Thai Fish Tacos

I've been watching a lot of Gordon Ramsey shows lately and he's strict about tasting your food throughout the cooking process to make sure everything tastes right. So, I was cooking my sauce for this dish and tasted it at the end (after following the directions to a T... wait... I don't follow directions...), when I tasted it, I thought it was pretty gross and felt super bad cause I didn't know how to fix it. I guess I was just expecting a different flavor than what it was. Anyway, I didn't do anything about it, just warned Nick that it might be gross and we might be eating mac and cheese tonight.

So here I am feeling all disappointed and whining cause it's gonna be gross. Then I put it all together and tried it and it was pretty amazing!! Everything came together in the end and I was pleased. I do like fish tacos! Nick rated them an 8. I think I would have grilled the fish next time, but we were lazy and didn't feel like going downstairs to grill (oh to live in a house with a grill on our back patio... someday).

Enjoy!

Thai Fish Tacos

Ingredients:

Fish

1/4 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup lime juice

1 tablespoon red chile paste

1 tablespoon honey

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 pounds skinless mahi mahi

Thai Slaw

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup lime juice

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 teaspoon red chile past

e Maple syrup (optional)

Red chile flakes (optional)

2 cups thinly sliced red cabbage

1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced

3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

2 carrots, grated

Flour tortillas

Avocado slices

Directions:

For the fish, whisk together coconut milk, lime juice, chile paste, honey, garlic and 1/4 cup water to make a marinade. Arrange fish in a wide, shallow dish, pour marinade over the top and turn to coat all over. Cover dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. 

Meanwhile, for the slaw, put coconut milk, peanut butter, lime juice, fish sauce, and chile paste into a small pot over medium low heat. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes to make a dressing. Taste and add a bit of maple syrup if more sweetness is desired and red pepper flakes if more spice is needed. Set dressing aside. 

Put cabbage, onions, cilantro and carrots into a large bowl with half of the reserved dressing and toss to coat. Set slaw aside. 

Preheat oiled grill to medium heat. Drain fish, discarding marinade, and cook on grill until it flakes easily with a fork and is opaque, 5 to 7 minutes per side. (To warm tortillas while grilling fish, wrap tortilla stack in aluminum foil and place on grill grate over low heat, turning once while fish cooks.) Transfer fish to a cutting board and roughly chop. Serve fish in warm tortillas, topped with reserved slaw and avocado slices, and drizzled with remaining dressing, if you like.

Peanut Butter Balls

Whether it's a going away party at work or a bbq picnic with friends, I show up and people ask "did you bring balls?" They're talking about Oreo Balls (from a previous post). I swear I've made those things at least 16 times since being here. They are quite amazing, but I wanted to expand the variety of balls that folks could choose from (Folks is a Hawaii thing... I like it).

I stumbled across this recipe one day while searching for marshmallow creme recipes. Don't ask why I was looking up marshmallow cream. Probably because it's amazing and all I make with it is fruit dip (yum... fresh strawberries from the garden... how I miss thee). Anyway... I made these peanut butter balls for a going away party at work along with oreo balls. Then I asked which ones people liked best and it was pretty much 50/50. I didn't like these at first, but after putting them in the fridge over night and eating them cold... it was total bliss. I am in love. These are extremely easy and I know you'll make lots and lots of friends if you bring these to work, or a party, or anywhere you want to make friends.

Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Balls

Ingredients:

1 7oz container of marshmallow creme

1 cup creamy peanut butter

2 cups crispy rice cereal

6 squares of chocolate almond bark

Directions:

Mix the marshmallow creme and peanut butter in a large bowl until combined. Add crispy rice cereal and stir. Let sit in fridge for about 30 minutes. Take out and roll into balls. Meanwhile, melt chocolate almond bark in microwave or over a double boiler. Dip balls in chocolate and place on wax paper. Let cool. Refrigerate for an hour (trust me, the are awesome cold!) Enjoy!!

Tofu Sandwiches

I've been practicing cooking with Tofu lately. It's kind of complicated to cook when you have no idea what you're doing. So that's why I'm practicing. It can taste really good, but I recommend eating it in moderation cause too much tofu is never a good thing. I really have no idea if that's true, but I just think of it as you wouldn't eat steak for every dinner, so why eat tofu for every dinner? Whatever... I dunno. Anyway, I think I've accomplished a lot in the land of tofu.

Nick and I used to get an order of bbq boneless wings every night one of us would work at Applebee's. I remember him coming home at 2 in the morning from a shift with a container of wings. I would immediately pop up and eat my half, then go back to sleep.

Oh memories of the horrible things we used to eat. I made my own rendition of bbq boneless wings... only they are called bbq tofu sticks. They are pretty amazing, not 1800 calories like the wings at Applebees, and pretty easy. Not something that I'd eat all the time, cause I feel like anything tasting that good can't be good for you, but still a nice little treat while watching football or something.

I also made a buffalo tofu sandwich, and a CLT sandwich (cucumber, lettuce, tofu). They were all nice vegetarian sandwiches. You can basically do anything with it, once you know how to cook it. So...

Tofu Sticks or Sandwich

Ingredients:

1 package of tofu

1/2 cup flour

1 egg white

1 tbsp sauce (bbq, buffalo, etc)

olive oil

Directions:

Slice the tofu into 1/4-1/2 inch slices and pat with paper towel to release some liquid.

Place on baking sheet with rack and put in 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Take out and cool (I put in the freezer cause I'm impatient).

Slice into strips if desired.

Pour a tsp. of sauce in egg white and mix. Dip tofu into egg mixture and then flour (I also like to put some spices in my flour, chili powder, cayenne pepper, etc.).

Lightly fry tofu sticks in a bit of olive oil until crispy and put back in the oven for 5 more minutes. Can dip in favorite dressing or put on a sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, whatever!! yumsy!

My favorites:

BBQ Tofu Sticks (bbq sauce in egg, ranch dressing)

Buffalo Tofu Sandwich (Hot sauce in the egg, cayenne in the flour, top with lettuce, tomato, and blue cheese dressing)

Cucumber, Lettuce, Tofu Sandwich (curry powder in the flour)

Eggplant Milanese

A lady from work let me try her version of Eggplant Milanese one day and it was so good that I had to try and make it for myself.

Nick rated this dish a 9.5 out of 10. He rated it a 10, but then I said "What? A 10? You never rate anything a 10." So he changed it to a 9.5. It was amazing. So simple too! We had it with some ciabatta bread. Yum Yum! I will make this again!

One thing I might change next time is use spinach

instead of arugula. It was good, but I love fresh

spinach!!

Eggplant Milanese

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant, sliced thin

1 egg

1/2 cup of flour

1 cup panko bread crumbs

3 roma tomatos

1/2 onion

4 cloves garlic

1 bunch of arugula

balsamic vinegar

olive oil

Directions:

Dredge your thinly sliced eggplant in flour, dip in egg, and dip in panko bread crumbs.

Lightly fry in batches in a little bit of olive oil.

Meanwhile, chop onions, garlic, and 2 roma tomatos. Saute in a frying pan until nice and liquidly with a little bit of balsamic vinegar. (may add other spices as well)

Place the eggplant on a plate and top with onion/garlic/tomato mixture.

Place remaining chopped roma tomato and arugula on top of the mixture.

See... it's super easy!!

Vegetarian Wellington

How fancy of me!

I had an event at work at this big fancy hotel. For lunch they served steak and mahi mahi. I wasn't really in the mood for a huge steak at lunch time so I got the vegetarian dish, which happened to be a vegetarian wellington and wow... it was amazing. Their version reminded me too much of a veggie calzone, but I researched recipes on this and came up with one that is pretty darn good. I'm excited to make it again so I can improve it!

I loved the wellington part (I actually bought fresh spinach from the farmers market the first time I made it... It was WAY too strong so the second time I omitted the spinach all together). The sauce part for this recipe wasn't the greatest to me. I followed the recipe to a T, which is very hard for me to do, but I didn't really like it. It was too lemony. I think a plain cream sauce would have been better. The second time I made it, I added squash to the wellington and didn't use cream sauce at all. It was delicious.

Vegetarian Wellington
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• Sheet Frozen Puff Pastry (that's right, I used crescent rolls... not messing with puff pastry)
• 1 large package of frozen spinach (or equivent fresh)
• 1 Red Pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup chopped carrot
• 1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
• 3/4 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 egg
• 2 TBS butter
• dash of cyennne pepper to taste
• 1/2 TEAS Garlic Salt
• Pepper to taste
• Optional 1/4 cup roasted chopped hazelnuts
• For Sauce
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup minced shallots
• 3 TBS Fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Thaw puff pastry according to directions or about 20 minutes at room tempurature. Roll sheet out to increase in size by about 1/3. (or roll out crescent rolls, cause they are awesome)

Saute mushrooms in butter over medium heat until lightly cooked and butter absorbed. In medium sized place thawed and throughly drained spinnach. Add chopped peppers, onions, carrot, parsley, mushrooms, egg and seasonings and mix with hands or spoon.

Mound mixture on rectangle of puff pastry and fold long end over then sides and remaining long end to make a rectangle loaf. Make sure mixture is sealed well inside. Place on ungreased cooking sheet, edge sides down.  Make small vent holes in top and back for 25 minutes or until golden brown and heated through.

While baking - Make Sauce.  Combine shallots, wine and lemon juice in saucepan. Reduce over medium-high heat until mixture is reduced by half. Add cream and boil gently about 3 minutes until thickened. Remove and set aside. When ready to serve whisk sauce over medium heat to heat through. Add butter a few pieces at a time and whisk until just melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste

To Serve: Plate small amount of sauce and slice loaf in 1 inch slices and top with roasted hazelnuts. Serve with extra sauce on the side.

Falafel!

Okay so I haven't been cooking very much lately, but I did come across some photos that I had never used so, time to catch up.

I remember this falafel dish being amazing. I've made it twice and I feel like the more I make it, the better it will get. It's sort of like a meat loaf, only using chick peas instead of meat. Kind of different to work with. It just feels so healthy and very very flavorful!

I highly recommend this dish. It's great served with a side salad, and on some baked pita of course (Nick bought Olive Pita... yum!)

Enjoy!!

Falafel

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained

1 onion, chopped

1/2 cup fresh parsley (I used about a Tbs. of dried)

1 TBS. oregano

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 egg

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon salt

1 dash pepper

1 pinch cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup dry bread crumbs

oil for frying (You can either fry or bake... I chose to bake)

1 (6 ounce) container plain yogurt

1/2 cucumber - peeled, seeded, and finely chopped

1 teaspoon dried dill weed

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don't use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. In a blender, process onion, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into mashed chickpeas.

In a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties.

If you choose to fry, Heat 1 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry patties in hot oil until brown on both sides.

If you choose to bake, Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Heat a little olive oil in a large, oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat. Place the patties in the skillet; cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes on each side.

Transfer skillet to the preheated oven and bake until heated through, about 10 minutes.

In a small bowl combine yogurt, cucumber, dill, salt, and pepper. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

Portabella Mushroom Burgers

This was rated a 10 by Nick and a 9.5 by Manda. It was pretty amazing.

We bought humongous Portabella mushrooms from the grocery store. We brushed them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (and some garlic... garlic powder would work too) and grilled them about 4 minutes on each side. Grilled some onions too to go on top. Wow. What amazing flavors! To top it off, we topped the grilled buns with herbed goat cheese. Wow... again. It was so tasty! Better than any hamburger I've ever made. I definitely recommend trying this!

Portabella Mushroom Burgers
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
4 large Portabella mushrooms
1 large red onion, thinly sliced
1 large red pepper, sliced into rings
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 fresh buns

Herbed Goat Cheese:

about 1/4 cup goat cheese

2 Tablespoons fresh cut basil

2 Tablespoons Olive oil

Directions:
Drizzle garlic, balsamic vinegar and olive oil over mushroom caps.  Place on preheated grill.  After about 3 minutes, flip and grill on the other side.  Meanwhile, grill sliced onions, red peppers and buns on both sides.  You may want to spray some olive oil to prevent sticking. 

To make goat cheese spread, mix together the goat cheese, fresh basil and olive oil until smooth.  

To assemble burgers, spread the goat cheese mixture on the top of a bun.  Place a mushroom cap, onion slice, and red pepper and top with the bun.