Easy fish tacos

Here's a quick meal to make on a weeknight after work when you really don't feel like slaving away.  All you need is some peak produce (shouldn't be hard to pull off this time of year), a small amount of chopping, minimal cooking, and away you go...

How to make fish tacos with mango-cucumber salsa and Mexican coleslaw: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  Drizzle olive oil along the bottom of a baking dish and rinse 1-1/2 lbs. tilapia fillets.  Layer the fish in the baking dish, drizzle with more olive oil, fresh lime juice, salt and pepper, cover, and bake 15 minutes, until cooked through.  Serve with some warmed corn tortillas and extra lime wedges.
2. Toss together diced mango, diced cucumber, chopped cilantro, seeded and minced jalapeno, chopped scallions (just the green parts), fresh lime juice, and salt and pepper and let marinate 15 minutes before serving.
3. Combine shredded purple cabbage, sour cream, fresh lime juice, cumin, cayenne, and salt and pepper.  

Cold-Cuts Bread Pudding

A strange idea?  Maybe.  But delicious?  Oh yes!

Just roll with me on this, people: when you find yourself with a fridge stocked with a surplus of maple ham, smoked turkey, muenster cheese, sandwich bread (plus a few eggs), and little else, you'll be happy to have this in your back pocket.

Cold Cuts Bread Pudding
Serves 6


5 slices stale sandwich bread, cubed
1 bell pepper, stem and seeds removed and diced
4 slices smoked turkey, chopped
4 slices maple ham, chopped
4 slices deli cheese (swiss, muenster, cheddar, etc.)
4 eggs, beaten
3 cups low-fat milk
8 shakes of oregano
salt and pepper

- Preheat the oven to 325°F and grease a casserole (glass is nice).
- In a large bowl, toss together the bread, pepper and cold cuts and set aside
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk, and season with oregano and salt and pepper.
- Spread the dry ingredients evenly across the bottom of the casserole and pour the egg-milk mixture over.
- Lightly poke the bread that's at the surface into the liquid, ensuring everything is wet - otherwise, those pieces of bread will burn.
- Place the casserole on a sheet tray to catch any spills and place in the center of the preheated oven.  Bake for 1 hour, until the liquid is almost completely set.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool and set up before serving, or cover and refrigerate for later.  This is best served at room temp.

Use Your Bean

Continuing on my journey to strike a balance between work and everything else, I've been keeping up with my weeknight home-cooking ritual with pretty great success!  A highlight of last week was a super fast and easy bean stew that literally takes 20 minutes (or less!) from start to finish.  It's the kind of Wednesday night squeeze-it-in meal I can rally around, after the work clothes have been shed, the sillies shaken out, and a few minutes of staring idly at the wall have been achieved.
It's called Indonesian Bean Stew, but neither myself nor Dan can attest to its authenticity, given that our only encounter with Indonesian food was a Hell's Kitchen spot on 9th Ave that tasted delicious but ended up being so packed with MSG that our post-dinner activity that night was holding our heads in our hands and moaning like feral cats.  Not fun.  But this is!
The recipe comes from my dear friend Genna's mom Karen, who has followed this blog since the very beginning.  Thanks, Karen! for the recipe and your readership :)

Indonesian Bean Stew


1 tablespoon oil
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 small knob ginger, peeled and minced
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 28-oz box diced tomatoes (Pomi brand is the best)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 can black beans, drained
1 can garbanzos, drained
Cilantro leaves for garnish

1. Saute the onion, pepper, garlic and ginger until softened, about 3 minutes.
2. Add the kidney beans, tomatoes and brown sugar, stir and bring to a steady simmer.
3. Stir in the peanut butter, spices, and then add the rest of the beans.  Cook just until heated through.
4. Serve over bowls of rice, topped with a few cilantro leaves.

Joys of Ginger

Practical person that I am (well, perhaps obsessive-compulsive is the more accurate descriptor...), I used to avoid recipes that called for ginger seeing as it's highly perishable and impossible to buy in small quantities.  After just 2 days in the fridge, all those knobs of ginger purchased in order to obtain the one measly tablespoon of the freshly grated stuff would be soggy, stringy, and discolored.  But those dark days are behind me, ever since I found Marc Matsumoto's delightfully simple solution to my ginger-itis: how to make fresh ginger last.  Peel it, submerge it in vodka (or your tasteless, odorless, colorless ethanol of choice) and presto, you're stocked up with fresh, ready-to-use ginger for days - weeks, even!

Obviously, this revelation has led to a 500% increase in my use of ginger and that's good news, since ginger happens to be one of those handy foods that not only makes everything infinitely more delicious but also delivers a load of health benefits: it is said to settle the stomach, reduce pain and inflammation, prevent cold and flu symptoms, and it even works as a heartburn remedy.

Here are a couple of tasty ways I've used my arsenal of ginger lately:

Ginger Chicken (adapted from Marc Matsumoto's recipe)
Makes 4 servings

1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 bunch scallions, white and green separated, thinly chopped
sesame seeds for garnish

Rinse and pat dry the chicken thighs.  Combine the soy sauce, honey, vinegar, ginger and garlic in a bowl and toss with chicken.  Marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a skillet.  Once the oil is shimmering, add the chicken in a single layer, leaving space between each piece (you may need to cook it in batches).  Regulate the temperature so that the marinade doesn't burn (too high) yet the chicken doesn't leech water (too low) - you want it just right to get that nice crust dark brown crust.  Fry one side of the thighs, then flip and fry the other.  Remove to a plate.

Wipe the burnt bits out of the pan and add the rest of the marinade and the white part of the chopped scallion, returning the pan to medium-high heat.  Bring the marinade to a boil and return the chicken to the pan.  Turn the chicken pieces as the sauce reduces, until you have a nice glaze that's sticking to the chicken.  Serve garnished with green scallion and sesame seeds, over rice.

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Homemade Ginger Ale
Makes about 8 cups

4 big knobs ginger, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup honey, or to taste
1 liter seltzer
Lemon slices for garnish

Combine the ginger and 4 cups water in a pot.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer about 40 minutes.  Strain out the ginger and mix in the honey, stirring until it's totally dissolved.  Transfer to a container and chill.

When ready to serve, mix 1 part seltzer to 1 part ginger brew in each glass, with a slice of lemon and a few ice cubes.

Friday Night Dinner

Last night, inspired by this recent post on one of my favorite cooking blogs, Dinner: A Love Story, I made baked beans from scratch to accompany some hot Italian sausages from Astoria's own Butcher Bar, homemade leftover-grain bread (I'll save that for another blog post/day), and a simple salad of kale and pecorino.

 Baked Beans (adapted from The Joy of Cooking)

Serves 6

Two 15.5-ounce cans small white or navy beans

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon cider vinegar


Preheat oven to 350°F and grease a baking dish.  Drain and rinse beans and set aside.  Combine the last six ingredients well, then mix in the beans.  Turn out into the baking dish and bake, covered, for 30 minutes.  Stir and bake another 30 minutes, uncovered.

Midweek Munchies: Sauteed Broccoli

Hi Friends!  Sorry to have missed our standing date this past week.  I spent the weekend up in Fairhaven, Mass. paying a visit to the newest addition to the Pogash family, Ben Zen!  He's such a joy.  We were hosted by his lovely parents, Jonathan and Megan, and were wined, dined, and babied to our hearts' content!


Here's a shot of the water from Fort Phoenix.  Gorgeous weather, and just such a beautiful spot.

 Now, back to food-things!  Sometimes I get these insatiable and exclusive cravings for, like, vegetables.  In particular, broccoli.  So tonight this was my dinner (burp):

Of course, Dan the Man can't survive on veggies alone, so I made him a quick skillet dinner of fresh Greek sausage from our local butcher (lamb and leeks, mmm), quartered apples, and halved onions.  A glug of olive oil to start it off, a few sprigs of rosemary to finish it, and that's a wrap, folks!  A big fork salute to the ladies of Canal House Cooking. (There is indeed genius in simplicity.)

Hope you're having a great week!  Bon apetit!


XO

Asparagus salad (and Dan makes dinner!)

Last weekend, I walked into the apartment after a long day of working brunch to find that Dan was preparing a fantabulous dinner of grilled lamb chops with a minted cucumber-yogurt coulis! Wow! The food was delicious. And for once, I got to take the backseat. (Unfortunately, we were both so excited that I forgot to take a picture to show off.)

My only contribution was a simple salad of more of that lovely spring asparagus.


Warm Asparagus Vinaigrette
(serves 3-4 as a side)

- 1 bunch asparagus, blanched and cut on the bias into 1-inch pieces
- 1/2 red onion, sliced thin
- 1/2 cup mint leaves, torn or chiffonaded

- 2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
- 2 teaspoons dijon mustard
- 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
- 1 cup olive oil
- salt and white pepper to taste

To prepare, simply toss the first three ingredients together, and make the vinaigrette with the remaining ingredients, whisking in the olive oil last. Season with the salt and white pepper and enjoy while the asparagus is still warm from blanching.