Honey-soy roasted salmon – from Parents Need to Eat Too!

I’ve been reading Debbie’s blog for years and have been eagerly awaiting the publication of her book since she it was announced (last year?  I can’t even remember.).   I’m even more excited that the book is coming out this month, because my life circumstances have conveniently aligned with the book launch.  What better timing than to have a book about cooking for new parents released a month before our first baby is due?

It’s fate, I’m telling you.

So I was EVEN MORE excited when I was asked to participate in the blogger cooking party leading up to the book’s launch.  For those of you who are also eagerly anticipating the launch of Parents Need to Eat Too, you can pre-order a copy and get a free digital starter kit to go along with it.  Or you can try and win one from me!

To enter, leave a comment on THIS VERY POST with your earliest food memory.  First bite of a favorite food?  Cooking with a parent or grandparent?   All comments entered before midnight CST on Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 will be included in the drawing for a copy of Parents Need to Eat Too.

On to the food!  The first recipe I tried was honey-soy roasted salmon.

Serves 4

Cooking time: 35 minutes (5 minutes active)

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce

1 teaspoon Sriracha sauce or other asian chili sauce, or to taste

Four 6-ounce salmon fillets, skinned (we used skin-on frozen fillets from Trader Joe’s – I don’t mind salmon skin and tend to prefer to cook with it on, actually)

Cooked rice and a green vegetable, for serving

Preheat oven to 450°F.

1. Whisk together the honey, soy sauce, and Sriracha in a shallow bowl. Add the salmon, turning to coat, and marinate for 20 minutes at room temperature, and up to 1 day refrigerated.

2. Grease a baking dish large enough to hold the fish in 1 layer. Remove salmon from the marinade and arrange in the dish (skin-side down, if you’ve left it on). Reserve marinade.

3. Roast fish just until it’s opaque all the way through, 12 to 14 minutes.

4. While the fish is roasting, pour the reserved marinade into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook until thickened, 4 or 5 minutes. (watch carefully or you’ll wind up with something akin to tar.)

5. Serve the fish with the rice and a green vegetable, and pass the sauce separately.

I doubled the marinade amount so that we would have some extra sauce.  I served it with steamed rice and some dragon beans we had in the freezer from this summer.

The fish was great and the marinade is something that can be thrown together before work in the morning without making a mess or having to do things like dice and saute onions at 7 am.  We promptly forgot to marinate the fish in the morning, as the day we planned to make this dish ended up being the day after I checked the alarm on Sunday night and then shut it off again.  So we were a bit rushed in the morning… but it the fish was nice and flavorful even with only a 20-minute marinade while the oven preheated.

Spring herbage spring rolls

So it’s been awhile.  This time, I’ve got nothing.  I just haven’t been cooking very much, or anything very interesting.

I am also trying to figure out what to do with my post-race self.  I spent so much time wishing the race was over, that I was done training, that I didn’t have to run… and now it’s over and I don’t know what to do with myself.  The TNT coaches refer to it as post-race blues, I have been referring to it as Stockholm syndrome, and it sucks.

Anyway.  It’s spring!  At least in theory – earlier this week it was summer and now it feels like fall again?  Anyway, you should make some spring rolls.  I did.

Spring rolls are nice because you can make as many or as few as you want, or as you have ingredients.  From the bottom:  shrimp, carrots, cucumber, cilantro, and basil.  I also used rice noodles.

Definitely not the prettiest spring rolls ever, but they were delicious.  Now that we  have some mint growing again I can’t wait to add it to my spring rolls!

Also, I totally missed this month’s Daring Kitchen challenge – gumbo!  I just ran out of days and couldn’t get a post up.  You can use the below if you’d like to check out the blogs for the people who actually did the challenge.

Blog-checking lines: Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

Nearly no cake

Holy crispy heck, is it Friday yet?  What is wrong with this week?  It is lasting FOR DAMN EVER.  And actually, it is nearly Friday because now it is Thursday night, but I maintain that this has been the longest week in creation.

Several years ago Ruby Tuesday revamped its image to be a little less like the restaurant in Office Space, with all the fake memorabilia on the walls, and a little more like… I guess like a regular restaurant?  I’m unclear what their goal was.

In the process of revamping the look of the restaurants, they also changed their menu and came up with some incredibly annoying commercials.  The one that drew the most ire from me was for the Triple Prime Burger, which included the tagline “Eats like steak, cuts like butter.”  OF COURSE it cuts like butter, it is ground meat.  I feel certain my sister and spouse still remember me throwing things at the television.

One of their other slightly less annoying but still sort of annoying commercials was for crabcakes. The line from that one was something like “almost all jumbo lump crab meat, nearly no cake.”  Just… so stupid.  It’s a cake because of it’s shape, not because it is held together with cake.  If what you mean is almost all jumbo lump crab meat and nearly no breadcrumbs and mayo, then you should say that – because the binder in a crabcake is NOT CAKE.

Anyway.  This is what I thought about while I made dinner on Tuesday night.

Salmon cakes, inspired by this recipe

Sauce:

• 2 TB mayonnaise
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 clove minced garlic

Salmon Cakes:

• 3  (6-ounce) cans skinless, boneless salmon in water, drained (I used the Kirkland brand)
• 0.33 C minced onion
• 0.25 C mayonnaise
• 1 tsp Cajun seasoning blend
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 0.5 C dry breadcrumbs
• 1 large egg

• 1  tablespoon  canola oil or cooking spray (for cooking the salmon cakes)

To prepare sauce, combine ingredients in a small bowl.  Mix well and refrigerate until ready to use.

To prepare salmon cakes, combine salmon and next 6 ingredients (through egg) in a medium bowl. Mix well.  Divide salmon mixture into 8 equal portions, shaping each portion into an about 0.5-inch thick patty.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Place patties in pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until lightly browned and heated through. Serve with sauce.

And then don’t even take a plated picture for both of your loyal readers.  D’oh.  I served these on top of a salad, using the sauce as a dressing.  We also had some roasted sweet potatoes on the side.  It was an easy and simple dinner for a night in a week that has seemed needlessly complicated.

And there was nearly no cake.  The end.

Oxtail Stew

My brother Joe’s friend Colin lives in a farm.  They met in college and were roommates for several years, but Colin has since moved to the country and Joe is back in Omaha.

Living where he does, Colin has the opportunity to acquire some ah, “variety meats” which he was kind enough to distribute to my brother, and which Joe was kind enough to pass along to me. He kept the tongues for himself to make tacos, but I got about 5 pounds of oxtails.

Oxtail stew (based on the recipe for Oxtail, Vaccinara Style, found in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan.)

0.5 lb bacon or pancetta, cut into small pieces (optional)

0.25 C chopped parsley

2 cloves garlic, minced

0.75 C chopped onion

0.75 C chopped carrot

2.5 lb. oxtail, severed at each joint

1.5 C dry white wine (we used vermouth)

1 14-oz. can diced tomatoes, drained

0.5 C water

Salt & pepper

1.5 C coarsely chopped celery

Put the chopped bacon or pancetta in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven with a lid over medium heat (if not using, warm 0.25 C olive oil).  Cook about 10 minutes, until mostly but not fully cooked.

Add the parsley, garlic, onion and carrot and cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes.

Crank the heat to medium-high, add the oxtails, and brown on all sides.  Add the wine and let simmer for about 30 seconds.  Add the tomatoes and water, and season as desired with salt & pepper.  Stir to combine and bring to a simmer.

Cover the pot, leaving the lid slightly ajar, and cook for 1.5 hours, stirring every 0.5 hours.

Add the celery to the pot and stir to incorporate.  Cook about another hour, or until the meat is very tender and comes easily away from the bones.  Skim as much fat as possible off the top of the cooking liquid and serve at once.

Per a suggestion I got on Twitter, we served our oxtail stew over soft polenta.

And it was GOOD.

This has been a very meaty week on Jeanne Cooks World, hasn’t it?  Tis the season for big, hearty stews.

Lobstahfest

A few months ago Devin came back from the local fish place with a flyer for their on-site catering.  They have one that’s a lobster boil – lobster, crab, shrimp cocktail, and bunch of sides.  I didn’t like the sides they offered and we have been talking about doing a lobsterfest ever since.

So we finally did last Saturday.

This is what our butcher block looks like with eight 1.25 lb lobsters on it:

They were mail-ordered from the nice folks at Lobster Gram and were delivered in a giant foam cooler sometime on Friday.  They come live and are packed with clarified butter and lemons which seems… somewhat cruel.

But really, lobsters are not all that cute and we were just going to cook them anyway.

And cook them we did, in the canning kettle filled with boiling water.

They look much prettier when they’re cooked.  About ten minutes and a nice cold icebath later, they looked like this:

Also, they don’t try to escape by leaping off the counter any more.

The next night, I reheated them by steaming them for a minute or two, again in the canning kettle.

So close…

I look sort of creepy in this photo.

And then it was time for the feast.

I kid you not, there was total seafood annihilation.

Fifteen minutes later.

And the next day, I made two batches of stock with the shells.

And now I have the total princess problem of too much lobster broth – we have several quarts of broth.  I don’t really know what to do with it, but I will refrain from complaining.  Complaining about having too much lobster anything is like complaining about all the piles of money stacking up in your house or about how you are so skinny and pretty you just can’t deal.

So I’ll deal.  It has been very hard going back to eating like a normal person, and perhaps a risotto made with lobster broth will help ease the transition.  Hmmmmm.

Fridge Friday 3

Please excuse the utterly crappy photos – these were taken with my phone as I was leaving for work.  I realized the nagging “I should have done something last night.  What was it?” feeling was the realization I forgot to take photos of the fridge. 

I even had the camera out!  D’oh. 

I find it slightly depressing that this photo isn’t really much worse than the ones I take with my actual camera.  On the top shelf are two blue packages – those contain scallops and wild sockeye, destined for the grill tonight.

Also of note:  strainer full of cherries, container of last dregs of garden lettuce, container of leftover beet risotto, large quantity of milk. 

The fishes!  Can’t wait.  Tonight’s menu:

Grilled salmon & scallops

Gremolata

Herbed grill-roasted potatoes

Grilled zucchini (do we sense a theme emerging?)

Cucumber salad

Grilled peaches + vanilla ice cream

I’ll try to get some pictures, but I make no promises… Happy Friday everyone!

Homemade pizza

Last week the New York Times published an article about making pizza at home.  Look, here it is!  I must admit that I was a bit suspicious – because seriously, 48 hours?  48 hours is a long time. I can get pizza delivered in one hour.

But it doesn’t taste like this.  Also, this is so cheap compared to delivery pizza – even with the salmon and all the arugula.

Slightly weird and amoeba-looking, but delicious.

1/4th of New York Times recipe for Pizza Dough with Yeast

4 oz. smoked salmon

4 oz. chevre, crumbled

Olive oil

Cracked black pepper

Lots of arugula – probably about 4 ounces?  A full strainer – this was picked about 20 minutes before we made the pizza.  I heart the garden.

Preheat oven to 500F.  Take dough out of refrigerator and let it rest for an hour.

Shape dough; if you’re more talented than me your pizza might be something resembling round.  Mine was a semi-oblong amoeba shape.

Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and top with cracked pepper, salmon, and chevre.  Bake for 4 minutes and remove from oven.

Top with half the arugula, sprinkle with olive oil and cracked pepper.  Return to the oven for 3 to 4 more minutes, or until pizza is lovely and brown.

Top with remaining arugula and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

We split the pizza and had some steamed Chinese long beans on the side.  The pizza wasn’t perfectly round (um, clearly) but it was pretty delicious anyway.

Maybe my cooking mojo hasn’t departed this earth permanently.

Fry Party

We had a blast frying stuff – Megan’s new fryer is amazing and awesome.  And I made tempura for the first time!

The only downside is that our house smells like a Long John Silver’s or KFC.

Tempura Batter

1 large egg

1 C flour

1 C very cold soda water

Mix all ingredients together with a whisk. Use to batter all kinds of things.

Things like:

Zucchini sticks (a big thank you to Peter and Niz for bringing these over!).

Shrimp (to the right).  Also pictured – chicken battered in what Megan calls the crack batter.  It’s so good.

Prepped artichokes, waiting for their turn.

Tempura-battered artichoke.

And Oreo cookies.  We also did some mini-size chocolate bars, but the batter fell off and they melted and it was no bueno.  Also the pictures would be utterly horrible.

We also fried (but did not tempura-batter):

The above-mentioned chicken, battered in crack…

And some sweet potato chunks – we did some plain and battered some in the crack as well.  They were better with the crack.

I think I need a salad.