Updates

I have added new photos to the photo page (click here to view) or click on the Photos tab above.

I have also added a link to my restaurant reviews (click here to view) or click on the Restaurant Reviews tab above - this link is connected to my actual website - but since I have been updating those - or at least my plan since October 18 (last review) was to start updating those, I decided to add it to the list of tabs on my blog!

Other than that, a disability that started from the previously posted stingray wound incident, has caused me to have to take off from work because I cannot stand for more than 30 minutes without major pain streaking up my leg from the now, open wound site!  The only upside I've found to basically being house-ridden is that I now have more time to actually cook dinners at home. I've managed to make it work by limiting how long I stand and doing a lot of the work via a barstool next to the stove... Now if only I could get a barstool for my pantry station at work we'd be in business! ha.

Anyways, on with the home-cooking adventure:

My friend works as a charter fisherman, so every so often we are lucky enough to take home some extra pieces of fish. About a week ago, he brought home some beautiful Blackfin Tuna. He had already eaten about half of the fish as sashimi on the boat, so what I was left with was a fat steak. I decided to coat it in salt, pepper and sesame seeds and pan-sear it on a hot skillet. The result was DELICIOUS! Just like something you would order in a restaurant! I served it with some leftover rice that I quickly sauteed with soy sauce, frozen vegetables and a little egg to make a quick fried rice and a side of extra soy sauce mixed with wasabi paste for dipping.

A few nights later, another great fishing trip left us with some Scamp (a white fish in the Grouper family, without even a hint of "fishy" flavor). We did this one 2 ways - one using the standard breading procedure: eggs, flour, panko bread crumbs and the other simply sauteed with salt and pepper. The end result were some amazing Fish Tacos!

I had bought some sour cream earlier that week which I mixed with leftover wasabi paste and chopped fresh jalapenos to make a spicy crema sauce for the tacos. The addition of the chopped jalapenos, was due to the fact that even after adding about 2 Tb of wasabi paste, the mixture was a great pale green color but there wasn't any spicy punch.

I also made a "homemade" salsa - like the kind they serve in restaurants. This is sooo easy to do - just take a can of your favorite Rotel tomatoes (I like the one that has cilantro and lime), place the entire can into a food processor and pulse until desired chunky consistency! Now, I add a little extra zing to mine by adding fresh, diced yellow onion, fresh minced garlic, fresh cilantro, chili powder and cayenne powder, but that is all up to your personal taste!

The last element in this meal was some Cilantro Brown Rice. Kinda like what they serve at Chipolte. I took a boil-in-bag brown rice (because its healthier than white, and when mixed with other flavors, I cant tell the difference) and cooked it according the package directions (10 minutes, drained). I then emptied the contents into a bowl that I had already chopped fresh cilantro leaves, a tablespoon of butter and some salt. So when the hot rice hit this mixture, you could instantly smell the flavors melding. Stir and that's ready to serve.

The final elements of this amazing meal was a bag of store-bought shredded lettuce, 1 tomato chopped, corn and flour tortillas (heated in a 200 degree oven), and fresh cilantro for extra punch in each taco.

Now with all that scamp we cooked and only two of us eating this extravagant meal, we definitely had some leftovers. I made sure to try and stuff the final bites of the battered fish into my mouth before getting full as I knew they would be harder to save.

I wrapped the plain salt and pepper, sauteed scamp in a piece of tin foil and placed it in the fridge until the next night, when I was craving PASTA.

It had been a while since I'd had a picatta sauce, and since I had everything on hand for one, I decided to turn that leftover sauteed scamp into a Scamp Picatta over Linguini. I had had something similar at one of my favorite seafood places, downtown and thought I could definitely mimic it using the leftover scamp. So I started out by boiling some water for my linguini and at the same time dissolved two chicken boullion cubes in the water. I added the pasta and set my timer for 2 minutes under the recommended "al dente" time. Meanwhile, I heated a deep-bottomed saute pan over medium high heat, added about a 1/4 cup dry white wine, 1/2 cup of the chicken broth from the noodles, 2 Tb lemon juice, 2 Tb capers, 1 tsp diced kalamata olives, 1 minced garlic clove and let the whole thing reduce by half. I then added a splash of half and half to cream up the mixture and added my leftover scamp once that was incorporated, just to heat it through. I then added the drained pasta into my saute pan with all the other ingredients and tossed to coat. Once the noodles were perfectly al dente i spooned the contents into a big glass bowl and went at it. It was so delicious and I was super excited I had gotten away without having to let that delicious scamp go to waste.

I will be adding these recipes to my recipe page once I get a chance. Right now, I'm working on deciding which direction to go with my roasted butternut squash - definitely a soup but not sure which flavors to add. The next post will be about that adventure as well as some pumpkin carving!

Until next time! Thanks for stopping by.