MEDITERRANEAN STYLE POACHED SALMON

OK--this is Mom's first post on a blog--EVER!! But I got this great recipe from a cooking class that I held in my home early in November. The chef was Mary Spencer, who is well-known in the Northville/Novi/Plymouth area. Mary's daughter, Allie, and Jane played soccer together back in grade school. We always had amazing end-of-season soccer parties, because Mary and her husband Bill cooked for us!

I asked Mary for a healthy main course, and this is what she made for us. It's super easy, super fast, and tastes amazing. You can use any seafood--it would be great with tilapia!

1Tbsp olive oil
1-1/2 Tbsp. minced shallot
1Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup white wine
1-1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup marina sauce (Mary uses Trader Joe's tomato basil sauce)
1 Tbsp. capers
1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped

1. Heat olive oil in a pan with a lid and add the shallots and garlic. Cook, stirring for one minute. Add the red pepper flakes and wine and cook 3-5 minutes. Add the chicken stock, marinara sauce, capers and olives. heat to simmer, and cook about 5 minutes.

2. Season salmon with salt and pepper and lay in pan on sauce. Bring back to simmer and cover pan. Continue cooking for about 7-9 minutes until fish is just cooked through. (Hint from Mary--If you slide a spatula under half of a filet and it starts to break along the muscle fibers, the fish is done!)

Tonkatsu Pork with Brussel sprout hash

Tonkatsu pork is basically an asian-style pork cutlet, tenderized (with the back of my santoku knife, cris-cross style, once through with parallel hits then again with hits perpendicular to the first ones) and floured/egged/panko-ed then sauteed in some canola oil.

The tonkatsu sauce is the best part.  It is basically ketchup mixed with worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and dry mustard.  It makes a great dipping sauce for the pork.

For the brussel sprout hash, I now declare brussel sprouts as my favorite vegetable.  So good.  Sauteed them in some olive oil with salt, then added diced sweet potato and cooked that until both were softened.  Tossed some garlic powder and salt on them and done! Nom.

First Quiche Everrrrrrr

 As the title suggests, I made my first quiche ever.

My mom used to make quiche and I love those little appetizer quiches that are at parties and stuff, but I didn't realize how easy it is to make!

I had a pie crust to use, and I caramelized onions and added broccoli with garlic and salt, then put the veggies in the pie crusted pan. I couldn't find my pie pan so I made square quiche haha.

Next was the mozzarella cheese.  I ran out of that so I added mexican blend cheese on top of the veggies.

Next I mixed 4 eggs worth of egg white starter (I wasn't sure if it would turn out too runny, but it worked just fine!) and 1.5 cups of milk and poured it over everything and baked it for 30 minutes at 350F.  NOM.

Take-out Chinese? Made-in Chinese!

Ha.

Crab rangoon from this recipe: Crab Rangoon

Basically we used Krab instead of crab...haha fake crab!
But everything else the same, and they turned out AMAZING.

Kevin made his sweet chili sauce composed of the Huy Fong Foods Chili Garlic sauce (Rooster brand!), honey, and soy sauce.

Next up is beef chow mein from this recipe: Beef Chow Mein

I used julienned carrots, sliced mushrooms, water chestnuts, and broccoli with these noodles: nasyoa asian style noodles (Nasoya brand) which was exactly like eating those thick lo mein noodles which were delicious! Way better than using spaghetti haha.

It was so simple, just added oyster sauce and some soy sauce and it was so good! (I didn't add the water the recipe told me to and it turned out just fine)

NY Strip Steaks a la Kevin

New York strip steaks cooked to perfection with steamed asparagus and mashed potatoes with a mushroom marsala type sauce on top! So good!

With Delirium Tremens and Whole Foods hard cider too!

Scalloped potato crusted tilapia and halibut

I mandoline sliced potatoes and Kevin made potato "scales" for the fish, and crisped them up in a frying pan before baking them.  We also baked a sweet potato and tossed our favorite salad of spinach and apples with a balsamic vinaigrette.  I was bored and so I made crispy chips out of the remaining sliced potato and topped the salad with them. NOM.  The fishies were topped off with a citrus beurre blanc sauce. Extra NOM!


Crispy scales!

Finished product!
 

Sweet potato and Apple dominoes!

Nom. Used a mandoline again. Basically the same recipe as the regular domino potatoes but with sweet potatoes and apples! Topped with butter and some brown sugar and baked for 1 hr at 375.