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Simple Dishes: Baked Sole w/Fennel+Lemon

17 Mar

fennel sole - plated

Whole Foods had a big sale on wild sole last week, which inspired me to think of an easy way to eat a lot of the delicious fish.  I happened to have a lot of fennel in the fridge, and so I experimented with cooking the sole and fennel together — and discovered our new favorite way to cook sole!  The fennel and lemon pair perfectly with the fish.  Baking the fennel brings out a lot of the vegetable’s flavor and sweetness, and the lemon and garlic add a nice zesty quality to the dish.  The sole is so moist and flavorful!  This dish should typically serve about 4 people, especially when accompanied with another side vegetable, but, truth be told, it was so light and delicious we ate the whole thing when I made it last night!  This recipe will be a nice addition to my work-week dinner roster, as it is so simple to make and healthful, too!

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New ♥: Gefu Spirelli Spiral Slicer (and Super Simple Lamb+Olive “Bolognese” w/Zucchini “Pasta”)

17 Feb

13460-spirelli-spiral-cutter-gefu-detailA high school friend of mine and his girlfriend are on the raw food diet and are also vegetarian.  A while back over drinks, they told me about the wonders of the spiral slicer that can create beautiful spirals of vegetables — a perfect gadget for raw foodists, who, with it, could make raw vegetable “pastas” from carrots, zucchinis and the like.  The idea of the spiral slicer stayed on my mind, and so I finally purchased one recently.  There are a few types of spiral slicers out there, but I went with the Gefu Spirelli — and I LOVE it!

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Simple Dishes: Pan-Seared Wild Sockeye Salmon

10 Feb

sockeye salmon - plated

Sometimes, we just feel like eating a nice big piece of fish for dinner.  Wild sockeye salmon is one of our favorite weekday fish, because it is so quick and easy to cook.  It takes less then 10 minutes to pan-sear sockeye salmon filets to crispy-skin perfection.   Sockeye salmon is firmer than your regular salmon, with deep, orange-red color and rich, full, salmon-y flavor.  It is leaner than King Salmon, and less expensive.  I think sockeye salmon is best cooked simply — just make sure to not over cook it, as it will dry out.  Since David and I try to avoid eating farmed salmon as well as salmon with “added color” (usually goes hand in hand), sockeye salmon has become our favorite salmon variety to cook at home (along with coho salmon, which, when in season, is also delicious).  Currently, sockeye salmon found in super markets tend to be “previously frozen” (i.e. not in peak season), but we think they still taste delicious!

Here’s how I pan sear my sockeye salmon filets:

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Crispy Spiced Chicken Thighs

21 Jan

spiced chicken - plated

My Spicy Lemon Paprika Chicken Thigh recipe is one of the most frequently visited posts on my blog — I think because we all love a simple but flavorful way of oven roasting skin-on chicken thighs (and indulging in deliciously crispy chicken skin).  I recently created a variation of the recipe, a marinade with more spices — I wanted to layer on more flavor in the marinade and see what happened.   The result was excellent, and also different, so I hope everyone who has tried the Spicy Lemon Paprika recipe will try this new recipe, too!  What I like about this new marinade is the slight sweetness from the cinnamon, as well as the aroma of fennel seeds as well as a hint of cloves.

Here’s how:

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Sauteed Enoki Mushrooms w/Spinach

9 Dec

enoki spinach - serve

Seven years go, David and I lived for a couple years in the Upper Eastside.  A time long before our gluten-free days, our favorite neighborhood place for Chinese food delivery was Café Evergreen (which, it seems, has now closed).  One dish in particular remains in my mind, mostly because it was so simple yet surprisingly satisfying: sauteed enoki mushrooms with spinach.  I recently had 2 bunches of enoki mushrooms and spinach sitting in my fridge that I needed to use, so I decided to make my own interpretation of the Café Evergreen dish.  This veggie dish is very simple, quick, and delicious.  The enoki mushrooms almost feel like “noodles.”  I didn’t have any fresh ginger on hand, so I used ground ginger, which worked fine — but next time, I’ll probably use fresh grated ginger instead. Continue reading →

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Sauteed Black Tuscan Kale w/Red Onions+Garlic

8 Dec

kale - tuscan kale

‘Tis the season for winter greens!  I recently found on sale these these little bunches of black Tuscan kale, locally produced by Satur Farms.  They are smaller than your more typical kale, and have a bumpy, crinkly surface.  In the past, David hasn’t been the biggest fan of kale — he finds kale bitter and its stems too tough.  I thought I’d give the black Tuscan kale a try anyway, mostly because they looked pretty.  Surprisingly, David LOVED the black Tucan kale and couldn’t get enough of it!  The black Tuscan kale has an earthier, almost sweeter flavor than the large type of kale, and the texture is lovely — the leaves are soft but not mushy .  After blanching the kale, I cooked the leaves very simply with sauteed red onions and garlic — a perfect pairing with a pork chop.

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Simple Dishes: 7-min Chicken Salad

23 Sep

We had half of a store-bought rotisserie chicken leftover in the fridge.  Although delicious while hot, store-bought rotisserie chickens are usually not so great cold.  Yesterday, I used the leftover chicken to make a simple chicken salad — the salad took about 7 minutes to make, and turned out to be a very tasty way to eat the leftover chicken!

Here’s how:

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Simple Dishes: Caramelized Balsamic Red Onion/Garlic Scramble

25 Aug

When we recently returned from vacation, there was hardly anything in our fridge to eat the next morning: a half-dozen eggs, 2 medium red onions, a couple of cloves of garlic.  For breakfast the next morning, I caramelized the red onions with garlic, then de-glazed the onions with balsamic vinegar before adding the eggs… the result was delicious!  I topped the eggs with some basil right from our garden, and we had a lovely breakfast indeed.

Here’s how:

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Portabella+Shiitake Beef Meatballs (topped w/garlic broccolini)

21 Jul

We love meatballs for dinner, not only because they are simple to make and delicious, but also because they make great leftovers.  My favorite type of beef meatballs are stuffed full of mushrooms, which give the meatballs a juicy, earthy flavor.  Here’s an easy recipe for beef meatballs I often make at home.  In this instance, I added some crispy, garlicky broccolini on top — so it’s a complete meal of meat and vegetables!

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Grilled Shishito Peppers

28 May

I love grilled shishito peppers, and am able to eat great quantities of them in one sitting.  Grilled shishito peppers appear to be trending at restaurants these days, which is understandable as they make for great bar snacks.  If you come across good looking shishito peppers (I found some at Fresh Direct recently), it’s super easy to make them at home.

Here’s how I grill them:

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