d food: trout with sundried-tomato tapanade and orange-walnut salad

None of us had ever had trout before, but since it was in season and cheaper than salmon, which we all know we like, D decided to get it and cook it up. He left the skin on and oven-baked it with orange juice, olive oil, and a blenderized mix of sun-dried tomatoes, a few olives, toasted walnuts, and Mediterranean seasonings, salt and pepper. For the side, he mixed baby spinach, orange wedges, more spinach, and a home-made citrus vinaigrette. There was crusty Italian bread from the bakery.

And it was awesome.

A little sweet, a little salty, very rich and flavorful, and different than anything else we've eaten-- and therefore outside the realm of our standards. D doesn't really use recipes, and doesn't really take notes as he cooks, but this is easily replicable.

Leftovers: Fishpocket Miso Soup

Remember the fishpockets from the grill? Even after D made the stirfry, there was enough leftover for one little packed lunch: Miso soup with the leftovers.

I get my Miso from J-List (which I’ve probably mentioned before). It’s a moist instant, not a powder*, and all you need is hot water. It lasts for ages and doesn’t need refrigeration, too, so it’s perfect for lunches.

I added sesame seeds, Kastuo bonito furikake and alfalfa sprouts, then mixed the miso and added the grilled veggies and catfish, and there you go! Lovely lunch!

 

*Here’s what it looks like:

Grilling!

See what H is building there?

That’s right girls and guys, it’s warm enough down here to grill. Has been for a month, and we used the household fund to buy a real propane grill with propane and propane accessories, and we’ve been grilling at least once a month since. Here are the lovely things we’ve made:

First up, we made burgers. Lovely juicy burgers. Like, three times in two weeks.

Then we got adventurous: Fish pockets with roasted vegetables and grill-baked potatoes.

 

The fish was catfish, and some of the pockets actually had chicken to stretch them, because more people came then expected and the catfish was a little expensive. Veggies were zucchini, summer squash, onion, mushrooms and garlic with dill and lime.

See how excited D was? He made the leftovers into a magnificent stirfry that was super-easy, since all the meat and veg were already cooked: rice, oil and a little soysauce, then tossed with the leftovers.

After that, we made kebabs that I didn’t get pictures of because I was too busy stuffing my face: beef and chicken were marinated in soysauce, lemonade, butter, garlic, salt and pepper, then skewered with mushrooms, peppers, onion, apple, carrot and tomato, and grilled. We had M’s yellow rice on the side, and grilled pineapple for dessert.

And most recently, we made teriaki chicken:

… with lime-cilantro and sazon rice, butter-steamed fresh greenbeans, asian slaw and watermelon. h marinated the chicken in Soy Vey kosher teriaki, then made his own teriaki from soysauce, sake, sesame, garlic, ginger and sugar, and a little rooster sauce, and brushed that on while they were cooking:

Mmmm, the first watermelon of the season…

And for dessert, E’s mom, R, made us the best banana pudding ever: Mix the banana pudding with the milk, like usual, then mix in a whole can of sweetened condensed milk and a whole tub of Cool Whip, and layer it with sliced bananas and Neko Wafers:

 

Practically deadly, it’s so delicious. We’ve got tentative plans for a Bring-Your-Own-Steak party, and I want to have a block party to get to know the neighbors, and at some point this summer, we need to make roasted corn. Seriously.

Vacation Foods

As you know, I was away for ten and a half days last month, visiting family and going to a conference. I don't have pictures of everything I ate, but I do have some. Here's a rundown:

The first day was a family reunion / block party at my cousin’s house, and happened to be Pie Day (3.14). I was exhausted from travelling, but there just happened to be pie there: chocolate-banana cream and oreo cookie. The only picture I have is this one, of my pregnant cuz eating pie for two. Note how happy she looks.

There was also pizza, steamed cauliflower, roast chicken, Jones Soda (whose rootbeer I do not like, I learned), pasta salad, water melon and cantaloupe, and probably other things I can’t remember. The cauliflower was especially good, steamed just enough to be perfectly tender, but not enough to be mushy at all. A little salt, pepper and butter, and it’s good enough for a meal in itself.

A day or so later, my aunt made a really delicious roast ham with a brownsugar glaze. The pineapple alone was enough to make the meat worth it, but the ham was amazing, and the rest of the plate…

… included these huge potatoes that were good enough to be a meal by themselves, and hardly needed more than salt, pepper and butter.

At the conference, we ate out mostly, because the in-hotel food was too expensive. I had something chickeny at Tony Roma’s and wasn’t all that impressed—it was good, but it was expensive, and it wasn’t terribly different than any other chain line, with the same combos of flavors at, say, Chili’s or Fridays or Ruby Tuesdays or any of a number of those same sorts of things. I don’t even remember what it was called.

There was Chili’s after that, with something small and forgettable; I think I had a side or an appetizer. I’m really not that impressed with chain places in general, and it wasn’t terribly different than my home one, nor terribly better. The strawberry mojito was pretty good though, sweet and thick and perfectly balanced so that you didn’t taste the vast quantities of rum at all. It was two-for-one happy hour. That was dangerous.

We had lunch at Fridays after that, and I had the tiny hamburgers (my newest favorite way to eat beef); there were three of them on something like mini cibata breads, and they were pretty good—bacon and cheese and not too greasy. But the best part of that meal was the drink: a berry-passionfruit-guava mojito that just blew me away. They bring it out in a shaker, and it results in about four glasses of a sweet-tart-musky-tropical and very refreshing boozy drink that I drank all of. It’s my new fav drink. I need to figure out how to make it at home.

The first banquet had salmon and chicken, and I didn’t eat my lovely favorite salmon because it wasn’t in season yet.

The second banquet had this:

Lots of pink wine beforehand (I prefer rose, but no one ever has rose, so it was white zin, and not a terribly smooth one, though not burning-awful either; next year, I think I’ll bring my own Rosa from the San Sebastian Winery. I can get a whole bottle for the cost of one cup at the bar, anyway) and during. Breadsticks as an experiment (rolls were banned a few years ago as someone started a breadfight with them), garden salad with a pretty decent Italian dressing, pesto tortellini that somehow managed to be bland with all the most flavorful things in Italian cooking in it, baked ziti that was pretty good, grilled swordfish which I ate part of because I’d never had swordfish before, and then stopped because it wasn’t in season and the wine started getting to me, and a really yummy white-bean and bacon stew. Dessert was a divine tiramisu and canoli. And then much more drinking.

All in all, a pretty good round of vacation eating!