Panko Fish

So apparently it has taken me awhile to recover from the carnage of the last recipe. Today I am putting up an easy, healthy, delicious recipe that I make fairly often and never disappoints!

The ingredients! I usually just make this with fish, but I had some leftover chicken and thought I'd see how it turned out with this recipe, too.

First you make dijonaise - half mustard, half mayo - it doesn't matter what kind, and you can certainly use light or fat free. It is really just there to add a little zip and to hold the panko on the fish.

Put your panko in the bowl and add some lemon zest. I am this close (picture tiny, pinchy fingers) to getting an actual zester. I love the zest. I am zesty!

Oh how I hate cleaning up. For this dish, I line the pan with tinfoil and spray it with Pam-substitute. I have not tried this on my stoneware cookie sheet because this works so well. But I will give it a shot someday. If you have tried fish on the stoneware let me know if it absorbs the smell.

Spread the spread on your fish. Then you will smush it spread side down into the panko and lemon zest.

Put it in the oven and cook it.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished project. I ate it too damn quick! But it was beautiful. Golden brown and delicious. Try it! But not the chicken. Usually I love chicken, I don't know what is going on with us... But compared to the light, sweet fish, the chicken was kind of clunky. I will love chicken again soon, I am sure. You'll be the first to know!

Panko Baked Fish

Crispy topping on fish with a bit of zest.

Ingredients

• 3 servings panko
• 6 tsps mustard
• 2 tbsps mayonnaise
• 2 tsps lemon
• 1 1/2 lbs fish

Directions

1. Rinse fish and pat dry.
2. Combine mustard and mayo, spread on a piece of fish.
3. Put the lemon zest in the panko crumbs.
4. Put fish, topping side down, into the panko mixture.
5. Spray pan with cooking spray and place fish topping side up on the pan.
6. Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes.
7. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Chili Dogs vs. Cauliflower: A Cautionary Tale

I thought it would be fun to compare what my non-nutrition--concerned husband was making for dinner with what I, the newly enlightened, was preparing. His plan was to make the most degrading of all snack-foods-trying-to-pretend-to-be-a-meal - chili dogs! I, on the other hand had devised a beautiful, healthy, gourmet menu featuring cauliflower, portobello mushrooms, onions and white meat chicken.

So here are the combatants. Which sets looks like it is going to be a fast slop fest and which looks like it will tantalize the tastebuds?

These ingredients look like old men smoking cigars outside a boxing match.

These ingredients are the culinary equivalent of Daniel Day Lewis making a movie about how much he loves me.

So first the mashed cauliflower. You cut it, steam it...

Add some stuff to it and mash it.

It comes out looking like kind of grainy mashed potatoes, but with fewer carbs and calories. And it was actually quite delicious.

These are the chicken pieces. Don't they look all innocent?

I put them on the grill. Didn't marinate them. Didn't spice them. Just sacrificed them to George Foreman without so much as a by-your-leave... Don't worry, I paid in the end.

 Meanwhile, I cooked the portobellos with a red onion. This is the starting point of the most delicious sandwich in the world. I will post THAT recipe at the end of this little story. It never disappointed me... (Ooh, is that foreshadowing?)

Something happens when they get cooked together. Until this very night, I had known nothing other than happiness when they were conjoined.

They look like they wouldn't harm anyone, don't they?

The bowl of doom! It tasted so bad! The cauliflower was actually quite delicious and I brought the rest of it in for lunch throughout the week and it was yummy with some gorgonzola. But the chicken was tough and tasted like dust. The mushrooms and onions weren't bad, but certainly not good enough to save this monstrosity.

I really wish I had gone for the chili dog.

Here is the cauliflower recipe from Group Recipes:

1 head of cauliflower
1 T. butter
1 clove garlic
1/4 c skim milk
1/4 t. red pepper
salt and pepper to taste

1. Steam the cauliflower for 10 minutes until very tender.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the butter and garlic.
3. Once the garlic becomes fragrant, add the milk, red pepper, salt, pepper, tender cauliflower and mix until combined.
4. Mash and enjoy

Here is the Portobello sandwich recipe I think it was from gourmet magazine or something I usually just eyeball it, but here it is.

Portobello and Onion Sandwiches with Basil Mayonaise

Simply the most delicious sandwich I have ever eaten in my life!

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 large slices red onion seperated into rings
• 4 large slices sourdough bread
• 2 slices provolone
• 2 tbsps chopped fresh basil
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 2 cups diced portobello mushroom caps sliced not diced
• 0.67 cup halves roasted red bell peppers

Directions

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add mushrooms and onions. Cover and cook 7 minutes or until onion is tender.
2. Combine mayo and basil (and black pepper to taste). Spread 1 T. on each bread slice. Put half of the onion/mushroom mixture on 2 of the slices with 1 slice of cheese.
3. For extra deliciousness you can make these into paninis with a Foreman grill so that the cheese melts.

Oh my gosh, it was like summertime in a bowl! I made this last week during a blizzard and it was magical. 

Here is my strange set of ingredients It really seems like one of these things doesn't belong. And it is big and juicy and rhymes with potterfelon. Kind of...

Oh look - watermelon!  So you ball the watermelon and reserve some delicious watermelon juice. Which was kind of hard because this is winter watermelon which means it was grown in a warmer climate and then shipped up here at the expense of the environment. I know it has broadened my carbon footprint to Hummer-like expanses. But I promise not to make it again until summer when I can use local watermelon.

I'm lying...

 Now you take some tomatoes and chop them up. The recipe originally called for grape or cherry tomatoes, but I cooked them up earlier and so was forced to use the regular old kind. But they were delicious. 

Next you add some gorgonzola.

And some scallions.

Then you mixed it together. 

Make the dressing, watermelon juice, and these other ingredients. If you have a hard time getting the extra juice, if you smoosh up some melon it will turn to juice. It's practically a melon made out of water.

Once you add the dressing, you also put in cilantro. If you are the kind of person for whom cilantro tastes like soap, just go back to step one and don't even make this. Because it is perfect with cilantro and I don't want to live in a world where this salad doesn't have cilantro in it. I love cilantro. Even though every time I type it I have to ask spellcheck to fix it for me...

Now the recipe said, don't chill it and serve it within 1 hour of making it. But I am pretty sure that is because it isn't good cold and because the water from which the watermelon is made will make it all soggy. Because I am creative and didn't want to bust a gut eating 4 servings at once I put a vegetable steamer in a bowl and put the salad in it so that it wouldn't stew in its own juice. Then I just put it on the counter a half hour before I was going to eat it and it was room temp and just as spectacular tasting for dinner as it was for lunch.

Here is the recipe, followed by the nutritional info. Enjoy!

Watermelon and Tomato Salad

from the Minimalist at the New York Times.

Ingredients

• 1 serving pinch of cayenne
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup crumbled finely diced or crumbled stilton, gorgonzola, roquefort or maytag blue cheese
• 1 1/2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
• 1 dash salt
• 2 tbsps cider or sherry vinegar
• 2 1/2 cups balls cups seedless watermelon, in 1-inch cubes or balls (cut over a bowl to catch the juice and reserve it)
• 1/2 cup cilantro or parsley
• 1/2 cup chopped minced scallions

Directions

1. Combine the watermelon, tomato, cheese, scallions and salt in a bowl.
2. Whisk or blend together about 2 tablespoons of the watermelon juice, oil, vinegar and cayenne. To serve, dress the salad with this mixture and garnish with cilantro. Do not refrigerate and serve within 30 minutes.

SICKSICKSICK!

I am living in a house of plague! I do have a couple of delicious things I made before I was struck down and I will post them as soon as I am back to brain capacity. I did make some Hazelnut Cookies today that were perhaps the biggest cooking mistake of my life*. But there is no photographic evidence. Too bad...

I will try to be more amusing this weekend. And now - to sleep.

*not including the "leaving the giblets in" incident of 1996 or the "Oh do you mean the spice packet made of plastic that I left on the bottom of the meat when I put it in the crock pot 8 hours ago?" corned beef fiasco of 2001.

Yesterday I went nutty with new recipes and made the scramble for breakfast and then roasted some tomatoes for lunch. I first tried these at a friend's retirement party when they were served on little toasted slices of french bread. They were amazing. So I tried to reconfigure them in a way that is more healthy and less bread-y. They are NOT as good as the little bread bites, but still pretty yummy.

Betty said that she has made them with plain old olive oil and with salad dressing so I tried both and did a head to head taste test!

Here is the ingredient centerfold:

 And they look like a friendly face, don't they?

So when I made them with dressing I used a tablespoon of Paul Newman's light balsamic. For the olive oil, I used one teaspoon. And then I jiggled the ramekins a little so that the tomatoes were all coated. Then I put them in a 350 oven not to be seen again for 35-40 minutes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I put a teaspoon of garlic in my favorite pan. I didn't add any oil and in the end I didn't really miss it. There was a little moisture from the garlic and that was enough for the zucchini strips.

I used a potato peeler to make strips of zucchini. Since I was making a double recipe I used two cups. And I mixed the yellow and green because it looked pretty! I put in a tablespoon of water to steam them up first then took the lid off and turned up the heat a little to cook them down.

Then I split them in half because it was a double recipe.

I took the tomatoes out and I have to say that the olive oil ones were significantly prettier. And apparently pretty was very important to me when I was crafting this meal.

I put the zucchini on the bottom of the bowl and dumped the tomatoes on top so that the juice could get on the zucchini, too. I topped each serving with two tablespoons of fat free ricotta. However, I would recommend not using fat free. It was grainy and gross. It is fine as in ingredient, but regular ricotta is worth the extra calories. I used regular ricotta for the nutritional information. It is still pretty low-calorie. I ended up eating all the olive oil serving and only a couple bites of the salad dressing one.  This was fine for a light lunch but I might eat a little chicken or something with it for dinner. 

Next up, a watermelon salad that made the five feet of snow in my backyard disappear and not only that, an in-ground pool formed itself from the earth as I ate the salad. The sun shone, the birds sang, lightly oiled body builders flexed in the shallow end. But then I finished the salad and the blizzard resumed. It was beautiful for awhile, though. Stay tuned!

Betty's Roasted Tomatoes

A delicious snack reworked as an entree. You can serve it on toasted french bread like my friend Betty did rather than zucchini if you aren't avoiding carbs!

Ingredients

• 15 ml water (1 tbsp)
• 14 grape or cherry tomatoes
• 1/8 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 cup chopped zucchini

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Put 14 grape tomatoes (about 3/4 of a cup) in the bottom of an oven safe bowl or ramikin. If you are making multiple servings, you can use a bigger pan. 4 servings would be perfect for an 8x8 pan.
3. Drizzle 1 tsp. olive oil over the tomatoes and put them in the oven for 35-40 minutes.
4. Using a potato peeler, slice your zucchini into strips. Brown a minced garlic clove in a medium heat pan. Add 1 TBSP water and the zucchini. Cover and steam for 5-10 minutes until desired consistency.
5. When the tomatoes are done, put them on top of the zucchini in another bowl (you could add them to the tomato bowl, but you want the tomato juices to mix with the zucchini.
6. Top the tomatoes with 1/8 cup of ricotta cheese. You can use fat free, but it has a grainy quality, the extra 30 calories are totally worth it!

When my dear long-suffering husband picked me up and brought me home, I knew I had to do something special for him. So I asked if he wanted me to make him some eggs. When he declined, I decided the next best thing to being nice to him is being nice to me, so I came up with this delightful brekkie.

First I put heated wee bit of of olive oil in my favorite pan. Then added some onion, green pepper, broccoli, asparagus and yellow zucchini and cooked them until they were somewhat tender.

Then I whisked up two eggs and poured them over my little pile of veggies. I cooked them until they were the consistency I like.

Then I sprinkled a tablespoon of Gorgonzola cheese over the top and let it set into the eggs. A little bit of it hit the pan and it smelled like my parents' old dog. I was a little nervous until I tasted it.

It tasted just as delicious as it looked! I am a huge fan of this. And also, coffee.

Here is the recipe and nutrition info:

Gorgonzola Scramble

Mostly vegetables with just enough egg and cheese to feel like a treat!

Ingredients

• 10 g gorgonzola cheese (about a tablespoon)
• 2 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups raw vegetables
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in pan.
2. Chop up your veggies - onions, peppers, zucchini, asparagus, broccoli - whatever you have in the veggie drawer and cook them in the oil until slightly tender. Put them in a pile in the middle of the pan.
3. Whisk up your two eggs and pour them over the pile of veggies.
4. Stir the eggs and veggies in the pan until the egg is cooked to your liking.
5. Re-pile everything in the middle and sprinkle the gorgonzola on the top. If any cheese hits the pan, it is going to smell like an old dog. Don't worry, it tastes delicious!
6. Once the cheese starts to stick to the veggie-eggs, put it on a plate and devour it!

Eggs and Idiots

Here's a question - how do you get a fat lady to walk a mile?

The answer is, of course, you can't. You have to wait until she does something incredibly stupid and has to do it on her own. Then you sit back and laugh at her. Ready?

If you find yourself walking to work when it is 18 degrees, you will need your goofy-looking hat, your comfiest scarf, your TRUE GRIT coat, your enormous silky long johns and some sturdy boots. Rainbow leg warmers not pictured.

This morning my older son was sick in bed, as he was yesterday. Fever, chills, muscle aches, thanks for your concern. Anyway - big storm's a comin' so I decided that the thing that this enormous 17 year old who will be sleeping all day needed more than anything else was the presence of his loving mommy.  So I took a family sick day. I have a family member, he is sick, don't make me justify this further.

Since I am a good mother and devoted employee I decided to drop off son the younger at his walking buddy's house and go in to work for an hour or so to set up for the day. Since it was 18 degrees I went out and started up the car, then came back to pack up my stuff.

Wilber (younger son's internet code name) went out to get in the car and then came back to the house to say, "Can you unlock the car please?" or maybe just grunt, "Open the car!" it is all so blurry from this point on.

Says I, "The car is open."

Says he, "Nope"

Says I, "Phrase unspeakable in a family blog!"

Sure enough I had locked the car doors rather than unlocked them when I came back in the house. The emergency key fob wouldn't unlock them. (Apparently they won't work if the car is running. Stupid Ford.) So I called Mr. Crow who had just finished his 30 mile commute to ask his advice. He resigned response, "I'll be home in an hour..."

Stupid Ford or stupid Ford driver - you be the judge.

So at this point, Wilbur walked to his pal's house and I girded my loins (and put on my long johns) for the mile long walk to work. Honest Liz (Scout Finch, if you read the comments!) saw me trudging down the road about 2 blocks from the school and picked me up. Oh how she laughed at my stupidity. But she offered the comforting thought that I did this subconsciously to keep my husband from having to drive home in the apocalyptic blizzard that will be destroying society later today. And I have decided to accept that interpretation because it makes me seem loving and not just stupid.

The upside of this folly is that I realized that it is not a big deal to walk to school at all and if the sidewalks are ever shoveled, I may make it my new habit to do so.

I'll write about the eggs later.