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By mlb, on July 29th, 2005%
A week or so ago, I made my favorite “fancy dinner” (I think it’s jwa’s too). Seared ahi tuna, shitake-miso rice and cucumber slaw (I know! I have no idea why I like cucumbers here!). And, yeah, it’s more diced than, uh, slaw-shaped, but, it’s my menu and I’m callin’ it slaw, damn it!
The planning usually starts with a trip to Wild Oats or New Season’s Market. We typically only have this dinner once a month or so because nice, sushi-grade tuna is super expensive, at anywhere from $16.99 – $18.99/lb. I get 3/4 to one full pound, because when it comes to seared tuna, we can both be gluttonous.
Tuna Marinade:
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp seasme oil
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
Juice of half a lime
6 thin slices of peeled, fresh ginger
2 cloves of garlic, diced very fine or run through a garlic press
A dash of red pepper flakes
I usually make a double recipe of the above — pour half of the concoction in a freezer bag and use that to actually marinade the tuna (2-3 hours). The other half, I store in the fridge to use as a dipping sauce.
To sear the fish, I heat up . . . → Read More: Favorite Fancy Dinner
By mlb, on July 28th, 2005%
Oh, I wanted this one to be my very favorite of them all. I pretty much (with a few exceptions) followed the recipe as written, so I will just give a link to it:
Avocado Gazpacho with Spiced Croutons
I think it had too much cucumber for me. That’s actually one of the places I deviated from the recipe — the recipe calls for 2 cucumbers, I used 1/2 of an English cucumber. Yeah, I know, I have a ways to go in my embracing of the cucumber.
In other adjusting of the recipe news, as far as the spiced croutons went, I used about a 1/4 of a loaf of bread (again, the very lovely and talented, Romano & Garlic from New Seasons) and I kind of just eyeballed the spices. I also used only about 2 tablespoons of butter. Those turned out really well.
I would make this again but with a few adjustments.
Keep the avocado (duh!), limes, chicken stock, cilantro and jalapeno (but roast and peel it first). Instead of green onions, use about a 1/4 of a sweet onion (Walla Walla or some sort), add a garlic clove and puree all of that in the . . . → Read More: Soup is Good Food: Gazpacho Challenge 2005 (Part II)
By mlb, on July 26th, 2005%
He, has proclaimed that he really dislikes the lizards and that they are impractical and unsafe, but I know that you have to suffer for art.
. . . → Read More: The Kitchen That Unemployment & Boredom Built
By mlb, on July 25th, 2005%
My mother makes the best chocolate chip cookies ever. She would use the recipe out of the red & white checked Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook — the one with the stove burner imprint on the backside of it because she accidentally placed it on a burner once. But I digress…and I only mention it because that is like something that I would completely do.
When I moved away and went to college she bought me one of those cookbooks. It was a different edition than hers, but it still had a whole cookie chapter and, of course, chocolate chip cookies. But whenever I followed the recipe to make them all these years — they were never as good.
Over the weekend I finally called her, asked her to pull down her book and compare the recipes with me, because something was definitely not the same. Sure, the cookies I anticipated as a little girl were probably going to be the best cookies ever, but still, these were not the same cookies. I couldn’t just be me remembering the flavor and consistency wrong. Even the dough tasted different. Uh, cookie dough which I tried, only for comparative, scientific reasons, of . . . → Read More: My Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
By mlb, on July 22nd, 2005%
I’m always looking for non-cooked, lighter dinners to have when it’s hot out. Gazpacho is a promising subject, but I’m usually somewhat disappointed by what I try to make at home. There’s a place in California — Gayle’s in Capitola — that we went to once and I had the gazpacho. So, so good. Why did we only go there once? Huh? Yeah, I don’t know either. Oh yeah, we are lame.
Also the gazpacho at Lauro Kitchen here in Portland is pretty good too. But it seems I can never replicate that, “wow, this is woooonderful” quality at home when it comes to gazpacho — it continues to elude me.
Oh, I will play your game, you rogue.
And…this challenge is made all the trickier by the fact that, well, I don’t really like cucumbers all that much except under certain circumstances. Exceptional gazpacho being one of those*. So, I am now on a gazpacho quest. I’ve recently come across a couple of recipes that sound interesting and I am going to try them (hopefully, to super-tasty results). The first one up is traditional in style and . . . → Read More: Soup is Good Food: Gazpacho Challenge 2005 (Part I)
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