Spice-Rubbed Fish with Lemony Rice

Yesterday was not my day. I woke up, got ready and came to work. Once I got there someone (clearly a male, since no woman would say this) said to me "rough night?". No, it was not a rough night. I slept well, and for a decent amount of time. So clearly, it was just my appearance that was rough.
I work in a field that is pretty well dominated by men. They have this ability to say or do the dumbest things. One of my favorites is "did you get your haircut?" and then when I say yes, their reaction is a nod or grimace. A woman would know that even if you hate the haircut, if you brought it up you still say it looks great.
So that was the start of my morning, and the "badness" ended up snowballing until the end of the day when I was making supper at 9 pm. And then things got better, because I made a one pot meal, that took 35 minutes from start to finish, and it was only 348 calories per delicious serving!

Salmon Burgers With Yogurt Dill Sauce

I was flipping through some of my older issues of Everyday Food when I found this recipe for salmon burgers. I know that there are some great benefits (omega 3 fatty acids, for instance) to eating salmon, and I generally like it, but I don't eat it very often. I tend to overlook salmon as a protein that I could be eating for dinner. This recipe caught my eye though, and I made it that night.
The salmon is mixed with horseradish which gives the patty a considerable bite of flavor, but doesn't completely cover up the taste of the salmon. The yogurt dill sauce is a fantastic condiment, and the whole burger comes in at roughly 330 calories. What's not to like about a healthy, filling and delicious meal?
(click "read more" for the recipes for the sides I served with the burgers, and a demonstration of my awesome Paint skills)

Magical Steak

I had C over for dinner the other night. Back when we made our seafood feast, we had intended to make crab won tons, but we ran out of time and stomach space. We nixed the crab won tons, and put the crab meat in the freezer to use another day. So the other night I decided to make them to go along with an Asian flavoured steak.

I made the filling, which was a simple mix of green onion, cream cheese, ginger and crab meat. I had taken the won ton wrappers out of the freezer the night before and placed them in my fridge. I set up my won ton building station and went to pull off the first won ton sheet from the pile. It didn't budge. I picked up the pile and tried to separate any of the wrappers. They wouldn't come apart. I'm getting frustrated with these, and finally C says "that looks like puff pastry". Then it hit me, the last time I used puff pastry, I only needed half the pack and I had frozen the rest in a freezer bag. Sure enough, I was trying to tear apart puff pastry. (In my defense they look similar in their frozen state)

We quickly ran out to the store to pick up won ton wrappers. Luckily, T&T Supermarket stocks refrigerated ones that wouldn't need to thaw overnight.

Once the won tons were assembled, they are fried for a small amount of time (I used canola oil) until golden brown and crisp. I served them alongside VH Thai Market Sweet Thai Chili Sauce. The recipe for the won tons can be found here.



I really liked these. The filling was super quick and easy to make. The sauce was perfect with them. And if you make more than what you plan to eat that night, place them (raw, not fried!) on a baking sheet in the freezer, until frozen and then place them in a freezer bag until you want to cook them. I know this isn't a healthy dish, but everything in moderation right?

The steak is one of my all time favorite steak recipes. C's mom served this once, and I could have eat about 10 lbs worth of it. It's an Asian style marinade, and I placed the steak in the marinade overnight in my fridge. This will turn the steak from bright red, to an unappealing grayish brown color, but it is so so so worth it.

When C's mom made this, the steak was magical. I am not exaggerating. I don't have a BBQ, so I cooked it on my stove top grill pan. The end result wasn't as good as the one I first had, and I think it was because it wasn't done on a BBQ. However, it was still pretty good. Not too mention flank steak is a pretty cheap cut of meat, that tastes best if it has been marinating in something overnight.

The steak is topped with gomashio (according to the recipe title) or gomasio (how it is spelled according to Google). Which is a mix of toasted sesame seeds and sea salt that have been partially ground in a mortar and pestle.

The recipe can be found here. I changed a couple things, like marinating it overnight instead of 3 or 4 hours, and instead of sambal oelek, I used Sriracha sauce. I didn't make the asparagus in the recipe either.

To round off the meal I served it with a Dole Salad Kit. Specifically, the Asian Island Crunch one. Usually I will make my own salad and dressing, but I was feeling lazy and overall I have enjoyed the salad kits that Dole makes. The dressings are tasty, and they include great toppings for the salad, like the Asian one comes with dried pineapple chunks.

Tasty!

Shellfish Shellfish Shellfish

As previously mentioned, I am on holidays. I felt it was time to take a break from work, even if it meant having a "staycation" as opposed to going somewhere hot and tropical. For the first day of my holidays, I roped C into coming over and helping me make something with seafood.

She brought over some cookbooks, and we went through those and my cookbooks and planned a menu for eight. Even though there was only two of us eating. Never meal plan whilst hungry.

Rather than making a dish like paella or cioppino, which includes several types of fish and/or shellfish, we decided to make four appetizers and a soup. Each featuring a different shellfish. We are ambitious.

We went to a seafood store and picked up clams, mussels, crab, and lobster. Then we went to this magical place. The Sobey's Urban Fresh on Jasper Ave. I want to move in there. I don't mean nearby, I mean I want to move into the Sobeys. The produce was in way better condition than the produce at my normal Sobeys, and I even found smoked paprika, which is something I have heard of, but thought it was similar to the unicorn.

Not everyone may understand my newest obsession, but I love the grocery store, and I found one that is on a whole new level of awesome. I compare it to using Covergirl makeup, and then one day purchasing M.A.C. I have been going to just a run of the mill Sobeys this whole time, when in my city there existed a beautiful Sobeys.

The first dish on our list was Clams Oreganata. The recipe came from the Williams Sonoma Seafood book. I will include the recipe at the bottom of this post. Both C and I really loved these. The red wine vinegar in the recipe really gave them a needed freshness, as the bread and herbs and garlic could have been really heavy. They were easy to put together and only took a moment in the oven. The recipe recommended eating these with a slice of bread to soak up the oil, and I would say it was a fabulous idea.

Our next dish on the menu was Sauteed Scallops with Lemon Beurre Blanc. So easy to make, with a really delicious result. We didn't read the instructions properly and skipped a step in the beurre blanc, so our sauce looks a lot different from the picture in the link. However, these tasted amazing. In fact, as I write this I wish I had some scallops in the freezer so I could make them right now. If you want to make something really impressive, with a small amount of effort, make these. They were so delicious.

Next up, Moules a la Mariniere. Or mussels steamed in white wine. The recipe can be found here. I have made this before, and every time I am so impressed with this recipe.

Unfortunately, at this point we were stuffed to the gills. We had long given up on making the crab won tons that were on our menu. (They will be made at a later date) Usually the two of us can put away a half loaf (or so) of bread with these mussels, but we were having difficulty with just a couple slices.

This also meant that the lobster stew that we had been cooking away was not going to be enjoyed. We were using a Julia Child recipe, and Julia recommended letting the stew sit for a day or two before serving it, so it wasn't a total waste. The basic ingredients were lobster meat, butter and cream. I left the stew until the next day, and I had the genius idea to use it as a pasta sauce. I was disappointed. C commented while making the stew that it seems pointless to use cooked lobster meat, as you run the risk of overcooking it during the preparation of the stew. Guess what? C made a great point. The lobster was completely overcooked. And I didn't heat it for very long. If I was to make this again I would use raw lobster meat. The stew involved sauteing the lobster meat in butter, adding some wine, and then adding some cream. I tossed this over pasta and topped with some black pepper and cheese.

The taste was good, although very fishy. And the lobster meat was tough. So very disappointing. Next time we go out and buy lobsters we are cooking them and serving them whole with melted butter. You can't go wrong with that. (Also, sorry the picture is kind of fuzzy)

Recipe for Clams Oreganata

Ingredients:

1 slice country-style bread

24 littleneck or Manila clams (rinsed, shucked, juices and 24 deep half shells reserved)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 clove garlic, minced

pinch of red pepper flakes

1 tbsp minced fresh oregano

1 tbsp minced fresh majoram, or flat leaf parsley

1) To make dried bread crumbs, put the bread in a low (200 F) oven for 1 hour to dry out without browning. (Or as we did, you can put it in a toaster until it has toasted) When the bread is dried, break it into chunks and process in a food processor or blender into fine crumbs. Measure out 1/4 cup crumbs.

2) Preheat broiler. Strain clam juices through a double thickness of dampened cheesecloth. (Or like we did, skip the straining since all the clam juice went into the towel we were shucking over)

3) In 4 shallow, flameproof, individual baking dishes place 6 of the reserved half shells and put a clam in each one. In a small bowl combine the strained clam juices, olive oil, vinegar, garlic and red pepper flakes. Whisk to blend. Spoon an equal amount, about 3 tablespoons, of the mixture over the clams in each dish. (Or, you could line a pan with some foil and place the clam shells on that, leaving some of the drizzle aside)

4) In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs, oregano, and majoram and stir to blend. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and stir again to coat the crumbs. Sprinkle each clam with a large pinch of the bread crumb mixture. Place the dishes under the broiler about 3 inches from the heat source and broil until the crumbs are toasted and the clams are opaque, about 1-2 min. Serve at once. (If you used the pan idea, once the clams are out of the oven, place them on the serving dish and drizzle the plate with the leftover vinegar mixture)

Serving tip: Serve with thick slices of coarse country bread for dipping into the flavored oil.

Burnt Salmon

On Sunday I was flipping through channels and I ended up watching Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag. The premise of the show is Anna and Kristina pick a cookbook, make four or five recipes from it, and then a guest chef comes and tries the recipes. They do this as a sort of review of the book. The cookbook they were using for the episode I watched was Nigella Express.

I thought for sure Nigella was going to receive a rave review. After all, I have this book and I love it. And I love Nigella. However Anna & Kristina actually said they were "disappointed with Nigella". I am so angry. These two hacks, who have a TV show on the W network of all places, think that they are good enough to be "disappointed" in Nigella? As in Domestic Goddess Nigella? And I don't know who their guest judge was, but he kept saying Nigella's name with disdain, instead of the intense admiration she deserves. I had never even heard of this guy, and how many people could tell you who Nigella is?

So I am going to do a re-test. And this week I will be featuring recipes from Nigella Express, and I will be reviewing it myself, since Anna and Kristina have no idea what they are talking about.

Last night I made Mirin Glazed Salmon. Mirin is a sweetened Japanese rice wine, I picked up a bottle of it at the supermarket, not the liquor store (even though it has alcohol in it). Nigella uses skinless salmon, but next time I would make mine with the skin, as it fell apart really easily. She also didn't specify what temperature to heat the pan on. I knew I shouldn't have set it as high as I did, because there is brown sugar in the marinade and sugar burns, but I didn't listen to my intuition. So the first two fillets that I cooked, burned. Not a lot though since I planned to undercook them a bit because I would be heating them up for lunch, and I didn't want to overcook them during the reheat. The next two fillets I cooked on a lower temperature, and also included the step with the marinade.

I served it with jasmine rice, and topped the whole thing with green onions. I also served it alongside a salad that I made by tossing some broccoli slaw with chopped green onions, Renee's Asian Sesame Vinaigrette, and top that with crushed ramen noodles.

The salad (which is not a Nigella recipe):

I hate broccoli, but I do enjoy broccoli slaw which is made from the stems.

The salmon & rice (Nigella's recipe for the salmon):

I didn't show a whole shot of the salmon, because they fell apart really easily, and it looked messy. Overall the taste was really really great, and it was so simple to make. The hardest part was chopping the green onions. I would recommend heating the pan over medium, and using salmon with the skin on.

Surf n Turf

When I first moved to Edmonton I was living in a townhouse that had ample storage place. The kitchen had enough cupboards that I could place all my kitchen stuff in them, and I still had empty cabinets to spare. I had a huge pantry with lots of shelving as well. After a couple years in that condo, I made the move into an apartment. While there is so much about my apartment that I like better than my condo, I really lost out on a lot of storage areas.

This has made things trying at times, but in the most recent weeks I was so frustrated with this that I felt like throwing out all of my belongings. Instead of throwing everything out, I got rid of a lot of things that I had been holding onto for no reason. I knew that to create more storage space I needed to buy a couple bookcases, so on Saturday I went to IKEA.

I invited C to tag along. One, because she loves IKEA, two, because she has an SUV, and three, because I just plain love her company! Since C was so generous with helping me transport my purchases, and helping me carry them into my apartment, as well as helping me put them together, I made her dinner.

A while ago my doctor told me that I have high cholesterol, and I needed to change my diet. He told me to eat lots of almonds, fish, fruit and vegetables. He warned me against red meat and butter. The meal I made for C would make my doctor cry. I almost cried too, it was so good. I will warn you, this meal is not for anyone who is watching their waistline, or is concerned about their arteries.

I'll start with my least favorite from the menu. The roasted cauliflower. I have had no previous experience with roasting cauliflower. To be honest, I wanted to boil it but the rest of the dishes were using up my burners. I poured some oil on the cauliflower and season it with salt and pepper. I placed it in the oven at 350 F. About 15 minutes into it I noticed that the cauliflower was still raw hard. So I poured some water into the dish so it would steam at the same time. This didn't work. So we had cauliflower that was still sort of hard, and not at all fork tender. Though really, once you see the rest of the meal you will see why we didn't care too much about the cauliflower.

I still think it looked pretty. I will get to the sauce on top of the cauliflower momentarily. Right now, I want to talk about the potatoes. I made the potatoes using a recipe from Nigella Lawson's How To Eat. You boil new potatoes until they are fork tender. (I used red potatoes for color, and to make them pretty I peeled a strip off the potato around the middle). Once tender, you drain the potatoes and toss with a bit of butter until the potatoes are glossy. Then you pour a bit of truffle oil on the potatoes, being careful not to use too much or your potatoes will smell like a barnyard. Nigella's words, not mine.

Truffles are an extremely decadent and expensive ingredient. I know I couldn't afford to every use them, and a lot of recipes use truffle oil to bring a bit of the decadence to the dish without having to actually use the truffles. When my friend D came to visit me she brought me a present, and when I opened it to find truffle oil I was ecstatic.

I loved the bottle so much I have to show a picture of it, as well as a picture of the potatoes.

The truffle oil adds a certain taste that I can't identify. It's very earthy, but something about it reminds me of something I had once. A very nostalgic and comforting ingredient.

The sauce on top of the cauliflower is a Bearnaise sauce. It also came from Nigella's How to Eat. You can find the recipe here. This links to a recipe for steak with the Bearnaise sauce, but we only used the recipe for the sauce.

The Bearnaise sauce's main ingredient is butter. And it is delicious on steak. To make my steaks I took two new york strips, rubbed them with oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and placed on my hot grill pan for about five minutes on each side. I was careful not to move them once placed in the pan, and I let them rest under foil for five minutes after they came off the pan.

Since this meal wasn't already completely indulgent, I made scallops as well. To make the scallops I heated a bit of oil and butter in a pan, and when it was hot I placed the scallops in to sear. To sear the scallops the oil and butter must be hot, and once placed in the pan they cannot be moved. When meat of any kind (including shellfish) is placed in a hot pan the meat sticks to the pan. If it's moved right away it will tear. You have to wait until the meat naturally lets go of the pan so it can be moved. The scallops take roughly one minute on each side to cook. They are finished when both sides are brown and the middle is opaque. DO NOT OVERCOOK THE SCALLOPS.

To serve, I place the steaks on a plate, poured the Bearnaise on top, and then placed the scallops on top of the saucy steak. Then I took the pictures, and drowned the scallops in more sauce after that.

I was eating the steak and scallops separately until C told me if you take a bit of steak with a bite of the scallop it tastes really really good. So I took her advice, and she wasn't lying. When the two are put together something very magical happens. I'm not joking. Please try it.

Two Pina Coladas

I absolutely love the smell of coconut. I remember a friend of mine had the best smelling body spray. She bought it for a couple bucks at the drug store, but since she bought that one we have never been able to find it again. There is nothing that tops the smell of a really good pina colada, except the taste of a really good pina colada.

Bacardi sells these delicious blended drink mixes in the grocery store freezers. I remember loving them so much when my dad would make them for us kids. (Without the rum). When I was rooming with my second roommate, we would makes these (with rum) only our blender was so awful it had to be "drank" with a spoon because the ice chunks wouldn't make it through the straw. When this roommate of mine was visiting me recently we had a supper of pina coladas, lobster tails, risotto and roasted pineapple.

Rebekah's Baked Lobster Tails

1) if you bought frozen lobster tails, thaw them out by placing them in a sink filled with cold water. This will take some time.

2) once the tails are thawed cut the tails in half lengthwise

3) take a piece of foil and fold up all four sides so it's like a square bowl. Place the tail inside with the exposed meat facing up.

4) place tabs of butter on top of the meat and sprinkle some lemon pepper seasoning on top

5) close up the tin foil so it's a pouch and no lobster is exposed

6) place in an oven @ 350 F until the lobster meat is opaque, about 7-10 minutes


The lobster has been placed on a bed of risotto. Risotto is one of my favorite things. (I have a lot of favorite things). The problem with risotto is it can be so time consuming. And it's not like you can start making it and then go off and do something else, you have to be attentive. Risotto is high maintenance.

Microwave risotto is not high maintenance, and yet it yields great results.

Tante's Microwave Risotto:

Ingredients: 1 cup arborio rice

3 cups BOILING chicken stock

1/2 or 1/3 cup chopped white onion

2 tbs butter

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil

grated Parmesan cheese

(this will serve four small portions, so you can up the amount however you like the basic rule of thumb is 3 parts stock to 1 part rice)

1) in a large microwavable dish heat the butter and oil for 1 minute

2) stir in the onion and heat for another minute

3) stir in the rice and heat for a minute (keep the onion and rice glossy with the oil and butter, dry rice might burn, if you need to add more oil so all the grains are shiny)

4) add the boiling stock. If you do not heat up the stock first, it will not be absorbed. heat for 8 minutes

5) stir, and heat for another 8 minutes

6) add some grated Parmesan. 1/2 cup should work, but feel free to add more. Stir. Crack black pepper over it.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When I say add pepper to any recipe, I always mean fresh ground pepper. I NEVER mean "restaurant pepper".

This is so delicious. I could eat the whole thing for dinner. The risotto is creamy, and rich and so simple.

Roasted Pineapple

I took the whole pineapple and sliced of the top. Then I sliced the peel off in strips, using my knife. I cut the pineapple into slices and cut out the harder core in the center.

I topped it with some brown sugar and butter. I had some butter sitting on the cutting board from when I was making the lobster, and I couldn't let it go to waste.

Place the rings on a baking sheet and heat at 400 F to 425 F for 15 minutes or so. The pineapple should be soft, and the butter and sugar should be melted.

The pina coladas were easy. Take a can of Bacardi's frozen Pina Colada Mix and squeeze it into the blender. Add 2 cans of ice, and a half can of rum (if using, the drink is still very very good without any alcohol). Blend. Pour into a glass. Add a straw and some leftover sliced pineapple.

The Bacardi frozen mixers taste way better than the syrup that is sold in the grocery stores. It is worth the extra money. They also sell lime mix and strawberry mix for daiquiris and margaritas.

Walking on Sunshine

I had a friend come to town to visit me for the weekend. She was supposed to leave on Sunday, but her car wouldn't start. We had to get it towed to a shop, which left her stranded in Edmonton until it was fixed. I was thrilled, to be honest, I hardly ever get to see her, so to have her here for a whole week was really awesome.

At some point this past week, I had one of my sisters, her friend, and my friend over for dinner. This was crazy for me. I am used to cooking for one, not cooking for four! This particular sister of mine loves a chicken dish that I got from Everyday Food.

Indian Spiced Braised Chicken

1 1/2 pounds chicken thighs, boneless and skinless

1 medium onion,thinly sliced

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes drained

2 Tbsp. tomato paste

1 Tbsp. ginger, grated from 1″ piece

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper

1/2 cup yogurt, plain

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1/2 teaspoons garam masala, optional

Cooked white rice, for serving

In a 5 or 6 quart slow cooker, stir together chicken, onion, tomatoes, tomato paste, ginger, garlic, coriander, and cayenne; season with salt and pepper. Cook on high for 4 hours (or 8 hours on low) until fork tender. Stir in yogurt, cilantro and, if using, garam masala. Serve with rice.
Generally I make this in the oven. I start by browning the chicken in oil, then I remove the chicken from the Dutch oven. Then I saute the onion for a minute or two, add the garlic, ginger and spices, and saute it for a minute longer. Then I add the tomato paste and melt it in, then I add the canned tomatoes, and the chicken. Also add 2 cups of water or chicken stock. Bake @ 350 F for 2 hours. Remove from the oven, stir in the yogurt and garam masala. I omit cilantro because I am not a fan of it.

Note, I have made this in the slow cooker and I do brown the chicken, and saute the onions, garlic, ginger and spices.

I also serve this with na'an bread or pitas.

My stranded friend and I also went for dinner last night. We were trying to pick somewhere in West Edmonton Mall to eat at and we settled on The Cactus Club Cafe. Both of us ordered the Butternut Squash Ravioli. The ravioli filled with a puree of butternut squash, and it's served with seared scallops, crispy sage and pine nuts. The sauce is a truffle beurre blanc.

This was soooo good. We stared at it for five minutes before eating it because it was so beautiful. (Actually it was because they had taken our forks away when clearing the calamari).

Seriously though, who wouldn't want to eat this??

She's Not Pretty, She Just Looks That Way

Mussels are incredibly tasty. They also look a little unappetizing. I made this dish for my mom the other night, and she couldn't get over how they looked. Or apparently the texture. So I ate them all. Here's a classic recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Moules à la Marinière or Fresh Mussels Steamed open in Wine and Flavorings

Ingredients:

2 cups light, dry white wine or 1 cup dry white vermouth

An 8- to 10-quart enameled kettle with cover (I used a Dutch oven)

1/2 cup minced shallots, or green onions, or very finely minced onion

8 parsley sprigs

1/2 bay leaf

1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/8 teaspoon pepper

6 tablespoons butter

6 quarts scrubbed, soaked mussels

1/2 cup roughly chopped parsley

How to make it in my own words:

1) Scrub the mussels. Throw out any that didn't close, they are dead and will make you sick if you eat them. The closing mussels are pretty weird, you don't expect them to be living so when they close on their own it's kind of freaky. Remove the beards (or the hairy string thing that hangs out of the shell) with a paring knife. Soak them in water for 1-2 hours so they expel any sand they might have in them. (I soak them in water with a bit of flour in it since Julia said this might make them more succulent)

2) In the Dutch oven add everything but the mussels and chopped parsley. I used white wine for the base. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid for about a minute or two. Also, I used shallots, and I would recommend them over the onion or green onion.

3) Add the mussels into the boiling liquid. Cover the pot. Put on oven mitts, and grasp the handles at the same time as holding the lid closed using your thumbs. Shake the pan in a back and forth manner so the mussels are being redistributed in the pot.

4) The mussels are finished when they are open. This will take maybe a minute or two.

5) Throw out any that didn't open. They are dead and unfit for consumption.

6) Using a slotted spoon, scoop mussels out and put them into bowls. The parsley sprigs will now look like rotting seaweed so throw those out, and the bay leaf.

7) Let the liquid rest for a minute so any other sand will sink to the bottom. Ladle the broth into the bowls with the mussels. Top with the chopped parsley.

Serve with sliced bread to dip into the broth, and a lemon wedge.

Sick

In order to be at work on time, I have to leave my apartment at 6:45 am. I have to be out of bed at 6:00 am. Every night I set my alarm for 5:00 am, so I can hit snooze for an hour. That is how long it takes me to gain the will to live in the morning. However, I don't actually drag myself out of bed until about 6:10-6:20 which causes me to be about 15 minutes late for work everyday.

This morning when my alarm first went off at 5:00, I had a sore throat and a stuffy nose. By 6:00, the conditions hadn't improved. I am sick. My nose is stuffy, my ears hurt, and my throat hurts. My body jumps back and forth from being chilled, to hot flashes rivalling those of menopausal women.

I also have no appetite. Which is ok, because my lunch is yesterday's leftovers and I wasn't too crazy about supper last night.

I made crab cakes. I pulled the recipe off the Internet, but I'm not going to share it because I wasn't crazy about them. I used canned crab, and possibly the problem I had with my crab cakes was my aversion to canned seafood. Overall, I think I wasn't crazy about the taste. They were very mayo-y.

I also dipped them into cheater aioli. Aioli is a dip of homemade mayo with garlic and lemon (at least the basic one is). Cheater aioli, is using actual mayo instead of making it with eggs and olive oil.

Cheater aioli is gross. Although I am usually a fan of a certain "miraculous" mayo-type spread which I find a bit tastier than regular mayo, and I was using regular mayo so maybe that was the problem.

I plan on tinkering with the recipe a bit and see if I can improve upon the crab cakes.

The other night I made Julia Child's Potage Parmentier. Which is potato and leek soup. The ingredients are:

8 cups of water (I really can't get over the use of water as a soup base, most everyone uses a stock of sorts, and when I first saw this recipe I was so skeptical of how good it would taste)

4 cups of peeled and diced potatoes

4 cups of thinly sliced and cleaned leeks

1 tbsp salt

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, partially cover, and simmer for 40-50 minutes. I kid you not, this is it. When it's done simmering you are supposed to run it through a food mill. I do not own one, so I used a hand immersion blender the first time. Which I wasn't too keen on since there was no food bits left. I used a potato masher last time, and the texture was way better. (In Julie & Julia, the book by Julie Powell, she uses a potato ricer).

To finish off you stir in 2-3 tbsp of softened butter, or cream. And you can top it with chopped chives or parsley.

This soup is so tasty, and it's so simple. I still can't believe the flavor that comes from so few ingredients.

Rock Lobster

Well tonight I had dinner at my sister’s place. So instead of showing something I made tonight… I’ll go back to the weekend. My friend and I had been talking for a while about getting together to cook some shellfish. Shellfish cooking intimidates me, so I had figured that having my friend help might ease the intimidation.

Since I have just recently purchased Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I was really inspired to make many a dish from the book in the last week or so. We picked lobster thermidor.

We started out by going to a seafood store. We picked the lobsters that were fighting the most to stay alive. This is morbid, since the reason we were buying lobsters was to kill them.
Then we got lost while trying to find our way back. This kind of stuff happens to me all the time.

We began the lobster massacre when we finally arrived back at my place. We filled a large pot with wine, onions, and herbs. We each grabbed a lobster. I admit I hesitated before setting mine in the pot. He was flailing around like crazy. I imagined placing him in the pot, and then he would freak out and try and claw his way back out. He didn’t. He just sat in the vat of boiling wine. The other lobster went in quickly after him and they boiled to their delicious death.

Making the sauce for the lobster thermidor had many steps. Which I will not bore you with. It was very time consuming, but every single second was worth it. If you are wanting to make this wonderful dish you can view the recipe here:

http://www.recipezaar.com/Lobster-Thermidor-a-la-Julia-Child-57196

But I suggest that you buy Mastering the Art of French Cooking. (Really really suggest it!)

In the end the lobster meat is stirred into the sauce and topped with cheese and then baked off in the oven. The final product looked like: