In the Kitchen

[thartley]

Here is the bourbon salmon dinner I made.  Those of you who are somewhat astute may notice something a little "different" about this one.   





dessert pics will come later....
(I'm talking about the caramel pear sundae) 

[KitKat]

  Dinner for two? And it's not "blue man". Looks beautiful and delicious, yummmmm!

[Ginafish]

Hehe! I was waiting on someone else to point out the two plates. And somehow, I don't think she's treating Sneaker to a candlelight dinner.

Although, first thought was "notice anything different?" Yep, no spoon!

[KitKat]

For dinner tonight I made some chicken noodle soup from a rotisserie chicken we had for dinner Sunday night. I also made some bread pudding from leftover cinnamon bread and whole wheat Kaiser rolls. On the top I'll pour a little lemon sauce. It's just Southern home cookin. It's called "comfort food". 

Edit: I posted this at 4:45 and tuned in Rachel Ray's cooking show at 5:00 and her theme for the night was "Comfort Foods".    Hummmmm.....Strange.

[thartley]

I am trying something new today.  I am making fish tacos.  I couldnt find a recipe at the store and it was a spur of the moment idea, so I bought what I thought sounded good.  Salmon for the fish part because its a nice dense flavorful fish, iceberg lettuce, beefsteak tomato, sweet onion, avocado, and horseradish.  I have lime to garnish it with.  Wasnt sure about using sour cream or not, although if I season the fish with chipotle before cooking, I think sour cream would have been nice.

I also picked up some shrimp that looked just too good to leave behind. I think I am going to munch on those while I get the fish cooked.

If I dont ruin it all, I will post a pic later.   

[KitKat]

I've made fish tacos before with leftover fish. We really liked them. Adding an avocado is a good idea, the horseradish is a flavor I haven't tried. 

I'm cooking organic blackeyed peas with a small onion, soy sauce, ketchup and salt & pepper. I'll add some crisp bacon and green onions when ready to serve. Yummmm....I love blackeyed peas. Cornbread would be good served with this dish.

T., I'm looking forward to your pics. 

[Ginafish]

For lunch today, at my parents house, we had the traditional black eyed peas, ham, and spinach. Hope it all brings me luck, health and wealth for the new year!

The best shrimp tacos I had were in Port Aransas, Tx. Spicy creamy sauce with shrimp. It was a memorable meal, I can close my eyes and still taste it!

http://www.pelicanslanding.com/index.php The restaurant serves them now as an appetizer, but I'm pretty sure I had it as a main dish.

[thartley]

Ginafish, were those shrimp tacos the ceviche ones on the appetizer menu?  If so, did the sauce have a lime flavor to it? 

I did make a fish taco and I ate it for breakfast.  I had gone to the gym without eating breakfast, but I had gotten such a late start on everything that I was STARVING when I got home.  So I cooked up the taco pretty fast, and I have to say, it was delicious!  But I totally forgot the avocado and onion.

I have some sliced honeydew melon to go with it, and a key lime tart for dessert.  It should make a nice plate, I think.

Right now, I have got to get out with my camera for a while.  The day is spectacular here and there are some things of interest I need for my "scrapbook".

[Ginafish]

Opps! sorry! They are in the sandwiches section. Served with fresh pico and jalepeno. I've not heard of tacos for breakfast before, but I have had burritos for breakfast. Yummy ones with potatoes, cheese, sausage...mmmm..some people also add eggs and picante, but since I'm allergic to eggs, I leave that out.

[thartley]

Drum roll please...... Behold!

The Fish Taco

yes, somewhere in all that is some fish. haha!!  I first warmed the taco shell, then started filling with mozzarella cheese, warm seasoned salmon, horseradish sauce, chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, sliced avocados, shredded lettuce, and a little more horsey sauce.

So good!  I'm surprised how well it turned out. 

[Ginafish]

What pretty colors! Looks tasty! Did you mash or crumble the salmon?

[thartley]

The colors were definitely on the pale seafoam green, werent they?

I crumbled the salmon and put them in shell second, right after the cheese, then added a thin ribbon of horseradish before layering the veggies.  Also, I bought the Old El Paso larger size shells because I was not sure how all this was going to fit in the smaller regular size taco shells. It worked out nicely.

[KitKat]

I love salmon, but it's not a favorite of Jim's. He may like this because he loves Mexican and he'd like the horsey sauce too. This is one dish I'm going to try for lunch or dinner. 

[Ginafish]

You could try it with another fish that maybe Jim likes. Talapia would have a 'bland' flavor, so he'd get the health benefits, but would taste the horsey sauce more.

[KitKat]

You're reading my mind again, Gina.   Yes, he loves Talapia, we eat it about once a week. I did make fish tacos once with leftover Talapia, but without the horsey sauce which is a key ingredient. We buy the Talapia fillets and store them in our freezer. 

[Ginafish]

He! I picked Talapia b/c it's easy to find at most grocery stores. I figure if I can buy it within 30 minutes of my house, then anyone can find it.

T, a while back I bought Almond Milk, and even the vanilla flavor was a hit with my son! Unfortunately, it's an hours drive to get it. Guess I'll have to start pressuring a closer store to buy it.

Yesterday, I also had Tofutti Cream Cheese (mixed with black olives, roasted red bell peppers and a bit of pineapple spread on flour tortillas to make vegan pinwheels). I really couldn't taste any difference in the tofutti kind and real cream cheese!

[thartley]

My brother is a real fish taco lover and he recommended using talapia seasoned with taco seasoning prior to pan searing.  Also suggested adding some black beans to the taco. 

Never tried the tofutti cream cheese.  But I love the almond milk.  Expensive, but delicious!!!!  Really good on cereal, too.

[thartley]

shrimp and rice pasta.... this was unbelievably good!  I had some leftover shrimp in the fridge, large pretty shrimp.  I heated up some olive oil in a saucepan, added four cloves of fresh minced garlic, a healthy teaspoon each of dried sweet basil and oregano, some kosher salt, and let that sizzle until the garlic was looking and smelling good.  Then I threw in the washed shrimp and stirred them up in all the goody.

The pasta is a product called Notta Pasta, and its a gluten-free 100% rice spaghetti.  You just throw that in boiling water and it cooks in about 3 minutes.  Gotta watch it that it doesn't overcook.

Plate it all up and enjoy.  Which is what I am doing now.  mmmmmmm.....

[KitKat]

Delicious T.    I've had the rice pasta before, when we thought Gwiz was alergic to gluten.  The garlic helps to flavor the pasta.  Good job!

[Ginafish]

I've never seen rice spaghetti before. Is it like those packages of rice noodles all crammed together sort of like ramen noodles

I came so close to buying shrimp at the store today, now you are making me regret my decision not to buy them!

[thartley]

Here's what the Notta Pasta looks like... Its not ramen style.  It looks like cellophane noodles almost.

[Ginafish]

LoL! David's Kosher Salt!
Thanks for posting the Notta Pasta! Now I know I haven't seen it for sure, and will have to try some out.

[PK]

thartley - That blueman eats REALLY well.

[M3R1IN]

I must say, Thartley, I am always impressed with the products coming out of your kitchen.  You make it sound so simple like all you are doing is improvising.  I have a funny story about improvisation in cooking.  I remmeber in grade 9 I took home ec. because i like to cook and i figured i might as well get credits for doing so.  My instructor was really anal about her students sticking to the recipes and all that.  I remember I made spaghetti sauce and it was too tart so I just improvised and dimped in about a 1/4 cup of sugar to even it out.  She saw me do this and asked if that was on the recipe.  I said, no, I'm improvising.  She started to get upset that I had deviated from the recipe, and in a bold move to cut her off i said, "Unlike most of the kids here, I already know how to cook.  I take this class to enjoy cooking and you know as well as I do that cooking needs improvisation sometimes."  and that shut her up on the spot!  Ha HA!

[thartley]

Thank you for the nice comments. 

I failed Home Ec.

Twice.