Fishy, Fish, Fish
This is a Tilapia on a bed of stir-fried vegetables. For the vegetables I sliced up about a third of a red, green, and yellow pepper. I just sliced them into stripes, nothing fancy. I also sliced up about a half of a small sweet onion and chopped up about two hand-fulls of spinach. In order to saute the veggies I heated up olive oil and put cube of mined garlic in the oil (I get frozen minced garlic from Trader Joe's). Once the oil was hot and the garlic had dissolved into the oil I added all of the vegetables except for the spinach. I added the spinach pretty much in the very minute of stir-frying. As for spices I just used salt and pepper and some crushed red pepper. The fish on the other hand was baked at 350 for about 12 minutes. I seasoned the fish with some soy sauce, lemon juice, lemon pepper, and "smoke" (another Trader Joe's staple, it's essentially a grinder with amazing spice blend that creates a smokey flavor to anything). All in all a pretty easy creation!
This is another pretty easy creation. If you can't tell I love spinach so I incorporate it in a lot of my meals. For this meal I boiled some cheese ravioli, once it was done I drained it and lightly browned in a pan with some butter. I think I used about three or four cups of spinach and I chopped it and sauteed it in a teaspoon of olive oil with a cube of garlic and seasoned it with very light salt and pepper. As for the shrimp they were frozen shrimp that I thawed for about 7 minutes under running cold water. While the shrimp were thawing I melted about a third of a stick of butter and put a cube of garlic in it and seasoned it with some lemon pepper. Once the shrimp were thawed I threw them into the melted butter and sauteed them for about four minutes until they started to get a little bit of color. I put the pasta and the spinach on the plate and threw a little bit of Parmesan cheese on top, then I added the shrimp making sure to let the butter drip off into the pan before putting the shrimp on the plate.
One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday morning is to make a huge breakfast. What you see in the picture is an iced coffee, a scrambled version of an omelette, and stuffed french toast. I sauteed onions, red bell peppers, and spinach together. On the side I whisked up three eggs with a little bit of milk and salt and pepper. Once, the veggies were sauteed I poured the eggs over and mixed it all in the pan. At the end I sprinkled it with shredded mozzarella cheese. My favorite part of this meal, however, was the french toast. I made the toast like you would any french toast, but the filling was the best part. I cut up a banana and mixed it with about a spoon full of whipped cream and a handful of almond slivers.
Let's Go Vegetarian
Every once in a while I prefer to cook vegetarian and this was one of those instances. This is noddles with vegan sausage and baked zucchini. The noodles are German Spatzle (pretty much thick egg noodles), and you boil them the same way you would any other noodle. Once they were done I threw back into the pot and put a little bit of butter in to help them separate and then added some chopped spinach and a little bit of cheese and mixed it all up. The sausage is vegan Italian sausage from Trader Joe's. I just cut up the sausage into rounds and threw it into a pan that I had lightly sprayed with Pam. I let the sausage brown on one side and then flipped over to let the other side brown. The zucchini I pealed, cut into rounds and put onto a lightly greased baking sheet. I put them in the oven, preheated at 350, for maybe 10-15 minutes (just keep checking until they start getting soft). Once the top is soft flip it over to crisp that side for about 6 minutes. Then broil it for about 1.5 minutes. And there you have a vegetarian meal!
My resent food obsession is seared tuna and I just had to try to make it myself. I bought a Ahi tuna steak from the local butcher section of the grocery store (Hy-Vee) and briefly marinaded it in some ginger-sesame dressing (from Trader Joe's) and a little bit of soy sauce and lemon pepper seasoning (don't ever use anything but the TJ's lemon pepper grinder, it is the best!). While the tuna was marinading I heated up a skillet with a mixture of olive oil and sesame oil, it was about half and half of each oil and there was enough oil to create a layer of oil over the entire pan. Once the oil was hot enough (pretty much borderline starting to burn) I put the whole steak in the pan for about a minute and half on one side and another minute and a half on the other. The amount of time depends on how rare you want it, I like mine to be just barely seared on the outside. The green beans were really easy I just threw them in a pan with a bit of butter, some soy sauce, a tiny bit of balsamic vinegar, and a bunch of pepper.
I was feeling like I was coming down with a cold this week and was craving something hearty so this meal ensued. I baked the Tilapia on 350 for about 12 minutes and the only things I seasoned it with was lemon juice salt and pepper. The stew below is red lentils that were cooked in chicken broth for about 20-25 minutes until they started to soft and mushy. Then added salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and a lot of cumin (I really like cumin, but you can do as little or as much as you like). Once the lentil stew came to another boil I added about four or five cups of spinach to the whole thing and stirred it a couple of times until the spinach was mixed in well enough. Then I took the fish and placed it on top of the stew. I think it could have also been good with the fish cut into chunks and mixed into the stew. On the side I have naan bread from Trader Joe's with some butter on top.
