Poached salmon with vegetable melange

I know several people who find cooking fish difficult and scary. For you, I have a suggestion: why not poach it?

Poaching is perhaps the easiest possible way to cook a thick fillet of fish. All you have to do is bring about two inches of water to a boil, reduce the heat to low, put in your fish, and simmer very gently for maybe five minutes, depending on thickness. That's it. Your fish stays moist and juicy, since you are cooking it in liquid. There's also no way you can possibly burn a piece of fish submerged in water.

If you want to up the ante, you can always poach your piece of fish in a pan of court bouillon or other light broth, but I think water is entirely adequate.

On this occasion, I poached half a fillet--maybe 6 ounces--of salmon. If you want to use some other kind of fish, be my guest.

For the vegetables, we chopped up a bunch of shallots, mushrooms, tomatoes, and zucchini, and sautéed them with olive oil and a little salt. We deglazed with vermouth near the end of cooking, scattered chopped parsley and capers over the vegetables, and finished with a squeeze of lemon juice and a couple grinds of pepper. Then we plated the finished salmon fillet and poured the vegetables over it.

This resulted in an entirely filling and delicious yet super fast and easy dinner. Bonus: since I was really only eating fish and vegetables, I felt awesome afterward.

Make some!

Leftover pasta? Fry it!

So the other day I had a big bowl of whole wheat spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, red pepper, and chard for dinner. This went about like you'd think: soften garlic in oil, add chard stems and red pepper, season, cook to soften, add chard leaves, mix with cooked pasta, and eat, parmesan optional. Simple.

Then there were leftovers.

Unlike many people, I love leftover pasta. I love it so much that I will eat it cold out of the fridge. Of course, if I feel like it, I will also mix it with beaten egg, put it in a hot frying pan, and come up with this:

Fried leftover pasta eggy pancake! It is super easy, uses up your otherwise sad leftovers, and takes maybe three minutes of cooking per side. You can be eating a tasty breakfast in well under ten minutes.

You also have the option to chop and add whatever odd bits and pieces of vegetable you have lying around to the pasta and egg before cooking; this way you get even more tasty breakfast. It's a win win win win win.

Carrot soup and garlic almond kale

A puréed single-vegetable soup with greens on the side is one of my ideal dinners. The problem, of course, is that neither vegetable soup nor greens have an overabundance of protein. So I fixed that by using bean broth in the soup and almonds in the greens. Yay vegetables! Let's eat them all!

Carrot soup with bean broth

onion
garlic
celery
fresh ginger if you have any
carrots (several)
bean broth (or veg, or whatever)
salt, pepper, cumin, paprika
stick blender or other pureéing device
cilantro or parsley and sriracha sauce for optional garnish

Dice up an onion, a few cloves of garlic, and a stalk of celery; sauté them in olive oil in a reasonable soup pot. Peel a knob of fresh ginger, mince it, and add it to the pot. Stir it all up and let cook while you scrub a bunch of carrots under running water. You can peel them if you want, but I never do. It's all carrot, and you're going to purée it anyway, right?

Chop up your carrots and add them to the pot. I think I used four or five, but the amount will really depend on size. Season with salt, pepper, cumin, and paprika, and let cook, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes. You can add some powdered ginger here too if you don't happen to have fresh ginger in the house.

Next, add your broth to the pan. I had a frozen block of adzuki bean broth, so I threw it straight into the pot, turned the heat up, and let it melt there. I also added a little water to make sure the vegetables wouldn't burn. Nearly any kind of broth you have will work fine with this soup, although I can't say I'd use fish stock.

Bring your soup to a boil, lower the heat, put on the lid, and let simmer for about ten minutes, or until your vegetables are cooked through. Then take the pot off the heat and purée.

Check out the soup consistency. If it's too thin, put it back on the heat and cook it down. If it's too thick, add some more water or stock. Taste and correct seasonings, and you're done.

I garnished my soup with sriracha sauce and chopped cilantro, because I like that sort of thing and we had a bunch of cilantro lying around. Parsley would also be good, as would chopped avocado or a spoonful of plain yogurt.

We ate it with:

Garlic almond kale

olive oil
garlic
kale
chopped almonds

Sauté a handful of minced garlic with a glug of olive oil in a wide frying pan. While it's softening, wash and destem a bunch of kale. I used dinosaur kale. DINOSAURS! You can also chop up a handful of almonds if you don't happen to have them already slivered. Don't worry about making them perfect; just chop them any which way.

When the garlic has softened, add in the kale. You may need to do this in two batches, since kale is voluminous until cooked. Stir occasionally, making sure all the kale gets wilted. If you want spicy kale, you can add some sriracha sauce or sambal oelek. Cook for about five minutes, or until all the kale is tender.

At the same time, heat up a different small pan. Toast the chopped almonds in it, tossing frequently. Keep a close eye on them, since nuts can burn really quickly. When they turn golden brown, get them off the heat and out of the pan.

When both your kale and almonds are done, you can either combine them before serving or just get yourself a whack of kale and scatter your preferred amount of almonds on top. Yay garlic almond kale!

Pasta with cream cheese marinara & lots of veg

Sometimes you just need to get food into your face as quickly as possible. I find that a big pan of pasta is an excellent default solution.

The problem is that most pasta with red sauce isn't particularly great for you. OK. So let's add a bunch of vegetables and a whack of cheese to cram in some extra variety. The time and effort involved are minimal, but the end result is huge.

I especially like the cheat of adding soft cheese to the sauce of your choice. This will work with goat cheese, sour cream, thick plain yogurt, or my choice--cream cheese. This means you don't have to bother with making a roux to get a creamy protein element in your pasta sauce. WIN.

Penne with cream cheese marinara

penne or other pasta
olive oil
onion, garlic
red pepper, artichoke hearts, and other veg of your choice
dry vermouth (optional but nice)
tomato puree
cream cheese
salt, pepper, red pepper flake, oregano, basil, paprika
fresh parsley or basil to finish

First, put on a pan of salted pasta water. Cook your penne at an appropriate point in the sauce proceedings. I usually put mine on when I add the tomato.

For your sauce, dice and sauté some yellow onion and garlic in a slug of olive oil. While they're softening, chop up a red pepper and some artichoke hearts--jarred, marinated, frozen, or what have you. If you want to use other vegetables, feel free--this combination is just what I happened to have hanging around.

When the onion is translucent, add your other vegetables and a pinch of salt, stir everything up, and let cook for about five minutes. Deglaze the pan with some dry vermouth, and then add your tomato. I used canned tomato puree, but whatever form of saucy or fresh chopped tomato you have on hand should work fine. Season with a little more salt, freshly ground pepper, red pepper flakes, basil, oregano, and paprika. Let simmer for five to ten minutes, or until the sauce has reached your ideal consistency. Taste and correct any seasonings.

When both pasta and sauce are cooked, drain your pasta and add it to the sauce. Take the pan off the heat and mix in a few chunks of cream cheese. Then let the whole business sit for a minute while you wash the pasta pot. When you come back, the cream cheese will have started to melt. Give the pan another stir or two to distribute the melted cheese.

Sprinkle with whatever fresh herbs you have on hand--I had parsley--and then plate and eat. Voila! Dinner!

Playing catch-up

John has been back for over a week and I still haven't shown you guys practically anything I cooked while he was gone! Well, we'll just have to fix that.

First, I made some delicious spicy broth with somen. This kind of soup is especially good if you need to eat something immediately, as it takes maybe five or ten minutes to cook from scratch.

Spicy somen broth

This business was super easy. Sauté garlic, fresh ginger, hot and bell peppers, and mushrooms in olive oil; add broth of your choice and heat to boiling; add somen noodles and cook for one more minute. Somen noodles do really only take one minute to cook, so be careful!

Take the pan off the heat and season your soup with soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, and sriracha sauce or sambal oelek. Serve alone or over a handful of raw spinach. Garnish with fresh chopped herbs and greens, such as chives, green onion, or mint. Personally, I ate plenty of John's mortal enemy, cilantro.

Later, I had a number of plates of scrambled eggs with cottage cheese and veg, as previously mentioned. I had some oatmeal with toasted nuts and sesame seeds. And then I made a gigantic pot of jambalaya and ate it for four separate meals over three days. Oh man, was that ever a good idea.

Since I'd never made jambalaya before, I poked around the internet for suggestions, and eventually decided to make Anger Burger Sunday's jambalaya.

Most of the procedure was pretty straightforward. I did have to make up a batch of the cajun spice mixture (never to be referred to as "Emeril's Essence," because ICK), but that was ok. It's a good thing I overbought several of the ingredients for our xmas bbq spice rub; otherwise I'd never have had garlic or onion powder on hand.

The final product was almost exactly what I'd wanted: a massive pot of thick, serious, medium-spicy stew full of tomatoes, pepper chunks, chicken sausage, and baby shrimp. I did end up adding some extra hot sauce to the mix, but that's no big surprise. SPICE FOREVERR.

This picture is from day three, at which point the rice had just about completely disintegrated. That was fine with me, though. It almost started taking on some characteristics of a spicy, meaty congee: perfect to eat before going blissfully off to sleep. Success!