What To Do With Leftover Punch

We like our easy punch: rum, sprite and sherbet, the cheaper the better. This time it was raspberry. But after the party (Memorial Day), there was still most of the second bowl left. What's a group of eaters to do? A, brilliantly, poured the whole thing into a freezer box, and kept it for several weeks, until we were over for Game Night and decided we wanted something boozy to drink, but there was nothing in the house with which to make our usual Lolly Holloways (like a banana daquiry, but cooler). So we pulled out the frozen old punch, blended it with fresh ice, and had probably the best mixed icy drink ever. It tasted like pink lemonade and still had enough punch that the one cup each of us got was more than enough.

Yay summer and frozen drinks!

Japanese-Syle Fish Stew

Sonetimes, I get really tired of the same thing all the time, so I change things up. Sometimes, I come out with something different then I thought I'd have. This was supposed to be braised veggies, but I put too much liquid in, and it wound up being stew. Oh well.

The basic recipe comes from Maki over on Just Hungry:

Potatoes stewed with fried tofu and green beans

I did it this way:

Sautee an onion in a mix of olive oil and a teeny bit, less than a teaspoon of sesame oil, then trow in the potatoes, and sautee them a bit. The recipe calls for fresh greenbeans, which I didn't have, so I used leftover roasted asparagus that was in the freezer and some stirfry-intended brocoli. I should have added them in closer to the end, though; as you can see, the asparagus kind of melted. Tasted fine, but left it sort of... unpretty.

Then top with the water, which I topped too high, and throw in two tablespoons of sake (we always seem to have sake, even though none of us drink it), 3tbsp soy sauce (I added extra, because I like it), 2 tbsp maple syrup and some pepper. Boil it until the potatoes are starting to get edible.

Then I added the fish, which was already fillet-ed and frozen (you can get it packaged like that, and that's awesome), dropping it in whole and cooking is about half way, and mixed in some red miso for extra measure. Continue cooking until the fish is done, leaving the lid off so it'll evaporate some and thicken up, and then nom nom!

It tasted pretty authentic to what I remember Japanese cooking tasting, and I didn't change the recipe too much from Maki's, so I'm assuming it's pretty close. And it was delish. The leftovers were good cold for about two days (after that, the potatoes melted and the fishiness got overwhelming). Definitely a keeper.

Summer Food

The best thing about summer is the absolute abundance of fresh, wonderful foods. It's just amazing. The worst part about summer, at least here in the South that's further south than the Deep South, is that there's just so damned much heat. So I tend to use the one to deal with the other.

I've switched to my Summer Diet, which in days before my metabolism slowed, would help me drop 15 lbs every summer; we'll see if it works this year. See, teh heat makes me not want to eat. It doesn't just kill my appetite, it kills my desire even to have an appetite, adn if I'm not careful, I tend to forget to eat at all, which isn't healthy. So to get myself through the day, I eat a raw veggie diet, then at night, a few hours after dark (ie: somewhere around nine-thirty), I'll eat something full of protein and the day's starches. Salads, yes, of course, but when I say 'salad', what I really mean is this:

Not the pile of anemic lettuce that people try to tell me is a salad these days. No way. I much prefer a pile of veggies, and if they're really good veggies, I don't even need the dressing. If there's lettuce at all, It'll probably be a single wedge of something interesting, eaten with my fingers the same way.

And for breakfast, I switch to Sami Snadard Breakfast #1: fresh fruit and yogurt. Mmmm, yogurt. And I've missed peaches, plums and necatarines to an obscene degree since I started this Year Of Depriving Myself Of Out-Of-Season Foods.

Barring that, there's always Alternative #1: fruit and cream. I use Nestle Table Cream (comes in a little half-size can and costs less than half a dollar in the same section as the other canned milk-products) mixed with a quarter cup of powdered sugar, which is just enough that it testes like something other than thickened milk. And it's processed enough that I don't get all lactose-intollerant-y over it, which is awesome, and allows me to continue to get a little protein and calcium during the day.

And the rest of my diet consists of shaved ice and beach sand and more water than would take to water our lawn.

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.