Fish Tacos

Here in Seattle, we have a great restaurant along Portage Bay - Agua Verde. Not only do they have great fish tacos, delicious margaritas and killer key lime pie, they also have kayaks that you can take out and paddle around the bay and into Lake Union and Lake Washington. However, when the weather gets nice, they get packed, and it can be an hour or more to get a table for dinner. The weekend before last was downright hot in Seattle, especially since air conditioning isn't really something that is done here, particularly in houses, and fish tacos sounded like the right thing to do, but without the silly long wait.

I didn't really follow a recipe for this, and just made use of what I had on hand, and it was the perfect amount for two people. I chilled a bottle of Rose to serve with it, and it was just right - not very sweet, and it went with the spice pretty well.

I chose radicchio because it was so pretty - it has a bit of a bitter taste, that I think plays well off the other flavors. If you're not into that, I'd go for some cabbage or some other crisp leafy thing. As for the radishes, they got added to the mix because they were getting bored in my fridge, and I wanted something to go with the peppers. Do what you want!

Fish Tacos
Serves 2

1 fillet of halibut, cod, snapper, etc (I used snapper), washed and patted dry
2-4 corn or flour tortillas
Roughly 3/4 cup of radicchio or cabbage, chopped roughly
5-6 radishes, sliced thinly
1/2 jalapeño (or to taste - I like spicy), diced
Juice from 1/2 lime

Garnishes: sour cream, guacamole, salsa, etc

1. Heat a small pan to medium-high heat with some oil. When the oil is hot, sear the fillet on both sides for 2-3 minutes or until it is done (it should flake easily). Set the fish aside to cool for a few minutes, and then flake the fish into pieces and season with salt, pepper and some of the lime juice.

2. Combine the radishes and jalapeño and cook in the same pan as the fish, adding a little oil if necessary and seasoning with salt and pepper.

3. Combine the radicchio with the remaining lime juice and some salt and pepper.

4. Serve the fish on the tortilla with the radicchio, and add the radish mixture to taste. Top with garnishes as desired, and serve with additional lime slices.

So long, winter?

I've put away the scarves, stowed the down comforter and bought my spring and summer herbs for planting. The sun is shining, the grass is being mowed, I'm wearing flip flops. However, the tease that is Seattle spring will be plunging back into sloppy cold this next week, but for now we have a little taste of what summer is like - remember it?

In honor of Seattle's finickiness, I will write about one more late winter dish - something warm and filling that will maybe remind you of the summer flavors to come. Also, I've been meaning to write up this recipe for about a month now, and I never got around to it.

Squash and Kale Lasagna

Under normal conditions, I'm no fan of normal lasagna - something about the combination of ground beef and ricotta doesn't do it for me. However, vegetarian and vegan lasagnas have a special place in my heart. I remember the first time I had pumpkin lasagna - what, you mean lasagna doesn't need ground beef and tons of cheese? My heavens!

Don't worry, this one has tons of cheese. I made this after seeing a recipe in a magazine in a waiting room and because some of my non-meat-eating friends were coming over for dinner. Fortunately for me, and for them, I ended up prepping this the night before and baking it the day of - it was a time-consuming pain in the arse, but quite tasty, which is why its here and not on But I Suck At Cooking. Though, I certainly did try.

Adapted from Sunset Magazine

Ingredients
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium red onion, peeled and sliced
3 peeled garlic cloves (1 minced, 2 left whole)
2 cans (14 oz. each) crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and Pepper
6 cups (about 2 lbs.) butternut or acorn squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-in. cubes
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1 pound dinosaur kale, torn from stem
9 lasagna noodles
1 container (15 oz.) part-skim-milk ricotta cheese
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

1. Assemble ingredients in front of you. Lasagna noodles. Check. Dinosaur kale. check. Tomatoes. Check. Peeled, seeded butternut squash. Crap - mine's not peeled - why did I pay extra for squash that's only seeded. That's what I get for going for convenience. Whatever.

2. Ignore recipe and stick squash in 450º oven without peeling it or cutting into cubes. Hopefully, it'll scoop out after being roasted, because peeling butternut squash is a pain.

3. Make sauce - saute onions and garlic, and then add tomatoes and spices. Simmer forever until it's "thick."

4. Boil water and put kale leaves in for about 5 minutes. Forget about them and overboil. Forget to salt the water. Drain kale, chop, and then add some salt.

5. Boil more water. Add lasagna noodles. Remember to salt the water this time. Realize pot isn't big enough for lasagna noodles. Poke noodles until they relinquish their stiffness and fall into the menacingly hot water. Laugh evilly. Burn self with water accidently. Ow.

6. Remember butternut squash! Look in oven - parts are starting to singe. Realize that said squash is not squashy yet. Poke with form, splash some oil on it. Stare at it for another 20 minutes whiel sauce continues to simmer and you drain the defeated lasagna noodles.

7. Squish together ricott cheese, 1 cup of shredded mozzerella, the nutmeg and some salt.

8. Decide itse times to do something about the squash. Remove from oven. Its hot - try to remove from peel anyways. Burn self. Many times. Some parts are squishy. Some are rock hard, all are stringy. Make huge mess. Realize that even if you got all the squash out, there wouldn't be enough for the recipe. Remember leftover acorn squash from that weekend's dinner! Saved. Remove that from fridge and mash with the pitiful butternut squash. Acorn squash > Butternut squash.

9. finally, everything can be put together. Start spooning sauce onto bottom of 9x13 pan = there not going to be enough to fit. Grab smaller 7x11 pan. Sauce, noodles, squash, kale, ricotta mixture... wait... there's too much to fit!

10. Through fancy maneuvering and someone else's help, flip half-assembled lasagna into 10x14 pan. Way too big. Whatever.

11. Continue assembling. Whatever order, as long as there's lot of cheese on top.

12. Realize that this all took about 2 hours and hope that it doesn't suck.

13. Bake at 350º till its done. However long that takes.

Result: It doesn't suck! It's very tasty, in fact. You should probably follow the original directions, and not mine, but I would recommend the acorn squash over butternut.

Also, you may have noticed that the site has a somewhat fancy new look - still in tweak mode. Though, I'm guessing most of you read this in Google Reader anyway... oh well.

Egg Drop Soup with Noodles

I've been sick all weekend with some sort of cough-grossness, so I didn't do much other than watch a LOT of TV and knitted the beginnings of a hat. How productive of me.

I didn't really cook much, or eat much as a result (for example, lunch yesterday was an avocado with olive oil and salt. Maybe a little weird, but good). Tonight, though after my day of toast and tea, I wanted some soup to soothe my throat. Unfortunately, I didn't have any canned soup, and I was too icky feeling to walk to the grocery store (about five blocks away, but hey, it's raining, and there's a hill. ew). So, I decided to make this egg drop soup with egg noodles. A little different from your typical egg drop soup, but it takes the best parts of egg drop soup and chicken noodle soup in one recipe. I basically followed this recipe from my Gourmet Cookbook, though I didn't have fresh ginger (I used jarred, about two tablespoons), I only had wide egg noodles (eh, who cares), and I didn't have sesame oil (I toasted some sesame seeds in some oil, but I'd probably skip this next time).

Chinese Egg Drop Soup with Noodles

Crockpot Pulled Pork

When Brian and I moved in together last July, one of the first "new" things I got for our place was a crock pot. I found it for $5 on craiglist, and I think it's been a stellar investment. I've heard that newer crock pots cook faster than older crock pots... which sort of defeats the purpose of a slow cooker? In any case, mine looks like it's from the early 80s with an ugly floral pattern on the outside. It's a little small and a kind of pain to clean, but I luvz it anyways. If I ever want to get a bigger one, I'll look first for a used, old one.

I've mostly used the crockpot for overnight oatmeal (water, steel cut oats, spices, raisins... overnight... low heat... breakfast... yay), but since I've started working, I've also been looking for more meals I can cook throughout the day and have pretty much done when I get home. I've made a good turkey chili, an okay beef burgundy... and today, I tried pulled pork barbeque. That was redonkulously easy. This is not the Eastern NC barbeque that we know and love, though I think we could adapt this if we found a good vinegar sauce. Instead, it's more of a Western NC barbeque... all sweet and tomatoy. Since there are so few ingredients in this, be sure to use a barbeque sauce that you like a lot - what we used today was less spicy and more sweet than Brian and I like - next time, we'll definitely try something else.

This is based on a recipe that called for a 3-4 pound piece of pork, but I've adjusted it down for the size of my crockpot and for how much we could reasonably eat over a few days - this should double easily.

[For those of you without crockpots... I think you could use a dutch oven or heavy pot, cooked over very very low heat or in a low oven for a few hours. No guarantees on that, though!]

Pulled Pork Barbeque
~2 pounds pork top loin, trimmed of excess fat
1/2 onion, chopped roughly
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
9 oz barbeque sauce of choice (1/2 regular-sized bottle)

Combine all the ingredients in the crock pot and put the crock pot on low heat. Walk away for 6-8 hours.

Increase the heat to high for the last hour or so. Remove the meat from the crock pot and place in a bowl. Take two forks and start pulled the pork apart - it should fall apart easily. If it doesn't, put it back in the crock pot for another hour or so. Keep the pulled meat moist and warm in the crock pot while serving.

You can serve this on hamburger buns, but we just had ours with some corn bread and lima beans. Easy peasy.