Grilled Tequila Mahi Mahi & Asparagus

My farmer's market opened for the season last weekend, one of the things I look forward to all year, but I was in New Orleans so I wasn't able to attend and as a result, this past week was spent working my way through leftovers in the freezer. Which meant that this weekend, I HAD to get to the market. I was originally slated to pick up a new foster today, which is the day of my market, so I headed into the city yesterday to visit one of my favorite "special occasional" markets, the 14th & U Farmer's Market. And when I learned that I wouldn't be picking up my foster (he has some medical issues that require treatment so he's staying in PA for the time being), I went to my market this morning as well (yep, I'm a bit of a farmer's market junkie). Between the two, I managed to score some great stuff, including 2 spring essentials: asparagus and strawberries.

On my way home, I realized that I wanted nothing more than to grill that asparagus. Unfortunately, I don't (well, didn't) own a grill. That's technically due to the fact that it's against my condo regulations because it's a fire hazard, but I love the convenience and flavor you get from a grill so I stopped at Lowe's on my way home and picked up a new tabletop gas grill (don't judge me - my fire extinguisher was sitting next to the grill the entire time!).

I had some mahi mahi defrosted in my fridge that I had planned to serve with the asparagus and some mango salsa, but the grill changed things. I started searching for a good grilled mahi mahi recipe and came across this one from Alton Brown and knew immediately it was the winner.

For the most part, I followed the recipe for the marinade as outlined, mixing 1/4 cup each of freshly squeezed lime and orange juices and tequila (I used Quervo silver), diced red onion (1/2 c, or about 1/2 of a small onion), & minced jalapeno (1 T, or about 1 small pepper), but I did alter the sugar - using 1/8 c of coconut palm sugar in place of the 1/4 c of brown sugar.

The fish marinated for about 2 1/2 hours, after which I dried it and basted it with olive oil. The cleaned and trimmed asparagus got tossed with evoo and s&p as well and both got grilled. While they were grilling, I reduced the leftover marinade in a pot on the stove. Here are the fruits of my grilling labor:

Yeah, there's a reason the grill I bought was only $36. I'll have to learn to work around the hot spots. But bottom line, my dinner was simple and delicious, my two favorite things. Here's my plate:

My only regret? That there wasn't more of the "chutney" that resulted from reducing the marinade. I had less than 1 1/4 lbs of fish to start with (versus the 2 lbs the recipe calls for) so the liquid was more than sufficient for marinating, but next time I'll double it to have more sauce for the fish.

Placeholder Post

I just realized it's been a week since I posted. And sadly I've got nothing for you tonight except a note to say that I was in New Orleans eating the crap out of some food (and let's be honest, drinking the crap out of some wine and bourbon) and tomorrow I'm headed to the National Zoo for my annual day of volunteering and then attending their big fundraiser, Zoofari. I have some good pictures to share from my trip and will be back to cooking on Friday so stay tuned!

Mexican Beef & Ginger Carrot Slaw

I'm a Nom Nom whore. There, I said it. But, with recipes like her Oven-Braised Mexican Beef how can I not be? This is yet another recipe that is SO simple, but results in seriously delicious food.  Have you looked at the recipe? No? Well, go look at it. Beef, a few things those of us with a well stocked kitchen have on hand (stock, fish sauce, garlic, onion, tomato paste), and a jar of salsa. Slice an onion, season the meat, and pretty much dump everything in your pot and then go do something else for 3 hours. You don't even need to brown the meat!! I realize I seem excessively enthusiastic about that, but browning meat is annoying, and messy, and time consuming, and drilled into your head as a necessary step if you read anything about cooking.

Anywho, I served it alongside her Slaw with Tangy Carrot Ginger Dressing (don't skip the slivered almonds unless you can't eat nuts as they really add something) and the result was delicious:

By the way, I did not edit that photo. Yes, there are still harsh shadows from the shit lighting situation in my kitchen, but somehow I did manage a decent exposure and the depth of field I wanted. I realize it's not the prettiest plate and Gourmet won't be calling me anytime soon to offer me a job, but this is progress.

Weekend Update

A really fun weekend meant not too much time to cook or blog (and still no working out, more on that in a later post). Friday evening was spent listening to live music with a friend and tasting the new releases at the winery where I work.

I loved the Asian Chicken Thigh recipe from Nom Nom so much that I made them again, this time with skin-on, bone-in thighs, which did work a bit better. I also made the Avocado Slaw from PaleOMG. The latter was tasty, but even after amping it up with some extra lime juice and red pepper flakes and adding chopped cilantro, we felt it needed something. Next time I will add some minced jalapeno.

Saturday was spent at my Crossfit Box for the Jason Anthony Santora Memorial WOD. All I will say is that this was an incredibly well run event supporting two great causes and it was a ton of fun to be back at the box with my fellow Crossfitters. After a day of volunteering (and admittedly some drinking) a few of us carried on the fun at a restaurant down the street.

Here I am proudly supporting my new tank (and sunburn) from the fundraiser for PT Monday morning:

Sunday was devoted to giving my dogs some much needed exercise and attention. We hit up one of our favorite local spots, the Patuxent Wildlife Research Refuge to hike and play in the water. Skye especially enjoyed her romps in the water chasing sticks with her bestie, Ty. Here she is striking her meerkat pose:

That didn't leave much in the way of time for food prep, plus I was pretty exhausted so I took a nap and ate leftovers. However, on the agenda for this week are Nom Nom's Mexican Beef and Ginger Carrot Slaw and Mahi Mahi with Mango Salsa so stay tuned.

Maple Lard Pecan Scones

Scones. Damn if I don't love 'em, especially with a cup of coffee. So it's totally reasonable that when I came home to eat lunch after PT today, I also decided to "whip up" a batch of scones. The last time I made paleo scones I used almond flour, but I knew this time I wanted to use coconut flour so I went searching for a good recipe. Elana's Pantry is always one of the first places I look for pastry recipes and once again, she did not disappoint as I found this recipe for Paleo Chocolate Chip Scones.

I made a few modifications and bam! Maple lard pecan scones:

You know what I learned today? Coconut flour gives baked goods a very light, airy texture. That's why the magic brownies were so light and cakey. And that's why these are less dense than your usual scone, although not so much to be muffin-like in texture.

So what modifications did I make? I subbed lard for the vegan shortening, 3 T of Grade B maple syrup in place of the honey (you could do 1 T more or less to suit your tastes), and 1/3 c of chopped toasted pecans in place of the chocolate chips. I used a 1/8 c measuring cup to portion out "mini-scones" and baked them for about 16 minutes.

Magic Brownies & Condiments (not at the same time!)

You remember these Magic Brownie Bars I mentioned earlier, right? So I ended up making them for the also aforementioned BBQ at my friend's house. And they were, well, magical. Seriously, putting a layer of macaroon on top of a brownie - pure genius!

This was my first time making a paleofied baked good where the cake was mostly dates. I found the process a little fussy, for lack of a better word, but now that I've done it, I think I can improve the process a bit. Most notably, I read a tip to soak the dates in hot water, then drain before food processing to make creating the paste easier. The surprising thing to me though was the texture. These have a very airy, cake-like texture. I was expecting something much more dense and "wet" and may have overcooked them a little as a result so next time I will shoot for a few minutes less. I will also melt the macaroon ingredients without the coconut first, then mix the coconut in once those are well blended the next time I make these. And, rest assured, there will be a next time!

On a totally separate note, what's a girl to do when she still can't workout and has nothing on the agenda for the evening? Getting caught up on the budget is probably the correct answer, but that didn't sound fun so instead I decided to take advantage of the fact that my blender-hating puppy was having a sleepover with her best bud and make condiments. I had a pound of ground beef that needed to be used up so last night I did everything to make a meatloaf except actually cooking it. I minced some onion and a little green apple in the food processor, then added an egg, s & p, and mixed that all into the meat, formed it into a loaf, wrapped it in saran wrap and stuck it in the fridge. A basic meatloaf like this just screams for Heinz ketchup (hello, Pittsburgh girl here). Unfortunately, even the "simple" Heinz that's made with actual sugar instead of HFCS is very high in sugars so tonight, while the meatloaf was cooking in the oven, I set to making my own paleo ketchup.

I started with a recipe from my Primal Blueprint Healthy Sauces, Dressings, and Toppings cookbook and played with it as I went. In the end, I think I managed to get the zippiness that's characteristic of Heinz, but not much else. Unfortunately unless I want to defeat the purpose and add a ton of sweetener (albeit "natural" sweetener), my ketchup just isn't going to taste as sweet. And using tomato paste was a bad call. It's just a totally different beast than the cooked down tomatoes that go into Heinz. What I created is passable, but don't be surprised when you see a blog post about barbeque sauce in the near future. :P

One condiment I do care more about making myself and am actually successful at is mayo. Store bought mayo is generally made with canola and/or soybean oils, which like commercially raised meats have an unhealthy ratio of omega-6's to omega-3's so while I will occasionally use store bought organic mayo for convenience I prefer to have homemade on hand. The things I think are key for successfully making mayo at home?

1. Mix a little bit of very cold water into your egg yolk and acid before you start adding the oil (a ratio of 1 t of water to 1 egg yolk should work).
2. When you add the oil, go SLOW at first. If you think you can't go any slower, go slower. Like one drop at a time slow.
3. When the emulsion starts to actually look like mayo (you'll see it start to lighten in color as it builds in volume, but it will still be yellow, then just when you think it's never going to happen, it will start to look creamy and lighten in color), you can go faster. I use a hand mixer and just pour a thin stream right in between the 2 beaters. When I start to see streams of oil appearing in the mayo, I'll stop pouring for a second and give the bowl a few good swirls with the beaters then go back to adding the oil.
4. Make a double batch. It doesn't seem to take any longer to get to #3 above whether you use 2 yolks or one so you might as well be efficient and make more rather than less. I use a ratio of 3/4 c of sunflower oil to 1 egg yolk.

So what do you guys think I should do with all of this ketchup & mayo?

Green Curry with Shrimp, Calamari, & Bay Scallops

I made this for dinner tonight:

1. It was so good (really, isn't all curry?), but very hot. Very, very...very hot. I "garnished" with a lot of extra coconut milk, which left it very very hot, but oh so delicious.

2. I am not sober enough to write a real post so it will remain a mystery how I actually made the curry.

3. Off-dry gewurztraminer and spicy thai curry are one of life's great pairings. Hence I had to take a crappy photo of the food and wine together:

Seriously, I need to do something about the lighting in my kitchen. Or quit my job and start cooking my dinner during daylight hours.

Oh, in case you're wondering, that's an Atwater Gewurztraminer from the Finger Lakes in NY. It feels apt that I'm drinking it tonight since I bought it last year during Grapehounds and am headed to GIG (Greyhounds in Gettysburg) tomorrow. Yes, greyhound people are nuts and travel to special events centered around their dogs, but before you judge, know that I have met, gotten drunk with, and become good friends with some of the coolest people at these events.