Japaleño-Lime Tilapia with Coconut-Ginger Rice

Marinated Tilapia with Coconut-Ginger Rice

as (barely) adapted from The Wednesday Chef and Steven Raichlen
(Serves 4)
To Make the Fish:
-1/3 cup fresh lime juice (I mixed in Meyer Lemon juice, too)
-1 large jalapeno, with seeds, minced
-4 tilapia fillets (the original recipe calls for grouper or red snapper. Red snapper works well too, but tilapia can be easier to find and cheaper.)
-chopped fresh cilantro (or not. We didn’t use cilantro because I’m not such a fan and it was fine without it)

*Serve with steamed zucchini and sugar snap peas (or snow peas), extra lime juice, and chopped scallions or green onions (as pictured below in their individual containers, ready for steaming).

Make the rice first! (Recipe below)

Combine the citrus juice and jalapeño in a shallow glass dish. Add the fish and coat with the marinade. Let stand for 20 minutes, turning once.

After you’ve made the rice, preheat the broiler. Remove fish from marinade and put it on a baking sheet or broiler pan (oil this pan! Otherwise your fire alarm will go off according to the recipe). Broil until fish is just cooked through, about 6 – 8 mins total. Season with salt and pepper.

To Make the Rice:
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
4 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
1 cup rice
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 cup water

Sautee the ginger and garlic briefly in oil, just until not raw (like a minute or two. You might not even have to do this step…but the ginger and garlic might be overpowering)

Put the rice, milk, and water in to the rice cooker. Add the garlic and ginger. Turn on the rice cooker and cook it!

This might not be the most gorgeous meal I've ever made, but it's one of the most impressive for the amount of flavor it packs given how easy it is to make!

Shortcuts

Who doesn't like shortcuts? I like all kinds...shortcuts when walking, driving, cooking, etc. However, since my sense of direction is dreadful, I don't really trust myself to take them. Luckily, cooking doesn't require a sense of direction so I can use those shortcuts.


The other night I was slightly hungry and going out to meet a friend at a bar and needed to leave fairly quickly. I could have made my favorite fast snack-toast-but I'm trying to eat other things besides bread. That got me thinking about things that I always like to have on hand so I don't have an excuse to make toast. Namely: pyrex (microwave steaming), frozen rice that cooks in minutes, meal starters (like noodles+sauce that you can add veggies to), soy vay, sweet chili sauce, canned tomatoes, and canned black beans. And a sharp knife.
The Indian and Asian meal starters are handy because you don't have to have all the spices or sauces that so often are used in those cuisines and only those cuisines (fish sauce, curry powder, rice vinegar, garam masala, etc). I actually happen to have almost all those things on hand, but sometimes I'm hungry and don't want to find all the spices and sauces, or I'm just feeling lazy. Or I want to make dinner with someone else and just bring over a nice little packet rather than several bottles and baggies. I did this the other night actually. I grabbed one of the Asian ones that comes with noodles and a sauce. We added garlic, broccoli, snow peas, and zucchini and made a totally easy, yummy meal.

The glass bowl and lid (with the broccoli on it) is my favorite pyrex. It's the perfect size to microwave veggies in! I add the veggies with a few tablespoons of water and microwave in 30-second intervals until they're bright green and still a little crunchy. It really beats steaming stuff in a steamer on the stove. Plus you can even drain the water out and then eat the veggies right out of the pyrex--only one dish to wash! Which is important if you don't have a dishwasher. Someday...someday...

Trader Joe's Frozen Rice is one of the most exciting finds I've come across. I hate making rice. I don't have a rice cooker and don't want one because my kitchen isn't really big enough. I don't like washing the rice and always get it stuck to the bottom of whatever pot I cook it in. And then I have to soak it forever to get the rice out. I don't know what my issue is. However, this frozen rice (brown or jasmine, are your options I think) is awesome and cooks in about 3-4 minutes in the microwave. So easy and it never burns!

Canned tomatoes (diced or not, I really don't care much) and canned beans. I usually have black beans because they go nicely with rice and onions and garlic which we always have on hand. You can make burritos or rice bowls without much effort. Canned tomatoes are always handy. You can use them for salsa, burritos, tomato sauce for pasta, eggs in hell, etc. Nice to keep these around.

Sweet Chili Sauce. My favorite sauce. I'm addicted. I'll even eat it on crackers... You can put it on rice and veggies (or just veggies which is what I ended up having the night that all of these shortcuts came to mind), you can dip spring rolls into it, it would probably be great on crackers with cream cheese. Really, put it on everything. I bet it would be a great dipping sauce for seafood or pork too.

Soy Vay. I grew up with this stuff and thought everyone did too. Apparently this is not the case. Poor kids, they've missed out! This, like chili sauce, is awesome on rice and veggies. It's a fab marinade for any meat, and I always put it in burgers.

Sharp knives are amazing. This one, sadly for me, is my roommates. It's glorious and actually cuts things without any effort! I can't wait to cut meat with it.

March: Quinoa

My mom really likes being healthy but she doesn't love to cook the way I do. While I was home and we were discussing healthy food, she mentioned that she had quinoa but hadn't really cooked with it. I haven't cooked with it before either so she gave me some to take home to see what I could come up with.

Thanks to my favorite (and yes, only) little brother, I own Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. Naturally quinoa was in there, because everything is, so I found a recipe for quinoa with roasted corn. I added a few other things, used more chicken stock, and succeeded in general. That being said, quinoa really isn't my favorite dish--it's the texture more than anything I think. However, here's my recipe. It, like so many dishes, I've noticed, tastes lovely with cheese and a fried egg like in the picture.

Quinua with corn, kale, and caramelized onions, adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything

-1 1/2 C corn kernels (I used frozen so defrost them)
-3/4 C quinoa, rinsed and drained (I still for the life of me can't figure out how to wash and drain quinoa--it's too small for my strainers and rips the paper towels...so it probably wasn't really washed but still tasted fine)
-1-2 C chicken stock
-1 1/2 white onions, thinly sliced
-1/2 bunch kale, washed, dried, chopped
-olive oil
-salt n pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onions and a pinch of sugar if you like
2. Cook until starting to caramelize and push to the sides of the pan
3. Add quinoa and add a little of the stock once the grains start popping and toasting (a few minutes)
4. Add the kale and corn, cook until almost tender
5. Add the rest of the stock and bring to a boil, stir, cover, and reduce heat to low
6. Cook about 15 without stirring and then test for done-ness
7. Add more stock as needed if it's evaporated (you want there to be enough liquid to cover the bottom of the pan)
8. Cook until quinoa is soft but has a slight bite to it and the veggies are cooked. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Top with cheese and a fried egg if you like. Also tomatoes are a nice addition.

March: Healthy Yam/Sweet Potato Lunch

When I was home in February, my mom and I were chatting about healthy lunch options that were more interesting than just a sandwich. I love sandwiches and all, but sometimes it's nice to have other options. I've done baked potatoes before--you can microwave them and bring various toppings. It's a fabulous winter lunch.

She mentioned sweet potatoes and how she likes to steam them and eat them with yogurt for a nice, healthy, light lunch. I got some as soon as I got home and made them a little fancier with other toppings:

-1/2 1 large sweet potato or yam, peeled and chopped
-balsamic vinegar
-1/3-1/2 C low fat cottage cheese

1. Steam sweet potatoes in a microwave safe container with a little bit of water.
2. Preheat the broiler while potatoes steam
3. In an oven-proof container, add sweet potatoes, top with a drizzle of balsamic and the cottage cheese
4. Broil until cottage cheese is warm

*Optional Add-Ins:
-goat cheese crumbled along with the cottage cheese
-spoonful of brown sugar on top to caramelize a little
-omit the balsamic and add a few spoonfuls of applesauce

Blueberry Breakfast Cake

This morning I woke up and realized that I didn't have anything for breakfast. Well, I didn't have anything I wanted. I considered going to the store but then decided that I really should try to use what I have. I thought maybe I could do something like a coffee cake or muffins but I wanted to try to keep it healthy.

Anyway, I barely had any butter so it had to be something I could make without much. Not only did I not have much butter, I also didn't have any milk or yogurt. This put me in a slight predicament. I found a recipe that I'd made before and decided I'd try to twist it subbing in applesauce for the missing butter and pureed cottage cheese with a splash of water for the buttermilk. IT WORKED! It's actually really delicious and the texture is fantastic. I don't miss the butter at all!

Here goes:

Blueberry Breakfast Cake
as adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

1 c flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt (or a few twists of the salt grinder if you have one and are too lazy to measure like I was)
2 T (or a bit less) butter, softened

2 T unsweetened apple sauce

1/3 c sugar

1/4 c packed brown sugar (or a little less)

Splash of vanilla extract

1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest (I actually used the entire zest of one tiny little lemon because the ones I have are so little)

1 egg

1/2 c low-fat cottage cheese pureed until liquid-y with a splash of water

1 c frozen blueberries...or any berry, really

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Spray a 9-inch round cake pan with cooking spray (I use High Heat Canola Spray Oil that I found at Whole Foods).

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until fluffy, about two minutes, then beat apple sauce, vanilla, and zest. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the cottage cheese, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined. Scrape batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter the berries over top.

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 minutes or so. Cool in pan 10 minutes, if you can wait that long, and then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate. *I definitely ate it right out of the pan.

January Recipes: Soup

In January I was really stressed. What with insane holiday hours, barely getting to see my family at Christmas, and trying to job hunt while still working, I wasn't so happy. Then, to make things worse, I got sick and had to do inventory. Two days in a row 6 pm-2 am and 8 pm-4 am. No fun. Point here being, I was feeling gross and for some insane reason craving soup. I have never really been into chicken noodle, I still find creamy soups unpleasant sounding, and I figured I needed something a little bit heartier than miso soup.

Kind of Hot and Sour / Miso Soup

-¾ veggie broth container (1 ltr container)

-4 cups water

-1/4 onion

-3 cloves garlic, smashed

-2 smallish pieces ginger, cut in half

-bring to a boil

-1 (or almost) head of broccoli, cut into little pieces

-1 baby daikon washed and roughly chopped

-1 zucchini chopped

-add all these to the broth

-1/4-1/2 and onion, finely chopped

-3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped/minced

-1 inch piece ginger, minced

-olive oil

-heat oil in a pan, add onion, once softened add the garlic and ginger

-1/8 c rice wine vinegar

-18 c soy sauce

-pinch of sugar

-combine those three and add to onions etc

Once cooked, add everything to the big pot.

Then Add:

-1/3 pack of tofu drained and chopped

-1 tablespoon/teaspoon of miso paste

-teaspoon red chili paste

-sprinkling of red chili flakes

boil for a bit more til everything is done

A Combo of these two:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/hot-and-sour-soup-recipe/index.html

http://japanesefood.about.com/od/misosoup/r/misosouptofu.htm

Lovely Easy Fish For One Person

I really like fish, I do, but since I rarely buy meat-for various reasons ranging from price to amount of meat you have to buy at once-I don't eat it very often. I've learned that more often than not, fish doesn't need much to taste good. I had left over tilapia from our fish n chips, and found a super easy recipe for lemon-garlic tilapia so I rolled with it with added/subtracted to my personal taste.

Here is the result:
Tilapia for one:
-1 fillet of tilapia or any white fish
-Half a lemon
-Less than a tablespoon of butter (but almost one)
-Salt
-Lemon pepper (or reg. if you don't have it)
-Half a clove of garlic, smashed and finely chopped
-Dried tarragon*
-Dried thyme*
*Obviously fresh is ideal...

-Preheat the oven to 375
-Coat a baking pan with nonstick spray
-Wash and dry the fillet and put in the pan
-Season each side of fish with salt and pepper
-Sprinkle the garlic on
-Sprinkle on tarragon and thyme to taste--I did a few pinches of each
-Squeeze lemon juice on the fish/herbs
-Drizzle on the melted butter
-Cook for 20-30 min until fish is flaky and white
-Enjoy with a side salad of baby spinach and tomato with a rasp. vinaigrette

A Filling Salad

I like salad, I really do, but I always have a hard time just eating a salad for a meal. This is most likely because I'm a slightly picky eater...I don't like nuts, dried fruit, bell peppers of any color, olives, plain garbanzo beans (I do like hummus though), or raw broccoli. I know, I know, this is really bad. I've tried them all recently but for whatever reason, none of those things taste very good to me. I've had bean salads and those are ok, but they've never really been something I had to have again. The other day I was picking up a few things at Trader Joes and I was blown away by their sample that day. They had a salad made up of baby spinach, black lentils, champagne-pear vinaigrette, and I think raisins (which I avoided). It was delicious! Not only that, it was filling!

While I realize that most people make heartier salads by adding chicken, fish, or tofu, my problem there is that I really just don't eat meat/fake meat that often. I love it, don't get me wrong, but for some reason I just don't buy or prepare it much. I really should, and I'm going to start trying to do that, but it's really nice to have a non-meat/tofu hearty salad option.

Filling Salad (that can be adapted in many exciting ways):
-Baby spinach, or spinach plus one of those spring mixes, I just love spinach
-Feta
-Salt n pepper to taste
-A few spoonfuls cooked black lentils (I just got the kind at TJs that you can microwave)
-A ripe tomato, chopped (I used about half of one, or a little less)
-Chopped red onion, to taste
-Raspberry vinaigrette

-Combine everything in a bowl and enjoy

Wheat Bread

After making those awesome lemon meringue cupcakes, I had leftover egg yolks and didn't know what to do with them. For some reason, in my mind, the best idea was bread. Challah is the obvious choice, but I wanted something I could use for toast AND sandwiches so I finally found two wheat bread recipes that I was able to adapt and make work.

Makes 1 loaf
-1 c wheat flour
-2 c bread flour
-6 tbspns butter, softened
-1/2 c milk, scalded
-1 c water
-2 tsp dry active yeast
-1 1/4 tsp salt
-1 egg yolk
-3 tbspns honey or sugar (I did half and half)

-Scald the milk: In a small saucepan, bring milk nearly to a boil, (little bubbles will begin to form around the edges of pan). Remove immediately from heat and allow to sit without stirring or moving for about 20 minutes. A film will form on the surface of the milk. Skim this protein layer off carefully with an upside-down spoon, removing as much as possible.

-Meanwhile, dissolve yeast in water (in a large bowl), waiting until it gets bubbly
-Combine it with half of the flours, the butter, sugar/homey, and salt
-Add the egg
-Add more of the flours and the milk
-Keep mixing until the mixture is too difficult to stir, adding more flour as needed
-Turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead for about 8 min, adding flour as needed to make it less sticky
-Knead until it is elastic and smooth
-Let rise in a greased bowl for an hour or two until doubled in size (or so when you poke your finger into it, the indentation stays) in a warm, draft-free room
-deflate the dough and put into a greased loaf pan (9x5)
-let rise for another hour or so
-Preheat the oven to 425
-Reduce the heat to 375 and bake for half an hour or until the crust is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

*Keeps for about a week wrapped in foil on a counter top (although perhaps I should mention that our apartment is usually fairly chilly)

Healthy Breakfast Muffins

As I mentioned in before, my newest goal is to make quick, healthy breakfast things that I can grab on my way out the door. These muffins are my most successful option and I've been eating them for the last 3 days for multiple meals.

Banana-Scented Blueberry Whole Wheat Muffins:
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen here and made healthier!)

Makes maybe 18 or so?

-1 c whole wheat flour
-1 c all purpose flour
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp baking soda
-1/4 tsp salt
-1 tablespoon (or several generous shakes*) cinnamon
-generous shake powdered ginger*
-generous shake nutmeg*
-1-2 tablespoons butter
-1/4-1/3 c unsweetened applesauce
-1/4 c white sugar
-1/4 c brown sugar (loosely packed)...I think you could use less of both sugars but I added those before I thought about adding the banana
-1 egg
-1 c buttermilk
-1 (or 2 if you have them, and if you have 2, dial back the sugar even more) very ripe banana, mashed
-blueberries to taste (I used at least 1/2 a bag of frozen ones)

Preheat the oven to 450
-Mix the dry ingredients (flours, sugars, spices, baking powder, baking soda, salt) in a large bowl and set aside
-Mix the butter, applesauce, and egg in a smaller bowl until well mixed
-Add the buttermilk into the egg etc mixture and mix until just combined (don't overmix)
-Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just mixed
-Add in the mashed banana(s) and blueberries
-Fill muffin tins
-Bake for 10-15 min...looking at the recipe again, she suggests that you cook at 450 for 10 min, reduce heat to 400 and continue to cook 5-10 more min until a toothpick comes out dry. Woops! This is what happens when people come over when I'm cooking

*I'm too lazy to really measure out my spices since most are in little jars with small holes (meaning to measure I would have to take the plastic tops off or get spices all over my counter...wayyy too much effort all around) so I just shake some into the batter.

Banana-Blueberry Breakfast Bread!

Hello!

I have been slacking off like ca-raayy-zzayyy as my neighbor says and must catch up! I got a lovely loaf pan for Christmas, along with some other fabulous cooking items, and finally figured out what to make with it tonight!

Since I now have a sweet volunteer job (I help out at an awesome nonprofit called Playworks and get to do cool writing projects) that starts at a decent hour (9 or 9:30 am) and goes until lunchtime, I need something more substantial, but still easy, for breakfast. Cereal is great, don't get me wrong, but it's nice to have something more exciting to start off the day. Additionally, while I do love my fried eggs on toast, I don't always have time to do that (in other words, I like to sleep in as long as I can). I've been meaning to make some sort of healthy blueberry muffin, but I haven't gotten around to it yet, and in one of my more recent goals to eat everything I have before buying more, I investigated my fridge and freezer.

Well, more to be fair, my dad also suggested banana bread. I then realized I'd frozen really ripe bananas a few months ago (with the hopes of making banana dumplings that I haven't made yet...woops) and also found blueberries. Now combine this with my burning need to use my new presents and hello, you have banana-blueberry bread! I got the idea of adding blueberries both from the fact that I had them on hand, as well as with the idea of substituting them for chocolate chips to be more breakfast-y.

So here you have it: banana bread as adapted from the one on Smitten Kitchen:
-3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
-1/4 c-butter, melted
-3/4 c (or a little less) brown sugar
-1 egg
-1 tsp (or a little less...I eyeballed it) vanilla
-1 large tablespoon bourbon (yummm)
-1 tsp baking soda
-large pinch of salt (or since I have a salt grinder--yayyy Costco!, a few grinds of salt)
-a few grinds/large pinch of black pepper
-1 large tsp cinnamon + more for drizzling on top at the end if you feel so inclined
-1/2 tsp (or a few shakes since I was getting lazy) nutmeg
-1 pinch ground cloves
-1 c flour
-1/2 c dry/uncooked oatmeal
-maybe 1/2 c frozen blueberries-->I just shook them in at the end and put in the amount I wanted...

*PREHEAT OVEN TO 350 DEGREES*
1. Smash up bananas (or thaw frozen ones in the microwave and then smash) with the melted butter in a big bowl with a wooden spoon
2. Add the sugar, egg, vanilla, and bourbon to the above mixture and stir together
3. Add spices
4. Sprinkle salt and baking soda on top and mix (or do this all with the spices like I did...it tasted just fine)
5. Add the oatmeal and flour and mix
6. Add blueberries to taste
7 . Pour/scrape it into a buttered loaf pan (at least 4x8...mine is bigger and that's just fine)
8. Bake for about 45 min or until a tester comes out clean (also my oven runs hot)
9. Cool on a plate or a rack if you're cool enough to have one (I, alas, do not)

*I realize that this is not the healthiest thing ever considering the butter and sugar, HOWEVER, if I had not forgotten to get applesauce at the store, I would have switched out more of the butter for that and maybe more sugar...

**Also: this reheats best in the oven...if you use the microwave or if you just eat it cold, it gets soggy fairly quickly (probably due to the amount of fruit in it...)

to make my mother happy

The Joys of Lemon and Honey:

I've been sick for the past week and a half ish and it's (obviously) no fun. I'm generally pretty healthy, so when I get sick, I get really sick. Naturally I'm sick when I have a huge amount of work do and I can't really focus well on it, naturally. Instead of lying in bed and watching movies, I'm photoshopping my pictures that I stupidly took with a flash and writing about death, love, and sex, and how they're all connected. Fun fun. I've been trying to be all healthy--got a roast chicken from Safeway, been eating my veggies, drinking til I squish, etc, so I thought I would share a little something about the wonderfulness of lemon and honey. This is a very simple drink to make: squeeze at least one lemon into a mug, boil some water, pour in the water, add honey to taste. Yay! Ideally you want to use pure honey with no other stuff in it, which I have, thanks to my lovely summer job last year. You know what's cool about honey? It doesn't go bad! Ever!! AND it can help with allergies. You get some local honey and take a spoonful a day and it gets all the pollens you're allergic to into your body to immunize you. Honey is also cool because it helps heal your sore throat while coating it, it's sweet (never bad), you can put it on greek yogurt which is delicious, you can eat it plain, and you can cook with it. I'm a fan. Plus you can ferment it and make mead. So much variety! Anyway, I'm drinking that and now getting back to work (and maybe watching CSI).