Salmon with Cauliflower Puree

I was looking through the refrigerator, trying to figure out what to have with my salmon, and I saw that I had a bag of frozen cauliflower. Rather than just steaming up the cauliflower or grilling it, I decided to make a puree. It came out really good and was not hard at all; it almost tastes like mashed potatoes but not starchy. The recipe below was for a single serving of the puree (because that's all the cauliflower I had), so scale accordingly. I also included a recipe for seasoning the salmon that goes really well with the flavors of the cauliflower puree.




Cauliflower puree ingredients (1 serving)

• 1 - 1.5 cups of of cauliflower, chopped (frozen works fine since you're going to cook the hell out of it)
• 1 cup water (or enough to cover the veggies)
  
• 1/4 cup of carrots, cut into small slices
• 1/2 clove of garlic, minced
  
• 1 tablespoon sour cream
• ginger, salt, black pepper, onion, powder, marjoram
• liquid smoke (optional)
  

Using a small sauce pot, I brought about 1 cup of water up to boil. To this I added a few dashes of salt, onion powder, marjoram, and ginger, a few grinds of black pepper, and the garlic. Next I added the carrots and cauliflower and cooked until all the vegetables were soft (about 10-15 minutes). The carrots were added mostly because I was afraid I didn't have enough cauliflower, but they added a really good sweetness. Halfway though I added a really small drop of liquid smoke. I really like the taste of grilled cauliflower, so I figured this would mimic it well...you could grill the cauliflower first to get the same effect.

I added all the veggies to my food processor, plus a little bit of the cooking liquid and blended. I added a small amount of sour cream and blended some more. If I didn't have sour cream on hand, I probably would have added a little bit of butter and milk. Finally, I salted and peppered to taste.

Salmon Seasoning
I did a really simple seasoning for the salmon. I started by putting a little olive oil, lemon juice, and soy sauce onto the fillet. In terms of spices, I made up a mixture of seasoning a while ago that consisted of:

• onion powder
• chili powder
• ginger
• lemon pepper seasoning (basically salt, dried lemon, and black pepper)
• Adobo (basically salt, garlic, black pepper, and thyme)
• cayenne pepper
• black pepper

I didn't really make this in any specific proportions...probably close to 1:1 for all the ingredients except the cayenne. I covered the salmon with the mixture, let it sit about 5-10 minutes before cooking. I pan seared it today, but cook however you choose (e.g. pan sear, grill, bake, or broil).

I served the salmon and cauliflower puree with Kashi pilaf.

A side note about the pilaf...I really like it a lot, but it's usually hard to find. It often is stocked with the oatmeal and cereal if they have it all. I ended up finding it at Whole Foods (in the cereal aisle) after ordering a bunch directly from kashi.com.

Chick Pea Curry

I was in the mood for something spicy and light for dinner, so I decided to tried to come up with a version of chickpea curry. The recipes I've looked up in the past have varied a considerable amount, so this is sort of an amalgamation of all the recipes (and heavily influenced by what I had on hand).

Ingredients:

• 1 can of chick peas
• 1/2 cup of green peas
• 1/2 cup diced yellow onion
• 1/4 cup of finely diced (or shredded) carrots
• 2 tablespoons of diced cilantro
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon garam masala
• 1 tablespoon of red curry paste
• 1 tablespoon of red curry
• 1 tablespoon of yellow curry
• 1 tablespoon of coriander
• 1 teaspoon of cumin
• 1 teaspoon of ginger
• Salt and pepper to taste
  

I sauteed the onions, carrots, and garlic in a teaspoon of oil. Once the onions were translucent, I added the red curry paste, thoroughly mixing it in. To this I added the chickpeas; I didn't drain them, and added a little extra water so that the peas would be completely covered. I added the curry powder to the chickpeas and allowed the chickpeas to soften (about 5 minutes). I then added the rest of the spices, cilantro and green peas. When the liquid was cooked off, I salted and peppered to taste and served this with some garlic naan from Trader Joe's.

Baked Ziti

Last weekend, one of my roommates asked how to make lasagna, which consequently made me start craving lasagna. I actually prefer baked ziti over lasagna; the only real difference between the two is the shape of the pasta and the ordered assembly (and, technically speaking, baked ziti is in a more entropically favorable state..and if I'm being technical, I should appease my father, and note that I didn't actually make baked ziti, but rather baked penne). This is scaled down from my SnoDrift recipe...this makes about 8 servings as opposed to 80.

I made a sauce similar to the Pork Ragu I previously posted. This sauce works out well with or without meat, I chose to use about a pound of ground pork this time...Mmmm pork.



Baked ziti isn't very photogenic, but it sure is tasty.

Ingredients:

• approximately 1 pound of ground pork, beef, veal, and/or lamb or an equivalent amount of Italian sausage (optional)
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1 carrot, or about 5 baby carrots, finely diced
• 1 small yellow squash or zucchini, finely diced
• 1/4 cup of diced bell pepper
• 1/2 cup of diced mushrooms
• 28 oz of crushed tomatoes (1 large can)
• 1/4 of Red wine
• 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup parmesan/romano cheese
• 1 cup of mozzarella cheese, shredded
  
• 1.5-2 cups of ricotta cheese
• basil, oregano, thyme, salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper, fennel seeds
• 1 lb of ziti (or penne, dad)

Start by browning the meat over medium heat. To this add garlic and onion, carrots, mushrooms, and bell pepper. Season with crushed red pepper, a few dashes of basil and oregano, and about 1/3 teaspoon of fennel seeds (if you're using Italian sausage, you probably won't need this).

Once the carrots soften up, add the finely diced summer squash and a few grinds of black pepper. To avoid having the squash turn to mush, I only cook saute them for about as much time as it takes me to open the can of crushed tomatoes. Next, add about half the tomatoes to the mix, a few more dashes of basil and oregano, and let it heat. After the tomatoes have warmed, add the rest of the tomatoes, red wine, balsamic vinegar, and the parmesan/romano cheese, stirring to combine. Let the sauce simmer for about half an hour. Salt to taste.

Mix about a tablespoon or so of basil and oregano into the ricotta cheese (for a simple variation, add chopped spinach). Once the pasta is cooked, combine the ricotta and tomato sauce...place in a baking dish, top with mozzarella. Bake at 375 until the top starts to get a little crispy (about 20 minutes).

Cucumber-Tomato-Avocado Salad

I made this salad for Nicole when she was visiting and served it with a spinach salad and shrimp with peppers. The pictures are from the version Nicole made for herself last night (she totally didn't use red onion though :-P ), which she paired with garlic fried tempeh and Kashi pilaf. A good versatile dish.



Ingredients:

• 2 plum tomatoes, diced or about 1/2 cup of halved grape tomatoes
  
• 1/4 cup diced red onion, finely diced
• 1/2 an English cucumber, diced
• 1 ripe avocado, diced
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped

seasonings:

• basil
• oregano
• thyme
• salt
• black pepper

In an appropriately sized bowl, mix the two vinegars, lemon juice, garlic, and herbs (fresh would be best, but whatever). Add olive oil, onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers to the bowl; mix well. Add the avocado, mix gently, and salt and pepper to taste. This is delicious served over mixed greens and toasted Italian bread. Fresh mozzarella would be a good addition.

Vietnamese summer rolls

When Nicole was here, I made her take a look at one of my cookbooks, and when she the summer rolls, she knew what she wanted to make for dinner. This summer rolls contain lettuce noodles, cucumbers and carrots, with a hint of cilantro and mint, all rolled up in rice wrappers. I'm sure this would also be great with some steamed shrimp (I do have a delicious recipe for steamed veggies and shrimp). It was nice and warm out and was definitely a perfect spring/summer meal. We paired it with plenty of Oberon and sesame noodles.



Ingredients:

• rice paper wrappers
• extra firm tofu, cut into long rectilinear pieces
• bean sprouts
• carrots, cut into matchsticks
• cucumbers, cut into long rectilinear pieces
• rice noodles
• leafy lettuce (we used red leaf)
• cilantro leaves
• mint leaves
• hoison sauce
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• ground ginger

We first rehydrated the rice noddles following the directions on the package and cut up all of the veggies. We mixed a small amount of hoison sauce with a dash of sesame oil, plenty of soy sauce, and a few pinches of ginger. This served as both our dipping sauce and marinade for the tofu. We spooned a small amount of dipping sauce onto the sliced tofu. We next rehydrated the dry rice paper wrappers by placing them in warm water for two minutes until they were pliable (one at a time though). We moistened a towel and laid it on the counter as our workstation for wrapping.



Wrapping...we placed the rehydrated rice wrapper on the moistened towel. We took a piece of lettuce and made sure to remove any of the sharp and pointy parts (as we found that they will rip the rice paper). We put the lettuce on the rice wrapper followed by a healthy portion of rice noodles, cucumbers, carrots, tofu, a few leaves of cilantro and a leaf of mint. The mint can be quite strong, so we split the leaves of mint in half (lengthwise) and equally distributed the two halves in the roll. We then wrapped it up tightly (we rolled half of it up, then folded in the sides, and finished rolling)

To serve, we sliced them diagonally with the a side of dipping sauce.

Strawberry-Tangerine Sorbet

I recently purchased an ice cream maker and have been making lots of great frozen treats. Nicole was quite interested in making some sorbet, but most recipes I found contained very little fruit and were mostly just sugar water and corn syrup. Here is my version of sorbet (two recipes, actually) that comes out quite delicious and at least contains minimal amounts of refined sugar.



Strawberry-Tangerine Sorbet

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of tangerine juice (works equally as well with orange juice)
  
• 1 pint of strawberries
• juice of a quarter of a lime
• 1 shot of vodka or triple sec
  

I pureed the strawberries in my food processor. I then mixed the strawberry puree with the tangerine and lime juice, added the shot of vodka, and poured the mixture into my ice cream maker. The lime juice really adds a lot to the flavor of the sorbet...the first batch was definitely lacking without it. The vodka helps keep the mixture easier to scoop after its been in the freezer a while. After the sorbet was roughly the consistency of softserve, I let it set up in the freezer for two hours before eating.

Strawberry-tangerine-apple-peach schnapps sorbet
The sorbet sets up really fast in the ice cream maker, so I tried making a second batch immediately following the strawberry-tangerine sorbet, but was out of strawberries. I grabbed what was in the refrigerator and made a pretty good tasting concoction. The mixture contained approximately...

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of tangerine juice
• 1/4 cup of apple juice
• 1 shot of peach schnapps
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  

As I added this to the ice cream maker, it melted the strawberry-tangerine sorbet that was frozen to the sides of the bowl which added a nice light strawberry flavor to the mix.

Pork Ragu

This is a pork based ragu full of lots of vegetables. Rather than the standard soffrito of onions, celery and carrots, I used onions, carrots, peppers, and zucchini.

Ingredients:

• 2 spicy Italian sausages (pork)
• 14 oz of crushed tomatoes (half a large can)
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup of diced peppers
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 carrot (or approximately 5 baby carrots), finely diced
• 1 small zucchini, diced
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• basil, oregano, black pepper
• parmesan/romano cheese

I removed the 2 sausages from their casings and broke them up into small pieces as I browned them. To the browned meat I added the carrots, onions, peppers, and garlic. Since it wasn't pepper season yet here in Michigan, I used a blend of frozen diced red, green, and yellow peppers. These actually worked quite well since they become soft rather fast; the sauce really shouldn't have a crunch. After the onions were browned, I added a few dashes of dried basil and oregano followed by a few grinds of black pepper. When the carrots were mostly soft with just a little crunch left, I added the diced zucchini. I let the zucchini cook for about the time it took me to open the can of tomatoes. I added the tomatoes to the sauce, a few more dashes of basil and oregano, and allowed the sauce to simmer over low heat for approximately 15 minutes. Finally, I added about 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar to the mixture and allowed it to simmer for about 10 minutes more.

I served it over linguine and topped it with a blend of parmesan and romano cheese.

Fish Tacos

When Nicole came into town, we both had a craving for some fish tacos. Below is our quick recipe for fish tacos with salsa, guacamole, cabbage, and a nice tasty yogurt sauce.

The fish:

We used a little over 1 pound of mahi mahi for 3 people. The mahi mahi was tasty, but any light, flaky fish would work well, such as tilapia or cod. We marinated the fish for about 10-15 minutes while preparing the sauces. The marinade consisted of:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  
• juice of half a lime
  
• a few grinds of black pepper
  
• a dusting of chili powder
  
• a few grinds of sea salt
  
• a few cilantro leaves
  

Salsa:

The salsa we made was very simple, just combine the following ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of diced or crushed tomatoes
  
• 1/8 cup of diced onion
  
• 1/2 teaspoon of white vinegar
  
• 1/2 teaspoon lime juice
  
• a dash of Cholula hot sauce
  
• salt, black pepper, and chili powder to taste
  
• a pinch of cumin
  
• several cilantro leaves, diced
  

Guacamole:

Even easier than the salsa, the guacamole we made was super quick, easy, and tasty. Just combine the following ingredients:

• 1 ripe avocado, diced up, then mashed with a fork
• about 3 tablespoons of the salsa from above
• several more cilantro leaves, diced
• salt to taste

Yogurt Sauce:

We made the sauce with plain yogurt, but sour cream would also work nicely. Blend the following together:

• 1/4 cup of plain yogurt (or sour cream)
• 1/4 teaspoon lime juice
• a pinch of each of the following: ginger, chili powder, cumin, salt
• several leaves of cilantro, diced

Cooking:

In the time it took us to put together the salsa, guacamole, and yogurt sauce, the fish had nicely marinated. It took less than 10 minutes to grill the fish. The mahi mahi held up nicely on the grill, but it might be good to have a piece of foil on had to flip the fish onto. After cooked, we flaked the fish into bite-sized chunks and juiced a few wedges of lime on top. We heated the corn tortillas on the grill for about 30 seconds per side. We topped each corn tortilla with a small amount of the flaked fish, salsa, guacamole, white sauce, shredded cabbage and cheddar.