Cod Help Us

First of all, let me say how inconvenient it is that my local fish store can't be open, so I have to resort to the fish sold at the supermarket. I realize this is a total first world problem, but what can I say? I am fortunate enough to be able to pay the price for fresh, line caught fish, or high quality farmed fish. For those of you who don't have this opportunity, I want to explain the two reasons why I, whenever possible, buy non-farmed (or at least not from certain countries' farms) fish. Both reasons actually overlap. Because many farmed fish are kept in tight quarters and are fed mostly a corn based diet, they have very little taste, and much less nutritive value (having been fed corn). For example, you could probably eat a piece of cardboard and get about the same nutrients as if you ate a piece of farmed tilapia. Uh oh, I'm digressing. Moving on now.

Anyway, there I was with my piece of shrink-wrapped, previously frozen, supermarket cod.
I had bought some tasty cherry tomatoes, and a ball of fresh mozzarella, so was planning on some sort of Caprese thing. But I had no basil. So I thought, well hell, I'll add some baby arugula (I always seem to have this in my fridge). I was planning on putting this over some black beans with pickled onions. (I'm trying to not eat too much pasta, or it would have been orzo or something like that)
But wait. I had an avocado that was going funky. Better use that, too. So in it went. Well, at this point, why not just combine the whole thing? So I did.
Well now, we have somehow gone from Italian to Southwest, so I added some cumin, sea salt, pepper, olive oil and lime juice. Looked like this:

 Ok, now I had to season the fish. I have this chili-lime stuff that I bought from Aldi. I will not start talking about the virtues of Aldi at this point, or we will never get done. What I will say, is that this stuff has no artificial ingredients.

I sprinkled a little olive oil over this, and broiled it. So many ways I could have cooked it; pan-seared, in a foil packet, roasted-but this was the easiest at the time. Did you pick up on what I just told you?
You don't have to cook it the same way as I did. How 'bout dem apples?
Here's the finished product. If I had thought ahead, I might have made a lime crema or chipotle aioli to drizzle over it. Then, BOY, would it have looked impressive!

It was yummy, even without the drizzle.
Let's review: what began as an Italian style dish, morphed into a Southwestern dish. What happened?
FOOD. FOOD HAPPENS.
Happy eating. Stay safe, y'all.

Miso Bored

You know when you stare at everything you have in the fridge, and nothing appeals to you? You know, you're hungry, but overcome with ambivalence? Yeah, that's me today. 

So I pulled out the miso paste from the back of the fridge. When everything around you is yucky, miso soup makes you feel better. I don't know why, but it does. I wanted to make it filling, so I grabbed some stuff from the pantry and the fridge. Here's what I came up with:

Dried shiitakes, broccoli slaw, scallions, a ramen pack, miso, and kombu powder. Kombu is edible kelp, used to make a broth called dashi, which adds a little extra umami flavor to things, especially miso soup. Someone once gave me this powder. You can buy sheets of kombu at the Asian market. 

Dried shiitakes are awesome. They have a nuclear shelf life, if you keep them dry. You have to soak them in hot water, so I put them in a small pot and heated water to soften. When they got soft, I removed the mushrooms and strained the liquid into another pot through cheesecloth (if you don't have cheesecloth, use a fine strainer). The water takes on a mushroomy goodness so it became the base of the soup.

You have to remove the stems from shiitakes, whether you are using fresh or dried. They're too tough to eat. Once they were off, I cut the caps into a fine julienne. 

In another pot, I boiled water to cook the ramen noodles. Before opening the package, I broke the noodles into quarters, so they wouldn't be too long once cooked. As for the flavoring packet? The only place for that is the trash can. Ever read what's in that stuff? Sodium, monosodium glutamate, and all kinds of other scary stuff. It's like 2 days worth of salt in one little package. Bleah. 

Once the noodles were about halfway cooked, i grabbed a handful of the broccoli slaw and threw it in the pot. It only took about another minute, then I poured it into a strainer. The slaw stayed a bit crunchy, but was cooked. I put that into the bottom of a deep bowl. 

In the mushroom water, I added about 2 Tbsp. of miso paste, 1 tsp. of the kombu powder, the shiitake slivers and whisked it together. You have to adjust miso to your own taste. Sometimes, you have to add more. 

When I reached the desired flavor, I poured it all over the noodle/slaw mixture and garnished with scallions. 

And here is a great place to use that chili garlic sauce I told you about!

Voila! Lunch! Not too filling, but really satisfying. See, I told you if you keep some staples in the house, you'll always be able to make something great. 

See you tomorrow. I'm off to the Nordic Track machine to continue my climb of Mt. Fuji!

Building Blocks

As promised, here we go on our culinary adventure. I am not going to rewrite the introduction to the book word for word. What I do want to start with is to give you a list of what I consider the essential ingredients to have in your house. They are the building blocks of just about anything you could think of making. In the world without Covid-19, these would all be pretty easy to find at any grocery store.
The fact that I went to the store yesterday and couldn't find any SALT is insane. I realize we are
keeping clean, but are we supposed to be KOSHERING everything in sight? Oy vey...

I'm going to break this into a few categories. Let's start with the refrigerator.

• Butter- you can keep in the freezer if you don't use often. Two kinds: unsalted (for baking) and salted. I think I've mentioned I'm a huge fan of Kerrygold Irish butter. I can eat that stuff like brie. 
• Dijon mustard
• Grainy mustard
• Hoisin sauce
• Capers
• Olives (black, green, all kinds)
• Ketchup (Heinz)
• Lemons and Limes
• Vinaigrette type dressings and Ranch dressing 
• Mayo (I've recently discovered Duke's)
• Miso paste
• Tamarind paste
• Eggs (farm eggs if possible. Or at least free range. Cage free? Nope)
• Some kind of teriyaki marinade (I have Trader Joe's)
• Salsa
• Italian tomato paste (it comes in a tube)
• Anchovy paste (adds umami to certain things, trust me)

Here's a lovely picture of the door of my fridge. You may notice other essentials like Bloody Mary Mix, white wine and Prosecco..

I Put That S#*t On Everything!

I do love me some Buffalo sauce. Back in my carnivore days, Buffalo Wings were one of my favorite football day snacks. But now, I don't eat meat. I mean, every ONCE in a blue moon I will have a bite of chicken or beef if it is locally farm raised, but I don't really crave meat at all anymore.

I do, however, still love Buffalo sauce. So, when the geniuses who decided cauliflower was a good substitute for absolutely ANYTHING came up with coating cauliflower in batter, baking it and tossing it in Buffalo sauce just like wings, I said, "Jen, you've got to try making this."
There are a bunch of recipes out there where you just bake the florets and then toss them in the sauce, but I really wanted some kind of coating, because, if you have ever roasted cauliflower, you know it doesn't get crispy, it gets mushy and falls apart. So I found a recipe and changed it a bit. Holy cow was it good!

I wish I had thought of photographing the entire process, but as we go on with the other recipes, I will. Meantime, this recipe is very easy to follow.

Grab a head of cauliflower and cut it into bite-sized, but not too small, florets. Mine were basically two-bite size. Preheat the oven to 450, and line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

In a bowl, combine the following:

1 cup unbleached white flour
1 tsp. paprika (I used sweet smoked paprika for a little smoky goodness)
1 tsp. garlic powder or granulated garlic
1 tsp. kosher salt or sea salt
a couple grinds of fresh black pepper
1 cup unflavored oatmilk (yes, you can use moo-cow milk, but I like the consistency of oatmilk. Plus, I don't drink cow juice)

Whisk well until you get a smooth consistency. 
Add the cauliflower florets to the batter, and coat well using tongs. Place on the lined sheet pan, leaving room between pieces. Bake for 10 minutes, flip with a spatula, and then bake for 10 more.
While it's cooking, wash and dry the batter bowl.

In a glass bowl or measuring cup, combine:
1/4 cup hot sauce (Frank's. It's simply the best for this.)
1-2 Tb. butter (everything's better with butter. I am obsessed with Kerrygold)
1 Tb. honey

Microwave 30-45 seconds, then whisk to combine. Put the sauce into the clean bowl.
When the cauliflower is finished, add it to the bowl and toss to evenly coat.

I don't usually buy blue cheese dressing, so I mixed Gorgonzola crumbles into ranch dressing and used that. No regrets on that choice! It was crispy, hot, and delicious!

Make it. Take a picture. Post to Food Happens. And enjoy, even though there's no sports to watch while eating.

Quarantine Cuisine

I guess it's time for me to sit back down at the keyboard and start blogging again, huh? I mean, I really have no excuse anymore, do I?

How have you all been holding up? I have officially been "furloughed" as of today, so I will be posting pretty much everything I make. I managed to load up on as much fresh ingredients that would fit in the fridge. When that runs out, I will start digging way back into the pantry to see what's been lost back there.

Before I move on to the recipes and pictures, let me pause for a moment and say that I actually wrote an entire cookbook (never published) that would be perfect for this situation. The principle behind the book (and my whole theory of creating great food whenever you want) is to have a supply of certain things in your larder and freezer that are the building blocks. In a normal world, you would buy the fresh produce and meat/fish/poultry as needed. Or have the meats stocked up in your freezer, and just pick up the veggies. Since we are in the Upside Down these days, things are considerably more difficult. But we shall overcome.

So here's the deal. I am going to post entries from the never-seen-the-light-of-day cookbook on here every day. Then, what I'd really like is for all of you to make some of the recipes, and post pictures of them on my Food Happens Facebook page. Let's make this a family thing.