Yummy Dinner:
Lightly breaded and pan seared salmon with roasted garlic and lemon butter sauce
Butternut squash raviolli with vodka sauce
Garlicky asparagus with lemon and freshly grated parmesan. (which I learned here!)




( lunch...breakfast...here )
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In memory of our last BBQ. Lol.



( more kabob creations and pairings here )

Saturday's dinner was French: Herb crepes filled with rotisserie chicken, ham & asparagus and Cajun cottage potatoes.



( Recipes here. )

This is a recent obsession of mine. Ever since I found it in individually vacuum sealed frozen portions by the bag, I've been hooked. One of my biggest issues in the last year has been trying to cook for one. I have roommates, and I don't mind cooking for them, but we're rarely on the same schedule, and when I do cook a large amount I tend to end up eating it myself everyday for week. So this way I can thaw one piece of salmon, and steam one serving of asparagus, and eat it all by my lonesome...until Frog (my cat) shows up for her requisite nibble.

The reason I first bought salmon was because I wanted to use hollandaise sauce with something, and salmon popped up in the google search of recipes. I did it broiled that time around, with just garlic butter, and served it with asparagus and the hollandaise. It was fabulous. But hollandaise doesn't keep so I wasn't going to go to the trouble to make it just for me, just for one meal. So I started hunting for other salmon recipes, which apparently are all really simple. What really worked out was that I found recipes using basil pesto, and I had this jar of basil pesto (bought to make calzones) and was convinced I wouldn't find enough things to use it for. But it makes an excellent "crust" to salmon. I still put some garlic butter first, then spread the basil pesto, then sprinkled some parmesan. 15-17 minutes at 400degrees (til it "flakes") and PRESTO PESTO you have one fabulous meal coming your way. I think it's also supposed to be good because of the Omega 3s.

( fish porn )

Asparagus Filo Roll-Ups!!!


My dinner plate:


I folded sheets of filo in an asymmetrical way and brushed them with butter.  I put four or five asparagus stalks on them and rolled them up.  I baked them at 400 until they were golden brown.

I put a little garlic into some white wine and I reduced it in a small saucepan.  I added some melted butter and heated it, stirring, until it was glossy and yummy looking.  I added a handful of minced parsley.

I added half of this sauce to some fresh sliced mushrooms and heated them at a rather high heat in a non-stick pan until they were all brown and scrummy looking.

I chopped homegrown grape tomatoes, parsley and English cucumbers.

I put it all on plates for each of us.  Salt and lots of freshly ground pepper was sprinkled everywhere.  We ate all of this while arguing with the pets to get off the table.  They didn't seem to understand that no meat was involved.

grilled extra-firm tofu in bbq sauce with steamed asparagus for dinner



roswell and i grilled some fine cuts of tofu and listened to Selected Shorts on NPR.

full rez and pix of roswell ( behind this cut )

Here in Ottawa, it's very difficult to find fresh fish in the supermarkets. And I'm too lazy to stop at the fish market downtown on my way home from work and too considerate to bring a dead fish on a sweltering, packed bus at rush hour. So, while doing my grocery shopping this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to find some rainbow trout that looked like it might not actually be lethal. I can't wait until later this summer, when I'll be heading home to the East Coast for a vacation. Fresh seafood, here I come!

Thanks for everyone's suggestions I needed in this entry.

theoriginaldawn gave me a GREAT idea and now I present to you, my Dinner For One (with pics!):

(EDIT: I FAIL AT LJ CUTS. SORRY FOR RAPING YOUR FRIENDS PAGE ;_;)
( Read more... )I pretty much just eyeball and use taste for measurements. If you really want an idea of what amts I used, let me know!

Yesterday for dinner, we had grilled shrimp, scallops, zucchini and asparagus.  There were leftover grilled zucchini and shrimp.  Today, for lunch, I made some low-carb (Dreamfields) rotini pasta.  I added the shrimp and the zucchini, which I diced, then I added some butter, salt and pepper and OMG, IT WAS SO GOOD.

I don't have any photos, but I just wanted to share... just in case you're in a shrimpy or pasta-y mood.  :)

Help Pornistas! I'm taking a dish to tonight's potluck, and I have a start, but nothing else.

We had some asparagus that was nearing its end, so I roasted that up in a garlicky Italian dressing. But it's not quite enough for that to be all I take. I have a couple of choices here - take 2 dishes, one the (now chilling) asparagus by itself, and a dish of cherries from our trees - OR - mix stuff in with the asparagus to make it more of a salad.

Constraints: I can't get to the store before the potluck (it, and the store, are 25 miles away and I am vehicle-less aside from my ride into town), so it will have to be stuff I have in the house.

Available: garbanzo beans, canned green beans, corn, stewed tomatoes, garlic cloves, onion, celery, red cabbage, canned sweet potatoes, canned pumpkin, canned and fresh pineapple. Sugar, flour, lots of herbs and spices, more of the dressing.

I'm thinking the asparagus, corn, garbanzos, an onion (sliced thin), a little sugar, tossed with the dressing. With or without the red cabbage.

What would you do?

Tonight I made a risotto with asparagus tips, flat beans and mushrooms:

...and parmesan, as should be obvious from the picture:



You were meant to have parmesan shavings, but I love my microplane grater too much was too lazy to do that this time around. The shavings are prettier, of course, but both are super-good.

Recipe here

Grilled salmon with potatoes and asparagus.

Asparagus is in season, and I love coming up with different ways to cook it. It keeps me from getting tired of eating it for a month or so straight, two or three times a week.

This time around, I came up with a recipe that uses panch phoron: a mixture of equal parts fenugreek, cumin, nigella, fennel, and mustard seeds. It is a spice mixture that originated in Bengal, and adds a nutty, delicious flavor to anything it is cooked with.

The other ingredients are butter, lemon juice and salt. That is all.

It is quick, simple, and utterly delicious and different.

And it goes really well with the Kashmiri mushroom curry I posted yesterday.

Picture and recipe here.

Cruising through the cooking blogs at a hundred miles an hour, I was stopped in my tracks by a recipe for (and picture of) asparagus pesto pasta. Unless you grow your own basil or know others who grow it, making basil from scratch is an expensive undertaking. And, while nothing can duplicate the verdant peppery greenness that is basil's claim to fame, the structure of the recipe for pesto in general lends itself to creative interpretations. When you can read the ingredient list and taste the finished product in your mind, you know it is going to be good. I was salivating before I even was halfway through.

( Click for deliciousness! )

In the menu for the restaurant in my mind, this recipe has a reserved spot.

The weather was so lovely, we decided to barbeque.  
We had nicely marbled sirloin steaks (smeared in oil, fresh garlic, black pepper, chili powder, onion powder, and assorted herbs & cooked to medium rare), sauteed mushrooms with onion & garlic and lots of black pepper, a warm veggie casserole of potatoes, carrots & onions with vidalia onion dressing and assorted spices, pan fried asparagus seasoned with fresh garlic and black pepper, and sauteed yellow & red peppers.

It was very tasty!

x-posted to my journal

Twice-Cooked Adobo Shortribs from Cafe Ten Titas. Absolutely delicious with an unexpected spiciness to the sauce. Spicy adobo, who woulda thunk? More details here.