Not Your Mother's Fish Sticks

When Whole Foods opened, I knew I had to go. I waited a few days and then chose the morning to beat the crowds. It's new, it's exciting, people go in herds.

When I approached the seafood counter, something caught my eye. Or maybe I caught its eye? Either way, they sell whole fish! I was extremely excited (yea that's right) and thought, "I've never cooked a whole fish before...let's see what happens.

Here's my whole red snapper.

Here's what you need for this bad boy

1 whole fish

1 lemon (slice only half of it)

1/2 orange sliced

olive oil to drizzle

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup dried couscous (no seasoning packet!!!)

1 cup water

1 teaspoon olive oil

 I will not play with my food. I will not play with my food. I am 26. I will not play with my food.

The guy at the seafood counter said score the outside. That means take a knife and cut long lines into the side. They can do that for you too. Then, drizzle some olive oil in the inside. Stuff it with orange and lemon slices. Drizzle more olive oil on the outside and add some sea salt.

Ready for the grill! Cook about 5 minutes per side. To see if it's done, peel back the skin with a fork or some tongs and scrap out a chunk. It should be white, not the translucent uncooked color, and still flaky.  Don't overcook it.

Meanwhile, let's make some couscous! This may be the only thing that's cheaper at Whole Foods vs. the other guys. When I was there, you could get a pound for around $2!!! A whole pound!!! That's insane!!!
Boil one cup water.

Add one cup couscous once your water is boiling. Add a teaspoon olive oil and a couple shakes of salt. Cover, turn off heat, and let it cook for about 10 minutes.

Once it's cooked, squeeze out the juice of half a lemon over your couscous. Here's an easy and effective way, take your tongs and place the lemon in between the handles. The tongs should be in the middle of the lemon. Then place your hand on the end of the tongs and squeeze! For maximum juice, spin the lemon around sideways and re-squeeze. Add some salt and pepper.

Fish is cooked! Now they real question is, how do you serve this? I used a knife to scrape off the meaty chunks on the side. Watch out for the almost clear little ribs that get stuck in the meat, they're not good to eat. You could probably serve this whole and look very fancy or European.

 Here's half of the fish, probably should have bought two. Serve with veggies of your choice!

Easy Tacos

Yea, I used the word easy. 

Here's what you need

1 lbs ground turkey

1 egg

taco shells of your choice

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

couple shakes of cayenne pepper

toppings of your choice (cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, whatever you're feeling)

First mix your egg and ground turkey in your pan. I like to use an egg with my ground turkey to moisten it up a bit. Just make sure it gets mixed and smothered over the meat, otherwise you'll end up with scrambled egg chunks. Cook on medium high heat.

Now mix your salt, cumin, paprika, brown sugar and cayenne pepper. Taste it, just a little bit, add more cumin/paprika if you want more smokey. Add more salt if you want more...salty. Add extra cayenne for the spice. And add more sugar if it's too salt/spicy/smokey. It's all about adding little bits to customize the taco seasoning to your needs.

 The meat is still cooking. Keep stirring it so it cooks evenly.

To help break up the ground turkey, I stab it with my spatula. Then you get those nice little meat pieces.

Add your tacos seasoning.

Continue cooking until you can't see any pink spots. Ground meat absolutely has to be fully cooked

Crunchy or soft? What kind of taco shell are you feeling?
Add you're toppings and eat!

Peach Whiskey BBQ Chicken

So I have been slacking on this whole blogging thing. It's not like I'm not cooking, or taking the pictures, I'm just being lazy about grabbing the ol' computer.

So I will make it up with a damn good recipe. I found this one on the adorable Pioneer Woman and made a few changes. I like to do that with recipes. They're a good start and then I just switch a few things and see what happens.

Here's what you'll need
8 chicken thighs (marvel at how cheap they are compared to chicken breasts!)
2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs olive oil
1/2 an onion chopped
6 oz+ whiskey
1 jar peach jam
2 cloves garlic peeled
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup ketchup
2 Tbs vinegar
2 Tbs brown sugar
2 Tbs worcestershire sauce
2 garlic cloves minced (for the sauce)
1 Tbs paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more if you like it hot, some do)

Now poor your olive oil in a big dutch oven like pot. Melt your butter in there. Go with medium-low heat and keep an eye on it. Don't burn your butter.

 Start your sauce. Combine ketchup, vinegar, minced garlic, brown sugar, worcestershire sauce, paprika, cumin, and cayenne and simmer that goodness.

 Once your butter is melted, take four thighs at a time, put them skin side down and turn up your heat to medium. Cook them until they are golden brown.

Flip and cook that side golden too.

 It helps to wiggle them occasionally with tongs so they don't stick. This stage crisps up the chicken. You don't want to lose the skin and thus the crispness.

 Cook the other four thighs the same way. Take the chicken out and set aside on a plate.
Now add your onion. If the amount of grease creeps you out, dump half of it. But don't dump it down your drain-it will clog it, kind of like it does your arteries... eventually. I put a couple paper towels in a cup, pour the grease in there, and let the paper towels absorb. Then I throw the paper towels away.
Preheat your oven to 300.

 Once your onion is cooked, add your jam, garlic cloves and whiskey. Be very careful if you have a gas stove and are cooking on an open flame. You get it, flame + alcohol = bad.
Then add your chicken. Cover and put in your oven for 1.5 hours.
I slacked off in picture taking here. But my ladies were over and we were hungry! No time!
I also grilled some corn, tasty awesome :)

Pepperoni Pizza

Here's what you'll need
2.25 cups flour
2.5 tsp yeast (or one package)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
2 Tbs cooking oil (you can also use olive oil)
8 oz fresh mozzarella
2-4 Tbs tomato paste
3 fresh sprigs of thyme (I have a thyme plant if you haven't guessed from all the other recipes) or 1/4 tsp of the dried stuff
garlic salt
olive oil to drizzle
sprinkle of corn meal (buy a box of corn bread mix)
pepperoni!

This dough makes two pizzas, but I only wanted one. So I made the full dough and just put the second pizza dough in the fridge .
Mix together 1.25 cups flour, yeast, and salt.
Oh yea, preheat your oven to 425.

Then add your warm water and oil. If you are using a mixer, make sure to stop it and push the flour down that builds up on the sides.
Add the rest of your flour.
Here's your dough!

 Knead the dough. To do so, perform CPR on the dough. Use both hands and push down, fold it in half, turn, and repeat the process for a couple minutes.

Split the dough in half. You have a decision to make. Two pizzas or one? If you go two, you're going to need more cheese and tomato paste than I listed above. Or you can just make one and store the  dough for later in the fridge.

 Sprinkle the corn meal on your cookie sheet or pizza pan. I don't have a round pizza pan, so my pizzas are just going to be square for a while.

 Roll out your dough so it fits in your pan. Now this isn't the prettiest shaped pizza. But that's ok, it's going to taste awesome.

It's decision time again. Do you want a crispy crust? If so, stab the dough with a fork (you could say prick, but stab is more fun, just don't go crazy and kill your dough) and put it in the oven for 5 minutes or so until it's slightly golden.
If you don't want super crispy, skip that step and continue on by sprinkling the dough with garlic powder. Then drizzle with olive oil.

 Grab your tomato paste and spread it evenly over your dough. I'm not a big saucy pizza person. I like to keep the sauce on a low level so it's just a nice piece of the puzzle and not the over whelming diva of the pizza.

 That's my sauce style.

 Now sprinkle the thyme all over.

 See, it's cute little green bits.

 Now add your pepperoni.

 You need the fresh cheese here. The way it melts is so much better than the stuff in a bag. It just blends across the pizza. And when you bit into it, it streches as you pull the pizza slice away from your mouth.
I went with mozzarella pearls. You could also buy the block of cheese and slice it.

 Lots of cheese! I used the whole package because I like a lot of cheese.
Now put your creation into the oven.

 Bake for 12 minutes, or until the cheese has evenly melted and gets a little golden.
Pepperoni will have that extra grease that pops up over your cheese. You could blot it, or get over it and accept the fact that you're eating pizza and it's really not supposed to be healthy, right?

Sous chef says, "pizza?!?!"

Seafood Pasta in a White Wine Sauce

I love white wine sauce. It's easy and delicious.

What you'll need

1 lbs Trader Joes seafood blend (or 1lbs of shrimp/scallops/calamari)

1/4 cup dry white wine (if you'd drink it, cook with it)

2 Tbs butter

2 garlic cloves minced

1 lbs orecchiette pasta (or another funky shape)

4 fresh thyme sprigs (or 1/2 tsp or the dry stuff)

Handful of frozen peas (I realized I didn't have any, but I did have edamame, that works!)

1 Tbs of chicken soup base

1 chopped green onion

First thaw your seafood in cool to lukewarm water. This could take 15 minutes or more.

I thought this pasta shape looked cool. A funky shaped pasta just adds that little something extra to a meal. Plus I haven't learned how to make funky shaped pasta yet, so I'm going with the dry stuff.

Now melt the butter. Go for medium-low heat and keep an eye on it. You don't want to burn your butter. This is what it looks like melted.

Start boiling your water to cook the pasta.
Now add the garlic.

 Add the peas/edamame and turn the heat up a small amount. Add your wine.

Then add your seafood. It will cook pretty quickly. In my opinion, it's better to have these guys a little on the under done side vs too done. Stir it to make sure it's cooking evenly.

 Pasta's done!

 Drain the pasta and add it to your seafood mix.

For a boost of flavor, I add some chicken soup base.
You'll know the shrimp is done when it turns pink.

Mix it all together and make sure the soup base melts evenly in the pasta-you don't want to bite into just a chunk of that on it's own.
Sprinkle with some green onion and smile because octopus is delicious.

Lazy (Kind of) Lasagna

Sometimes you decide you want lasagna. And sometimes you forget to buy the cheater "no cook" noodles. Then sometimes you don't feel like putting all the ingredients in perfect layers because your cooked noodles are sticking together. So sometimes you make lazy lasagna instead.

Here's what you need:

Pasta

2 eggs

1.5 cups flour

3 tablespoons water

dash of salt

teaspoon of olive oil

Sauce

1 large can of plum tomatoes

1 large can of tomato paste

6 large basil leaves

1/4 cup red wine

3 garlic cloves minced (chopped super tiny)

1/4 cup chopped onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Mix

1 zucchini chopped

1 red pepper chopped

1 small container of ricotta cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

First make your pasta. Ok, if you're really lazy you can use some egg noodles, the wider the better. But I didn't buy those and this blog is "Cook It From Scratch" so we are making our noodles.

Mix the eggs, flour, water, salt and olive oil until it forms a ball of dough. Too powdery? Add more water. Too sticky? Add more flour.

While it's mixing, take a big pot and cook the onion and olive oil on medium-low heat until the onion starts to soften. Then turn the heat down just a little and add your minced garlic.

 Now add both cans of tomatoes. Use a potato masher to squish the plum tomatoes.

Then add the basil, red wine (only cook with something you'd drink and then you can have a glass while you cook!) Mix it together, taste it, add some salt and pepper to taste. Start slow, you can always add more salt but you can't take it away...unless you add more of all of the other ingredients and just make a lot of sauce.

Mix it all together and turn the heat to the lowest setting. Cover.

Now knead your dough on a floured surface. It's like performing CPR and is very hard to take a picture of. Use both hands (ignore the fact that I'm only using one so I can take this picture) press down, fold the dough in half, and turn 90 degrees. Repeat this CPR step for a couple minutes.

Then let the dough sit for a few minutes. Check on your sauce. Taste it.

I have an amazing stand mixer with a pasta attachment. If you don't have one. Use a rolling pin. Roll it out as thin as you'd like. Then use a pizza cutter to cut the dough.

This is the cool pasta attachment. I rolled it through settings 1, 3, then 5.

Here's what it looked like after cutting it.

 Let the dough sit and chop your red pepper and zucchini.

 Check on your sauce again.

You can buy shredded cheese, but look at the ingredients-it's not just cheese. I use my food processor to grate a block of parmesan, much easier than by hand and it's real cheese.

Preheat your over to 350.
Mix egg, parmesan, and ricotta together. This is your "mix."

 Squishy.

 Here's what the pasta looks like uncooked and supervised by my sous chef.

Cook your pasta. You don't want to cook it for too long because it will get too squishy. Once it's cooked, put all of your ingredients together in a pan and mix it together. This is why it's called lazy, you don't stack all the ingredients, you just dump them in. In actual lasagna, you put a layer of sauce then noodles then mix then veggies and repeat and repeat and repeat. That takes a lot more time and sometimes the cooked noodles stick together and don't want to work with you.

 Add a little extra shredded parm on top.

Bake for 20 minutes covered. Then remove the cover for 10 minutes. Broil for 3 minutes or so until the cheese gets a little brown.

This makes a lot. You could practically eat it for a week. But it also freezes nicely.

Enjoy!