Marjorie Approved Turkey Meatballs

Soooooo, never leaving anything alone, I have a new Turkey Meatball recipe

There are three things to remember
1)  Fresh ground turkey, no frozen chubs.  I prefer turkey from The Turkey Store (Go Barron WI), but you can use other.
2)  You MUST cook by temperature - once the meatballs hit 150, off the heat they go.  At 170 they turn into dry disgusting balls of sawdust.  Under 150 you risk food poisoning.  So get a Thermapen.
3)  Seasoning is your friend - low fat means you need lots of seasoning.  Under season and they are boringly bland

Ingredients
1 lb fresh ground turkey (I use 93/7 - you can use 99/1, but that is pretty dry stuff
8 ounces fresh mushrooms
1/2 onion
1 stalk celery
Garlic (you can use fresh, or use Penzeys Roasted Garlic)
Seasoning as appropriate (depending on if you want Italian, Asian, Swedish, or other style meatballs). For Italian I like Penzeys Tuscan Sunset and for Asian the Sate seasoning.
Salt
Pepper

Sauce of choice, depending on style of meatballs

Recipe
Finely dice onion, celery and mushrooms
Saute onion, celery and 1/2 the mushrooms.  Season with salt and pepper, and whatever seasoning your using.  Cook till soft, then cool.
Spread cooked veg on plate, spread turkey of the top
Spread rest of mushrooms on top of turkey, salt, pepper, season with seasoning
Mix together, but not too much.  Compress the turkey, you get blech

At this point I like to make a quarter size piece of the meatballs (squished flat) and cook, to check the seasoning.  Then adjust seasonings if necessary and cook the rest

Heat pan  medium (I use teflon, just spray oil)
Make meatballs and begin to brown
Once meatballs are brown on two sides (but not cooked yet), I add sauce and turn temp down to low. The idea is that the sauce will bring the temp of the meatballs up slowly to 160, making it hard to overcook.  Remember - at 150 they come off the stove.  Residual heat will bring them to 155

Serve - I like using Rosarios Spaghetti Sauce over Zucchini noodles.

Marjorie Approved

Leek and Potato Soup - 100 calories a cup!

I like this soup in the fall when leeks are cheap.  As in 69 cents each.  When they are $2.69 each, I don't like them as much.  Plus, they are cheap when potatoes are cheap also - 50 cents a lb - so a big win on the budget front.

To determine calories, you must of course base it on what you use.  Your calorie count will vary...

Ingredients

Leeks (3 @54 calories each, 162 calories total)
Yukon Gold Potatoes, peeled (18 ounces @ 26 calories per ounce, 468 calories total)
Swanson or Progresso Chicken Broth, low sodium (8 cups, 15 cal per cup, 120 calories total).  Or go with vegetable broth.
1 cup water (free)
salt and pepper to taste (free)
Thyme to taste (free)

Yields 8 cups, so 94 calories per cup with what I used.

Cut the dark green portions of the leeks off, slice in half the long way, then slice fine.  Put in a big pot of water and swish around to get the dirt out of them.  Drain.

Add to big pot and sweat (that is, cook at low to medium heat till they soften).  You don't need oil, butter or anything else.  They will release moisture as they cook down.  Salt with about a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of pepper.

Peel and slice potatoes into 1/4 thick slices.  I do it this way because they then cook evenly no matter how big the potato is - every slice cooks at the same speed.

When leeks have gotten soft (10 to 15 minutes), add potatoes, thyme, broth and water.  Cook at medium until potatoes are soft

Put half at a time into a blender, blend till smooth - be careful and put a towel over the blender and don't fill it more than 1/2 way - to much is a good way of blowing the top off, burning yourself and painting the walls with the soup.

When pureed, serve.  Good hot, good cold.

Dad’s Butternut Squash, Chicken and Pasta, Risotto style

Dad’s Butternut Squash, Chicken and Pasta, Risotto style.  Low calorie, low fat, all delicious.

This is cooked risotto style - that is to say the pasta is sauted in a pan then cooked in chicken stock with the rest of the ingredients.  As it is not boiled, merely simmered,  the pasta takes longer than normal to cook.

Calories are approximately 194 per cup.  Approximately.  It depends on how much you cook down the sauce, how much cheese you put on, did you measure the oil, how big was your butternut squash, etc.  So basically, with 2 tbs of grated parm on top, I call a two cup serving 400 calories.

1 onion, small dice

1 stalk celery, small dice

1 red bell pepper, small dice (or large, if a food fusser wants to pick out theirs)

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and diced fine

1 medium to large butternut squash, cubed (½ inch cubes) - mine ended up being 5 cups diced.

1 lb raw chicken breast, no skin, bone or fat,  cubed (½ inch cubes)

2 oz white wine or white vermouth

3 cups chicken broth

4 oz Creamette 150 calorie pasta

½ lemon

1 tbs italian seasoning (dried basil, thyme, etc.  I use Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset)

salt and pepper

Parmesan cheese (not included in above calorie count - 1 tbs grated is 20 calories)

Heat pan (burner at 6 or so (medium heat)  add olive oil.  Put chicken in Pan, brown chicken  in a teflon coated chicken fryer that has a lid.  You could do this in a Le Crueset pot, but you will probably need another ½ tbs of olive oil if you do.  Don’t forget to adjust your calorie count. You do not need to cook it all the way through at this time - just brown it.  It will finish cooking later.  After brown, put to the side in a bowl, leaving any remaining oil, juices in frying pan.

Return pan to heat.  Saute the onion, celery, red bell pepper and italian seasoning.  If you need to add oil , adjust your calorie count.  Since I used a teflon coated pan, I did not need to.  When just about turning brown (or browning a little bit) add the garlic, saute for another couple of minutes.  I am generally at medium heat for this.

Add Pasta, saute with veg.  Pasta will get coated with oil and start to toast.  Feel free to cook for a while, or not.  Add vermouth or wine and stir.  When the pasta has absorbed the vermouth, use a spatula to scrape out the pan into the bowl that is holding the chicken and set aside.

Return pan to the burner and add the butternut squash and chicken stock.  Bring to a low boil (still at medium heat), cook for 5-6 minutes.  Be sure to cover the pot at this time to keep the chicken stock from evaporating too much.  When you taste a piece and it is getting cooked, but still firm, that is where you want it.

At this point, add all the ingredients back to the pan that is cooking the squash in the stock.  Stir, and cover.  A nice thing about the teflon chicken fryer I have is that it is a glass top, so you can observe the cooking without pulling the top.  This keeps the cooking temperature up, the evaporation down.  

Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring two or three times  Basically you are cooking the pasta till al dente - just slightly chewy.  The sauce is going to thicken and become very creamy, even though you did not add any dairy nor flour nor cornstarch..  Basically this is a combination of the starch from the pasta and the butternut squash forming a nice thick sauce.  You may need to add a little boiling water if it is getting too thick and the pasta is not cooked yet.  I usually just get the electric tea kettle going and keep the water hot in case I need it.  If the pasta is cooked and it is to liquidy, I take the top off and cook it down some.  Generally if you use the same proportions I do, you won’t need to do much of this.

When the pasta is just about cooked, and the sauce is nice and thick, I turn off the heat and let it sit for a minute or two. If you wanted to  you could mix in a bag of frozen peas which would make a little more food and add some nice green color (adjust calories if you do, although I think the per serving calorie count would be near about the same).

Just before serving, squeeze the juice of half of a lemon on top and stir.  Serve, with grated parmesan on top.

This will make four servings of two cups each. More or less, depending on how thick your sauce is.

A great dish, the takes some work but not to much.   It should be served immediately as you do not want the pasta to overcook.

A nice green salad would be perfect with this.  If you wanted to make this vegetarian, I would add a can of drained chick peas in place of the chicken.  Adjust the calorie count as required.

If you had some left over chicken sausage, that would be great also. Adjust calorie count.

Turkey Apple Onion Spinach Meatballs in fresh Tomato sauce over Pasta

It is fall, so we have a lot of apples, onions and tomatoes.  In fact, it becomes difficult to find enough uses for them.  So, this is one way.

Festival usually sells one pound packages of ground breast (both chicken and turkey) meat that, while not labeled with nutrition info, certainly looks and cooks like no skin, defatted breast meat.  So, it is.  Ipse Dixit.  Don’t use frozen chubs.  They are almost always fatty, and have lots of bone and nasty stuff in them.  Turkey Store ground turkey works ok also.

Ingredients for meatballs (will make 15 meatballs (or so)

1 lb ground turkey or chicken.

½ onion rough chopped

1 tart apple (I like Wolf’s), peeled, cored, rough chopped

3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

1 cup fresh spinach, loosely packed

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1 tsp italian seasoning

Toss all ingredients (EXCEPT CHICKEN) into food processor.  Pulse until relatively finely chopped.  

Spread ground turkey out on plate

Spread rest of ingredients over

Mix thoroughly with hands

Form into whatever size meatballs you like.  I go for just a shade under golf ball size, they cook well

Brown in non stick pan with cooking spray.  I cook them at medium on my dial (5-6 out of 10).  These are fragile meatballs - don’t be tossing them around the pan and stirring a lot.  You will break them up.  Brown on one side, turn gently, brown on other, then add sauce (see below) to finish cooking process

While browning, make the sauce

Ingredients for Sauce

5 medium garden tomatoes, diced.  You could peel and seed them, but unless I am cooking for company, I don’t bother.  If you do, you will have to add ½ cup chicken stock to replace the liquid

½ onion, diced

½ green pepper, diced (or more if you like)

A zucchini from the garden would be nice also, as would an eggplant if you had it

8 oz of mushroom would be fine also

1 tsp italian seasoning

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

After meatballs have begun browning, toss onion and pepper in with them.  Once meatballs have browned on at least two sides, toss in rest of ingredients, cook for 10 minutes, covered.  Sauce will be chunky, not smooth. Salt and pepper to taste.  You may need to sweeten the tomato sauce with a bit of splenda if the tomatoes are too tart.  If you felt like it, you could toss another cup of fresh spinach in the sauce

After you add the sauce to the meatballs, cook the pasta.  I cook one (1) dry ounce per person, of high fiber pasta

If I did not add a zucchini or eggplant or mushrooms to the sauce, I would cook some frozen veg and serve the sauce over them, along with the pasta. Basicly, figure out how much veg you need to make your meal big enough.  Don’t use more  pasta to up size the meal.

So, what is the damage….

1lb turkey breast  - 500

½ med onion - 20

1 med apple - 80

1 cup fresh spinach 7

607 calories, give or take

5 fresh tomatoes 125

½ med onion - 20

½ green pepper - 15

8 oz mushroom -40

8 oz zucchini 45

245 calories, plus or minus

3 oz high fiber pasta 225

If you needed to cut calories I would use cooked potatoes in place of the pasta.  I would peel, dice, then nuke for 10 minutes, then add them to the sauce for the 10 minute cook time.  You can figure out the calorie replacement.  Personally, I find one ounce of pasta per person sufficient to satisfy.

So, that is a total of 1,007 calories.

If you split this meal for 3, that is 359 calories.  If you split it in fours, 225 calories.

Like I said, I don’t know the fat levels of the Festival Fresh ground turkey, but it sure looks close to 99% fat free, and there is no fat in the pan while cooking.  If you don’t believe me, buy some turkey store 99% fat free.

If you needed to cut calories more, delete the pasta, cook more veg.  Personally, I find some pasta makes the meal more satisfying, less diet restrictive.  Basically, I am just happier after I have a little.

Calories calculated on www.caloriecount.about.com

Credit where credit is due - created out of thin air by me, David Carlson

Meals for January 12-19 2013

We must own 200 cookbooks.  Our own, plus Meme's.  We have bookshelves of them around the house, in the basement.  I have probably used five of them once each in the past year.  The internet has replaced them.  It is easier to search based on what you have in the house, or feel like eating, or is on sale at the market.  Plus, many online recipes have the calories etc. next to the recipe.  As that is important to us, it makes it much easier to use an online recipe.

Lately we have had a desire for butternut squash.  So this week we have a variety of recipes, mostly involving that.

So, this is a list to help me find the recipes online as the week goes on.  It makes the cooking and shopping simpler - I can refer to this list from my tablet or computer at home or work if I need to.

Moroccan Chicken and Butternut Squash Soup

Beef Tagine with Butternut Squash

Winter Squash Soufflé and Greens with Pork Chops

Roast Chicken with Potatoes and Butternut Squash

Indian-Spiced Roasted Squash Soup

Chickpea Chili

Eggplant and Mushroom Taco's

Never been a fan of eggplant.  Mushy tasteless congealing mass of blech.

Yet one does what one has to do.  Aldi's started stocking eggplants - $1.49 each, which is cheap for November.  So, off to the interwebs I went

Started with this recipe from We Should Be Fat.

Actually looked pretty good, and simple.  So off we go.

First, gather all the ingredients

1 small eggplant, cut into pinky sized strips
8 oz mushrooms, quartered
1 tbs Chicken Taco Seasoning
1 tbs Adobo Seasoning
2 tbs oil

Mix it all up and put on a pan (foil lined)
Roast for 30 minutes at 350 - flip half way through

While that's going on, put together the rest of the fixings.

Cheese
Sour Cream
Avocado
Tomatoes
Onions
Diced Jalapenos
Chorizo (what can I say - I like it)
whatever

Serve on tortillas

Plate it up and serve.  Makes 4 good size tacos

So I added Chorizo.  Shoot me

Yes, This is the BEST TURKEY EVER

I said it in ALL CAPS so it must be true - right?

Anyway - based on Alton Browns, with edits, has the best turkey ever - no, not the deep fried one, although that is very fine too.

My only addition - get about six dry ancho chilis - cut them up and put them in the brine. I started brining turkey with them years ago when I read about it in a Whole Foods thing - great addition - they do not add any heat to the turkey, but it is a great enhancer to the flavor

So....

Brine - 1 cup salt (I use sea salt), 1 cup brown sugar, 6 dried ancho chilis, cut up, 1/2 gallon of water
Bring all up to heat, stirring to disolve. When the salt/sugar is disolved, take off of heat, and add ice cubes till the ice does not melt (about 5 lbs).

Why is it always cold when I deep fry?

Place cleaned turkey in turkey brine holder (I use a big stock pot), pour brine over, and top off with water till bird is almost covered. Put breast portion down, so if some of the turkey is not covered, it doesnt matter as much. Place stock pot in fridge, or if you are like me and have no room, in a ice chest, surrounded by more ice. If you are in Wisconsin, and it's about 30 degrees outside, put it in your garage, covered (keep out the raccoons dontchaknow.

I like to brine for about 6 hours, so I usually do it the morning of, as we start cooking the turkey 2ish, eating 5 to 6 ish)

Cook following Alton's instructions (dont forget to rinse off before cooking).

Feel free to smoke the bird after this brine, or deepfry, or just roast.

Pork Tinga - sorta like Rick Bayless (but not)

At Casa Mexicana, Tinga is one of my favorite dishes there.

Fortunately, it is easy and cheap to make at home.  Basically think of it as a Mexican Pork Stew.  Easy to make in a crock pot or to braise on a stove top or in the oven.

Dad's Version of Tinga

I started with this recipe from Rick Bayless - but his version is considerably spicier than mine.  Good if you like spicy, not so good if you have to feed my family.  So mine is heavily spiced, but no heat.

One key item - I use adobo seasoning (from Penzey's), while Rick Bayless uses chipotles in adobo sauce.  They are NOT the same thing.  Adobo seasoning is garlic, onion, Tellicherry black pepper, Mexican oregano, cumin and cayenne red pepper.  Chipotle's in adobe sauce is
Chipotle Peppers, Tomato Puree, Vinegar, Onions, Sunflower Seed Oil, Sugar, Salt, Paprika and Garlic, and is quite hot.


Don't confuse the two.

Tinga with Home Grown (frozen) Sweet Corn

Ingredients

1 pound lean, pork shoulder, pork loin or boneless pork ribs  Trim and cut into pieces, 1- 2 inches in size.
3 medium  potatoes, pealed and quartered
1 large white onion, halved and sliced thin
1 green pepper, cut into chunks if you don't like to eat it, thin sliced if you do)
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1  28-ounce can diced tomatoes, in juice
Chicken Stock (enough to cover)
2 tbs adobo seasoning (not chipotles in adobo sauce)
Salt and Pepper

Recipe

Season the pork heavily with salt, pepper and at least 1 tbs of adobo seasoning.
Heat the some oil in a le crueset, brown pork chunks, set aside
Brown onion and green peppers
Add garlic and 1 tbs adobo seasoning, cook for 2 minutes
Add chicken stock to deglaze
Add tomatoes
Add potatoes and browned pork.
Cook on low heat for 1-2 hours, or in crock pot for 6 hours till pork is very soft.

Many options on how to serve this.  You could use it as a taco filling - shred or chuck it up a little.  Serve it over mexican rice and beans.  Serve on top of a salad with lettuce, fresh tomato, onions, some cheese and avocado (no dressing required).  Serve over brown rice.  Eat it like a soup.  Serve it with sweet corn.  Any way you serve, it will be great.

Cooking with Dad - Slow Cooker Pork bbq sandwiches

Spent the weekend with family, and a Saturday with my Dad.  For me, cooking with love started with my Parents, and likely my love for cooking because my Father loved to cook.  I still remember elaborate meals cooked over a coleman gas stove while camping.

While everyone else is over at my Sisters for a baby shower, my Dad and I got to hang out and make dinner.  Up on the list - slow cooker pork sandwiches, bbq style.

Now, no, this is not real bbq.  Is not made with smoke, it is not made with fire.  It is made in a crock pot, and tastes great.

We started with Pork Loin - not your typical bbq meat because it is so lean.  However, at about $1.89 a pound, it is a very inexpensive way of making a meal for a lot of people.

First, we cut up the pork loin and brown it in the cast iron pan.  Big chunks - heavily salted and peppered.  We did about 3 lbs, and yes, kit took several batches.  Don't crowd the pan - you want to brown the pork, not steam it.

As I brown the pork, my Dad diced the carrots and celery (aromatics).  A couple of each.

Next, cook the aromatics in the same pan.  Just to pick up some of the fond on the bottom and get them some of that pork flavor.  Then deglaze with stock.




Toss it all in the crock pot with seasonings, turn it on low, walk away.  Seasonings are some fresh thyme, 1 tsp celery seed, 2 tbs tomato paste, 1 tbs smoked paprika, 1 bay leaf, 1 large onion quartered and sliced thin.

Cook all day - serve for dinner.  We poured off the liquid, cooked it down on the stove, added some barbecue sauce (not much) and served it up.  Weck (crusty hard rolls) make a great base.

Corn Fried Rice

Got this idea from Food Network

This is their picture and recipe - it's ok, but...

Scramble 1 beaten egg in peanut oil in a skillet over high heat; remove to a plate. Heat more peanut oil in the skillet. Add 4 slicedscallions, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, and salt to taste; stir-fry 30 seconds. Add 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wineand 1 cup thawed frozen corn; stir-fry 1 minute. Add 2 cups cooked rice and cook, stirring, 3 minutes. Stir in the scrambled egg and season with salt.

I am thinking more corn and vegetables  less rice.  Even if you used brown rice that is way to many empty carbs.

My way...less carbs, more protein, more vegetables

Dad's Corn Fried Rice

Ingredients

6 eggs, beaten with a fork
1 cup leftover brown rice
2 carrots, diced fine and microwaved for 3 minutes
4 green onions, diced
12 oz frozen peas, nuked for 2 minutes
1 lb frozen sweet corn, cooked
2 tbs Braggs Aminos (or soy sauce)

Recipe

Scramble eggs, place to side
In same frying pan, add 1 tsp oil, heat to back to medium/high
Add cooked rice, carrots, peas, sweet corn.  Cook till hot
Sprinkle Braggs Aminos over rice and stir quickly. 
Add eggs and green onions, mix
Serve

Using 1 or 2 eggs and then substituting chopped raw, peeled shrimp would be great also

Black Bean and Sweet Potato and Sweet Corn Chili

When I first started cooking, more was always better.  Two spices?  No, lets add four!  Hmmm, doesn't taste right - lets make it six!  Needless to say, my cooking was not that good.

As time goes by (no, not that time going by) I leaned that sometimes, often, less is more. Fewer spices, fewer ingredients, make for a better meal.

Well, this recipe is a throwback to the bad old days - more more more!

Black Beans are one of our favorites - but as with many things, the same dish over and over is boring.  So with a limited amount of time and a dog walk to get in, I went for the old stand by - Black Bean Chili. But of course, black beans are not enough - we need more, More, MORE!

So in went the sweet potato.  Nope, not enough.  Lets add some tomato.  Not enough.  Fresh frozen sweet corn!

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG - more more more - onion powder, garlic powder, chili con carne seasoning, cumin, lime zest, vegetable stock, braggs aminos - more, More, MORE!

Tasted pretty good.  Served it over brown rice.  To be honest, I started with this recipe - but then the beserker took over.

Ingredients

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 sweet potatoes, pealed and diced 1/2 inch size
1 lb frozen sweet corn (our own)
1 can diced tomatoes, drained.  Feel free to use those mixed with green chiles if you like heat
1 tbs chile con carne seasoning (Penzey's)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 lime, zested (no juice)
1 tsp cumin
1/2 square baking chocolate or 1 tsp cocoa
1 can vegetable stock (you might need more - add enough to cover all ingredients)
1 tbs Braggs Aminos
1 chipotle in adobe sauce if you like it hot.  Dice it small.  Skip if you don't like heat (wimp)

Recipe

Toss all in pot.
Bring to low boil, reduce heat to medium
Walk dog
Cook till sweet potatoes are done (at least 30 minutes)
Serve with whatever- rice, pasta, chips, potatoes, sour cream, cheese.

That's it - dirt simple, and pretty good.  The key to remember is, chili needs time to cook for the flavors to meld.  It might me "cooked" and ready to eat in 10 minutes, but it will taste better after cooking for 30, even better after 45 minutes or an hour.  Just don't let it dry out completely.  And don't worry about the canned beans - they won't fall apart if cooked for an hour.

Cajun (or Creole) Stuffed Bread, aka Kolache, aka Calzone aka Pasty

I first had this on our trip to Lafayette Louisiana to help build a church - and had these in, as I recall, a Circle K Convenience Store.  Funny thing about the south, a lot of the gas stations also make real food.  And I don't mean subway or reheated burgers or crappy little pizzas.  I mean real food, 3 meat on a plate type of thing.

First Try - Creole Stuffed Bread

At this gas station, they make these stuffed, baked rolls.  Emeril calls them Creole stuffed bread, as does a blog called the Meat Meister.  Down in Texas they are called Kolache as they are in many other places.  Some purists, according to the almighty wiki, claim the stuffed breads are really Kolbasnek.  Whatever.  Basically it proves my theory that every culture basically cooks the same thing, just with different names and innards.  Call it a Kolache, Kolbasnek, Calzone, Pasty, Meat Bun - it's all the same.  And it's good.

What these are is spiced meat wrapped in bread dough, then baked.  In Lafayette, they were really spiced (but not hot spicy) and crazy good at 6am before starting construction.  Stuffed with beef, pork, spicy sausage, tasso and seasonings.  wow.

So I tried to make them

Of course, since we eat on a diet, mine are mo' bettah for you, if not mo' tasty.

I used Rhodes Whole Wheat frozen bread dough.  I am not a baker and I did not want to mess with the effort.   I also substituted other things in.

1 loaf frozen bread
1 lb ground chicken
1/2 onion tiny dice
1 stalk celery, same
1 tbs Penzey's Cajun Seasoning
2 Chicken Andouille Sausage, diced small
2 handfuls spinach, chopped up

Thaw bread according to instructions
Cut each loaf into three pieces

Turn oven on to 350, put in baking stone (pizza stone)

Toss all other ingredients into a frying pan, cook till done
Put in freezer for 15 minutes to cool

Using flour or cooking spray, roll out each piece of dough into an eight inch round or so
put in 1/3 mix of food
Roll into a ball (to tell you the truth, not sure the best way of doing that - I even looked on youtube and did not find good instructions...so i did the best I could - you can tell from the pictures it was somewhat variable and the bottom is far breadier than I remember at the Circle K.  Here are instructions on how to make a calzone - I think I will try a variation of this next time, but still try to make a ball.
Let rest 15 minutes

Put on baking stone, cook for about 40 minutes.

Let cool on baking rack for 10 minutes

Eat

Mmmmmmmm.  I will have to make some vegetarian ones also - Broccoli, wild rice and cheddar anyone?

Emeril's edition is here

Shrimp with Isreali Couscous

I hate couscous.  I mean hate hate hate it.  It's like grits, but not as good.  Kind of like a nice big bowl of sand.  

So, I have heard about Israeli Couscous.  I have read about it.  And this week, I found it in the store. So I said, what the heck.  Lets try it.

First, it is not couscous.  It is more like orzo - except round.  Kind of like little tapioca pearls.  Except it is pasta.  Second, you actually have to cook it, not just rehydrate it.  Originally, according to wikipedia, it was created as a rice substitute.  But it's not rice, it's pasta.

So, I made it like rice - more specifically, like a risotto. 

I started with this recipe - which in turn got it's start from Martha Stewart.

Ingredients

1 tbs olive oil
1 cup Israeli couscous
4 garlic cloves, smashed and minced
1 can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 lb raw, peeled shrimp (I used 40 count)
1 medium onion, small dice
1 can diced tomatoes, diced
1 tbs Penzey's Italian seasoning
1/2 cup dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc
2 cups vegie stock
1 bag (12-16 oz) frozen peas, thawed
1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

Recipe

1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions, cook till just about browning.  Add garlic.  Cook for 2 more minutes.  Add couscous and seasoning, cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. You are getting some color on the couscous.

2. Deglaze with the white wine.  After the wine is absorbed, add the vegie stock. Add beans.  Now if you were doing it right, the stock would be hot and you would add it 1/2 cup at a time until the pasta absorbed it, then add more.  Phooey.  To much work.  Dump it all in.  Add tomatoes.  Cover, cook on medium heat for 14 minutes..

3.  Stir in peas and shrimp, cook until shrimp turn pink (don't over cook) Serve immediately with lemon.

Fish Taco's - Why Don't You Make Them?

I mean really - how easy can you get?  You really just want to have some ground up mystery meat stuffed in a piece of bread?  No I say - especially with Tilapia available year round, and usually inexpensive.

So tonight's dinner - Tilapia Tacos with grilled onions and peppers, corn with black beans  and a salad of lettuce, tomato, sour cream and guacamole.

The other advantage is that this is about the only way I actually like fish, and everyone else in the family is usually wining at me for more fish.  So.....Fish Tacos

Served on whole grain tortilla, this is a very healthy and very delicious meal - one you don't have to feel like you deprived yourself in order to have a good meal.  No, this is not real Mexican food.  But is good.
Ingredients

Corn and Beans
1 lb frozen corn - a great use of your own corn
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup Cilantro, chopped
1/2 lime

Salad
Lettuce
Avocado or 1/2 cup Guacamole
1 tomato
1/2 cup sour cream

Fish Tacos
1 lb Tilapia fillets (cut fillets in half the long way so each filet gives you two pieces)
2 tbs Chicken Taco Seasoning from Penzeys
1/2 lime
1 Pepper - yellow, red, green or orange, sliced thin
1 Onion - sliced thin
1/4 cup Cilantro
4 large whole wheat tortillas or 8 small ones
shredded cheese if you like

Recipe

This is a three pan dance.  Start the corn and beans in first pan, then lower temp and hold.  Make and place salad on plates.  Cook Onions and Peppers in one pan, Tilapia in the other, then assemble plates and serve (see above picture)

Corn and Beans
Heat Corn and Beans
Before serving stir in juice of 1/2 lime and cilantro
Serve.  If you like more spice, 1/2 tsp of cumin would be fine.

Salad
Pile it up - lettuce, tomato, avocado, guacamole, sour cream.  Sprinkle some cheese and cilantro.  Green onions over the top would be nice

Fish Tacos
Thaw and dry Tilapia.
Rub some oil (1tbs or so) on the fish, sprinkle with taco seasoning.  Let sit for 15 minutes
Heat two frying pans to medium/medium high (this is the only tricky part
In one pan put 1 tbs oil, add onions and pepper slices.  Toss till almost cooked to the way you like it, then turn off heat and hold.
In the other pan, at the same time, put 1 tbs oil, then add the Tilapia.  Cook almost all the way through, then flip.  Turn off stove - the residual heat will cook the fish through.
Arrange Taco by placing one to two filets on warmed tortilla, add onions/peppers, squirt some lime juice on top and toss with cilantro

Grand Finale
Set out four plates.
Arrange Salad, Corns and Beans, assemble one (or two) tacos per plate

Spicy Peanut Noodles (not really plagiarized recipes)

Does anyone really buy cookbooks anymore?  Does anyone even use them?  I mean other than as eye candy for the living room table or to fill space on a bookshelf?  I certainly don't (at least very often).

Instead, it is the Internet.  Yes, thanks to Al Gore, we have the internet were all things live in a kind of matrix, waiting for us to explore.  Kind of crazy really.

Which brings us to today's recipe - Spicy Peanut Noodles.  Now the recipe below is not plagiarized  exactly.  Well sort of....borrow from one source it's plagiarism, borrow from two it is research, after all.....

Ok then.  I found this first at Pink-Parsley, via a link on Pulse and Food Republic.  Which of course gave the HT to Pinch of Yum, which collected it from FN Just Recipes, which got it off of Serious Eats  by an author who has her own blog at Once Upon a Chef, but cites no one.  Perhaps she is Al Gore...

So, this is really research, right?

Well, what it is is great.  Great made a number of ways, vegetarian or not.  It is easy to make vegetarian and them simply toss in cooked chicken or shrimp for those of us who miss it.  You can make it spicy, or not.  Also dirt simple to take to a pot luck - make it the night before in it's constituent pieces, bag them, refrigerate, then mix all together at the pot luck.  If you have different veggies  use them.  Pieces of spicy fried tofu would be a nice addition


Dressing Ingredients 
5 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs water
2 Tbs natural peanut butter (I like chunky)
2 Tbs sesame oil
1 Tbs rice wine vinegar
1 Tbs minced fresh ginger
1/2 Tbs honey
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp Siracha or Sambal - use more if you like heat, less if you don't
1 tbs Sate Seasoning from Penzey's if you do not have the ginger and garlic on hand
1/3 cup peanuts - I use unsalted dry roasted

Salad Ingredients 
1 cup julienne red and yellow pepper.  Heck, why not just one red and one yellow (or orange or green or whatever you have)
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup shredded zucchini, squeezed in a paper towel to remove excess moisture
1/2 cup chopped green onions
2 cups chopped or shredded cooked chicken breast or 1 lb cooked shrimp (cook in the same sauce above if you like)
8 oz. cooked soba noodles or linguine or rice noodles
2-3 Tbs minced fresh basil - thai basil prefered
2-3 Tbs minced fresh cilantro
crushed red pepper flakes, to taste

Recipe
For the dressing, combine all the ingredients (except peanuts) in a food processor and puree until smooth.  Add the peanuts, and pulse a few times until coarsely chopped.  Season with salt or crushed red pepper flakes to taste.  If you just want to whisk it together, that works also.  It does not bother me if the peanuts are whole

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the salad.  Pour the dressing over the top, and toss to combine.

Before serving, top with cilantro and basil, and sprinkle with additional red pepper flakes to taste.