
I have an IPA in secondary, based on the same recipe I’ve used for the past three years, but with Cascade instead of Amarillo hops. I think it’s gonna be good. There’s a porter in primary waiting to be transferred to secondary, as well as the two vanilla beans that have been soaking in scotch the past two weeks.
It’s time for Wii Fit Yoga.
It always amazes me when I tweet what I made for dinner, and get comments like “do you cook that every day” or “when should we be over?”. I often don’t have inspiration, which is why we eat at 9:00 at night (that and the 7:00 Simpsons when I get home from work…). Last night’s meal seemed to get some interest, so I thought it’d be a good blog post. If you have decent knife skills, you could have this on the table in 30-45 minutes.
Fish, as I mentioned, is always best cooked simply. It also is quick-cooking, making it an excellent weeknight meal. This recipe uses tilapia fillets, since that’s what we had in the freezer, but probably any fish will work. The key to making the fish crispy is using cornmeal instead of flour.
Stephanie liked the salsa, but I thought it wasn’t very bright, so I think I’d use more lemon juice, and less blood orange juice. However, I have it here as I prepared it last night.
Again, I don’t measure my ingredients, so everything here is “to taste” or “what I have left in the fridge”.
(serves 2)
For the Fish:
2 tilapia fillets
Cornmeal
Egg wash – one egg mixed with a bit of water (maybe a teaspoon?).
Panko bread crumbs
Salt, pepper, garlic powder
For the Salsa:
One avocado, ripe, split in half and removed using a checkerboard pattern.
12-15 grape tomatoes, quartered
1/4 of a jalapeno pepper (or to taste; this was fairly mild. also depends on the heat of the pepper)
juice of 1 blood orange
juice of 1/2 a lemon
fresh ginger, minced (to taste)
fresh mint leaves
fresh cilantro
Make the salsa:
In a bowl, mix the chunked avocado, tomatoes, jalapeno, and juice. Finely dice or mince the ginger (I probably used an inch-long piece), and add. Chop the herbs (make sure they’re fresh!), and add in (I used far more cilantro than mint, as mint can easily overpower). Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Prep the fish:
On a paper plate, measure out some cornmeal to coat the fish; add salt and pepper to the cornmeal and mix. In a bowl, whisk together the egg, water, salt and pepper till the egg is scrambled, like you’d make an omelette. On a second paper plate, measure out the panko to cover the fish, add salt, pepper, and garlic powder and mix. Place all three in the order listed in line on your counter, preferably close to the stove.
Heat a non-stick pan on medium-high heat. When hot, add enough canola oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Dip each fillet first into the cornmeal, then the egg wash, and finally the bread crumbs, ensuring the fish is evenly covered with each; however, you should tap or shake off any excess of each ingredient so it doesn’t clump.
Add each fillet to the pan, and cook until golden brown on each side, approximately 3-4 minutes per side.
I serve the salsa on the side, so the crust doesn’t soften. It also makes a nice presentation that way.
Condo de Fast One is close to an Orthodox/Hasidic Jewish enclave in northern New Jersey. On (late) Sunday morning, S. and I decided to take a walk for some bagels.
We first walked to a Jewish bakery I’d seen, which smelled fantastic and warrants a future return, but yielded no bagels. Thankfully, there was a kosher bagel shop on the walk home. S. felt a bit sacreligious with her naked, sleeveless arms, and I even felt like I was out of place. However, they had whole wheat everything bagels, so we will definitely be back, despite the $1.00 per bagel price.
We also needed eggs, so we walked into a local “supermarket”. Turns out it is primarily a Spanish market, complete with Spanish-only signs in the meat department. What a treat! I picked up fresh ingredients for sofrito, including ajicito dulces peppers and tomatilloes. I wouldn’t know about sofrito if it wasn’t for Daisy; it’s a sauce easily made in the food processor, and leftovers freeze really well into individual ice cube trays. It was great mixed with some pinto beans to make refried beans to place into tortillas. We also grabbed queso fresco from the meat/deli counter, since S. is fluent in Spanish.
S. also mentioned she saw an Asian market nearby, so we now have at least three cultural food experiences within a few minutes’ walk of our new home!
Ah, the joys of working from home. Getting up later. No worries about commuting, train delays, annoying people, and social interaction. Having a beer with lunch that you made, on your own, quiet deck. One (by which I mean me) could easily get accustomed to that lifestyle, but that’s another show (cue Good Eats theme).
Yesterday is also CSA day, where our CSA farmer delivers the weekly goods to the pick-up location. It was a treat for me to go (after driving by three times till i actually recognized the place) and pick out our items for the week – onions, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, fennel, sweet corn, haricots verts, and parsley – without having to worry about who’s behind me, or if they weren’t fresh.
with this newfound bounty, and a container of Trader Joe’s extra-firm tofu, i made the following:
a great summer meal, which could easily be made vegan by eliminating the cheese.
for dessert, we had corn on the cob on our deck. 🙂
So after eating like crap for most of July 4th weekend, i decided on something healthy for dinner last night: Big salad with lettuce S. grew on our deck, trader joe’s soybeans (edamame, unshelled), freshly roasted red pepper, and vine-ripened tomatoes. I made a quick honey-mustard vinaigrette, and with the leftover dressing, made egg salad, using the dressing in place of mayonnaise. I added Penzey’s dried dill (the undisputed king of dried herbs and spices), blanched red onion (because S. doesn’t like raw onion) and garlic scapes (from our CSA farm share), and some more tomato.
Since it’s Tuesday Greenmarket day here in the City, i bought wild arugula, italian flat leaf parsley, and a rosemary focaccia roll from Au Bon Pain. Google led me astray with local bakeries (the closest is now a deli…), so i had to settle for ABP across the street.
Delish!
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Now playing: Rush – Subdivisions
via FoxyTunes
What i liked about Carlin was that he used words as humor. The infamous “7 dirty words” bit was only the tip of the iceberg. his intelligence carried through to his comedy, and he wasn’t afraid to use and exploit big words. this is why i admired George Carlin. I’d say I hope he rests in peace, but he wasn’t very religious, so i will just say thank you and I hope he passed painlessly.
i am not really one for reality shows. Or at least that’s what i used to think in the genre’s infancy. I still don’t watch American Idol, So you think you can [insert verb here], or, for chrissake, Shear Genius, the show about… haircutters?! But I find myself intrigued by men fishing for crab in Alaska.