When the Blues Go Marching In...

I could start this post off writing about why I haven't posted in such a long time...or I could just start with the recipe, save you some time, pretend the gap never happened, and pick up where I left off...

This past Thursday night, my roommate Matt and I had made plans to watch hockey, but it wasn't just just any hockey game - it was the St. Louis Blues versus the New Jersey Devils. Translation: my team against his team. So I thought I'd at least make a good meal before the game began and someone ended the night unhappy.

Pad Thai - one of my favorite dishes and if you've never made it, I hope the rest of this post will help nudge you closer to making it.

Ingredients:

   - 1 Pad Thai Kit (Asian Creation was the name on the box I bought - it included rice noodles and peanut sauce)

   - 1 lb. chicken breast (as much or as little chicken as you'd like)

   - 1 egg

   - Carrots (either buy matchstick carrots or cut them yourself)

   - Green onions

   - Bell Pepper

   - Lime wedges

   - Peanuts (a solid handful will do)

Directions:

1. Boil a pot of water. I followed my step-mom's instructions for cooking the rice noodles and it goes as follows: Lay out the rice noodles in a 9x13 baking dish (basically a casserole pan). Pouring the boiling water over the rice noodles and loosely cover the pan. I used a cookie sheet to cover the dish to help keep the steam and heat contained. Set the timer for 20 minutes and let the boiling water do the rest.

2. Cut up the chicken into bite size pieces. Lightly season the chicken (I used salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes). Using 1 tbsp. of vegetable oil, cook the chicken on your stove top, flipping as needed to ensure the chicken cooks throughout. This should take between 5-8 minutes, depending on your stove top. Place the chicken on a plate off to the side and cover with foil.

3. Next, you'd want to scramble the egg. Unfortunately, I did not have any eggs in my place when I was cooking, but it's a delicious part of the meal so it has to stay in the recipe. 

4. Cut up your carrots (if needed), peppers, and onions into small pieces. The peppers you can cut how you like them, either small bite size pieces or strips, whichever you prefer.

5. Steam the veggies for a few minutes to have the flavors begin to blend together. I used the same pan that I cooked the chicken in, because I'm trying to use as few dishes as possible (less cleaning)! Add a little bit of water and cover.

6. Combine the rice noodles, chicken, egg, and veggies into a big pot. 

7. Add the peanut sauce to the pot and stir thoroughly to make sure everything mixes nicely. 

8. Cut up the limes into wedges

9. Mash up the peanuts into bite size pieces - I did have a wooden spoon or anything like that, so I improvised and used a hammer! Put the peanuts in a ziploc bag and starting smashing!

10. You can serve the peanuts and limes on the side and allow for your guests to add as little or as much as they'd like.

11. Bon Appetit!

Recommendation: If you like spicy, add some sriracha on top

Wait, there's more! I mentioned that Matt and I were going to watch a hockey game...in a first for my blog, we have a drink recipe to be shared! Now that I'm of age to legally consume delicious beverages, you might see more posts including drink recipes. Or, maybe not.

But anyways, for tonight's game, the drink I made was eloquently called...the Blues shot,

Ingredients:

   - your favorite vodka 

   - blue curacao

   - lime juice

Directions: Mix equal parts of each into a shaker. Translation: pour a shot of each into your shaker and start shaking! You can skimp on the lime juice if needed. 

Yes, those are despicable me shot glasses!

And to complete the post, let the record show that the Blues did in fact beat the Devils 4-3. Let's Go Blues!

Simple Cookin! (And a Bonus Section!)

Howdy all! Somehow it's the 10th of September today...so much for increasing the frequency of my postings. But, never fear, here I'm am, writing this post. And for those who are counting, this definitely wins more points than the homework I could be doing...let's write!

I rolled into my apartment at 8:30pm tonight and boy was I hungry...time to check the fridge and find out what I can cook. Operation inspiration began yet again. This one actually started with the freezer where I had some frozen chicken breasts - check. Then onto the fridge: pull open one of my drawers and there's a bag of broccoli - check. Went to the pantry next: my eyes settled on a 1/3 filled bag of pasta - check.
Chicken. Pasta. Broccoli. How'd I do it?

Chicken: shocker alert here, I followed the instructions on the bag. Preheat the oven to 375 F, place frozen breast onto a foil-covered cookie sheet, bake for 20 minutes. So I did all of that, but before I put the chicken in the oven, I sprinkled Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute onto the chicken (you could insert you favorite spice blend instead).
Some notes to take care of: Make sure the chicken is cooked throughout! If you have a kitchen thermometer (that's probably not what's it's called), poke your chicken and see how hot it is internally. If not, the taste and eyes test can be deployed. Also, not all chicken can go straight from freezer to oven, you might have to thaw first. Check the instructions.

Pasta: Simple stuff here, I cooked orecchiette pasta (sounds fancy, I know). Remember to always boil the water first - especially if you live in my apartment where it takes quite a while to boil. Here's my sauce concoction for the evening: Olive oil, butter, alfredo sauce, red pepper flakes, oregano. I got these from my fridge and just put together a little bit of everything. I intentionally went light with most of it because I didn't want one flavor to complete dominate - every bite was more of an adventure this way!

Broccoli: I put the broccoli into a pampered chef microwavable steamer, added a little water, salt, and pepper, and put it in the microwave to steam - again, pretty simple stuff.

And poof, you've got yourself a well balanced meal that tackles multiple food groups! 

P.S. I really didn't go into a lot of nitty-gritty detail here, so if you'd like more info or instruction, just ask!

BONUS: Check out my dinner from last night:

And one more BONUS: Here's the crew I shared the meal with! The food is important but so is the company that you eat with!

Caution: Selfie Sighting!

Hunger Action Month

Yes we talk about food a lot on this blog, but we must recognize our great fortunate...

September is Hunger Action Month, a campaign organized by Feeding America to help drive awareness and action to solving hunger issues. It's their campaign, read about it by clicking here. Take note of ways in which YOU can contribute to finding a solution.

As I continue to post this month, I'll mention and talk to the issues of hunger - 1 in 6 Americans struggle with hunger. 

How will you help?

Back Again!

Welcome to September! And welcome back to Joe's Jamaican Dinner! 

But before we get to September, let's talk August...somehow I managed to keep my blog silent all last month - not good, not good. But rest assured, I still ate dinner on most nights although I failed to post once...ONCE!

So as we get into September, I might drop in some pics and recipes from August, but most will be fresh content, like the rest of this post...

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I had just played basketball with some friends yesterday afternoon, including my apartmentmate (that's not a word) Matt. Matt and I returned home with growling bellies - the clock had struck whatever time and we were hungry! So we decided to make the following: Chicken and Pasta. That seems so bland, so we cranked it up a few notches.

Here's how we prepared the Chicken:

--We used leftover chicken that I brought home from a meal earlier in the weekend. Still not sure what sauce was on the chicken to begin with but we went with it. I cut up the chicken into small, bite size pieces.

--In a pan, I melted some olive oil, butter, and garlic. Yes I said some, because I could not tell you how much I used. I just poured "some" olive oil in, scooped "some" butter in, and dropped "some" minced garlic in.

--Then I added the chicken and combined the flavors over a low heat and stirred occasionally.

We cooked a pound of pasta but our last-minute decision was what sauce to use. We didn't want to use marinara sauce, just weren't in the mood. So I opened the fridge, looked around, and...got creative! We made our own sauce and if you've read my blog before, you'll know the concoction.

In a mixing bowl, I added some maple syrup, sriracha, lime juice, and salt...yep, I did it again with the "some" quantity. Poured a little bit of everything into the bowl and kept tweaking it until I had a delicious sauce! This specialty is especially tasty, because it's a great blend of sweet and spicy - sweet from the maple syrup and spicy from the sriracha.

Drizzled the sauce all over those noodles and then went after it! Bon Appetit! The blog is back in action!

An Instant Classic

Oh, what a day! I slept in, worked out, and spent some quality time at the pool. But when I got back from the pool, I needed to make some lunch. My options were: 1) make a PB&J, eat quickly, not so filling, etc. or option #2:  cook up something. Think you can guess which one I chose?

If you guessed right, you're still reading this post - because yes, I did decide to whip something up. And once I decided that I wanted to make something, my mind took off trying to figure out what I could make. Here's how my thought process working:
"Hmmmm, what sounds good?" (as I open the fridge and pantry). I spot an already opened box of jumbo shells that I had used earlier in the week (which reminds me, I will be posting that meal shortly - I just got excited about this meal so I'm posting it first). "Alright, this is good, but what do I pair it with?" I don't want to open an entire jar of marinara sauce, so I look through my fridge and found pesto! But I only have so much left and don't want to use it all on this meal...hmm "how do I make a creamy pesto?". Looked that up and realized I had most of the necessary ingredients so that will work.

So after doing this type of thinking for 7 minutes, I had an idea of what I was going to do: Egg and cheese stuffed shells covered in pesto! Let's do this!

Sneak peak of the end results

1. Boil water in a saucepa, big enough to fit all of your jumbo shells, and once it boils, add in your shells
2. Time to make the pesto sauce
• Oh yeah, I totally decided to ab-lib this. I used pesto, butter, cream cheese, parmesan cheese, and minced garlic - basically everything I had in my fridge.
• I realized early on that I didn't want to make a ton of sauce, so I added two spoonfuls of pesto, a bit of butter, cut off some cream cheese and dumped that it, shook out some parmesan cheese, and knocked in some minced garlic.
• Yeah, that's how I did it - sorry if you're trying to follow this post and make it exactly like I did. If you want to make it how I did, don't bother taking out a measure cup - just bring along your tastebuds and go for it!
3. Scrambled three eggs with a little salt and pepper
4. Cut up some small cubes of cheese (I used havarti with dill, a personal favorite)
5. When the pasta is fully cooked, (typically 10-12 minutes because the shells are bigger, some would even call them "jumbo"...yes, it's ok to laugh at my bad jokes), drain the water out.
6. Stuff your shells
• Grab a shell, add a small spoonful of eggs, a cube or two of cheese and put on your plate
• Repeat until your plate is sufficiently filled to your liking
• Take a small spoonful of pesto and lay out on top of each shells, not completely covering the shell but proportionally just enough (that's how I thought when I put spread on top, I don't know).
• To add a little garnish and color on top, sprinkle red pepper flakes on top of the pesto.
• I thought of red pepper because it's something I would add to pasta and also to eggs, so of course it would work for this dish
7. Take a picture and dig in! (This is funny, because this is what I do every time before I eat now, so that I have photo evidence for my posts)

Wow that looks good! Oh wait, I got to eat that.

Here's too a little Saturday afternoon creativity!

This One's for the People - Part 1

I like to think I'm a man of the people, so you must give the people what they want. Which means that I will be posting recipes on the top two selected dishes from my last post's vote (does that even make sense)/?

So here we go:

BEWARE: Prepare to have your mind NOT blown away!

Ingredients:

• Deli meat of your choosing
• They serve Boar's Head meat at my local deli so I splurge every now and then and get it.
• On this particular sandwich, I have the maple turkey breast and some chipotle chicken breast (it was on sale, definitely a bargain)
• A slice of cheese (you can put two on if you're really feeling your oats)
• Oh yeah, you get to choose the cheese. I went with swiss.
• Two pickles
• Kraft Sun-Dried Tomato Salad Dressing
• Alright so here's a little secret. I don't like mayo or mustard on my sandwich but at the same time, who likes a dry deli sandwich? Ketchup could only get me through my early years but I've evolved my tastes. Yes it's a salad dressing, but it's delicious. And because I don't always like a cut tomato on my sandwich, this still gives it a similar enough flavor...or at least I've convinced myself it does
• Butter
• Two slices of sandwich bread
• I kind of feeling silly putting this because you're making a sandwich, so of course there's bread, right?

Directions:

1. Make a sandwich with the above ingredients (You got this!)
2. Pretend the sandwich you've just made is actually a grilled cheese and proceed to step 3
3. Butter one side of your "Grilled Cheese" and cook in a pan on the stove for about one minute (or until bread gets that perfect grilled cheese color on it...if you don't know what that is, then maybe look it up?)
4. Before you flip the sandwich over, make sure the side that has not been cooking is sufficiently buttered
5. Flip sandwich and cook until you get that same color (about 1 minute)
6. Cut in half and eat it!

Recap:

Alright, by now you might feel overwhelmed by this post and feel like you're missing something. Well, you're not. All I did was make a regular sandwich...but then I realized how great it would be if my bread were toasted and I didn't want to pull apart my sandwich just for the bread. So I decided to butter 'er up and cooked it like a grilled cheese...if you still think my directions involved you making a grilled cheese, I'm sorry, but ti was simply a reference to the process of buttering the bread and cooking in a pan.

--

It was simply enough, however there was enough of a flair that the sandwich had a little more deliciousness to it!  

P.S. This is a what a grilled cheese looks like

Pick your favorite!

Alright, my posts have slowed up substantially, but my cooking has not. And because things have changed, so will this post. Instead of me writing out the entire recipe for my last meal, I want you to tell me what meal you'd like me to write the recipe for!!

Below you'll find a bunch of pictures for recent meals, so tell me which one you want to see more of by posting a comment below!

A

B

C

D

E

F

Steak Sundays!

Hello all, back at it again with tonight's meal. I was flipping through my fridge and freezer and decided that I want steak...it is decided! I put it on the counter and watched it thaw. Ok I didn't actually pull up a chair and stare at the steak thawing, but I did make sure to pull out the steak early enough in the day so that it was good to go when I was ready. Alright time to cook:

I actually followed my previous steak cooking process from one of my first posts, which you can conveniently find by clicking here. I really don't want to just copy and paste that post, although I'm quite tempted. So instead I'll just give some highlights and you can check out the old post for specifics.

• I again used garlic powder, salt, and pepper to season my steak and found it do be oh-so-delicious. Now let me give you some background: I'm a big A1 steak sauce guy and use a considerable amount when eating steak. Well, with this steak tonight, no steak sauce was used! And maybe because I actually don't have an A1 in my fridge, but we'll chalk this one up on account of the steak being so flavorful.
• I cooked the steak in the oven on high broil (I have no idea how hot that actually is), flipped it every 5 minutes for the first 15 minutes and then continually checked the steak to get it as well as I wanted it.
• I'm thinking "Steak Sundays" could actually turn into a thing. It's a great way to get the week ahead going, and going in the right direction. Check back for more details to see if this actually happens.
• I didn't have just steak tonight. I also whipped up some hash brown potatoes which are quite easy to make. Throw some olive or vegetable oil in a pan, dumped the potatoes in, flip a couple of times and cook until golden brown. Also try following the directions on the package, that usually works too.
• Also made some broccoli. Put some in a bowl, added a little water and salt, and cooked in the microwave for 3 minutes. Pretty simple way to cook some broccoli and get that much need green in your meal.

That's all, folks! (P.S. Happy belated birthday to America!)

Chicken Pasta Dish

As you've noticed, I've slowed the frequency of my blog posts, for multiple reasons. First is that I've gotten good at making my meals for two people, which means I have enough leftovers for the next night...and that means less cooking. Also, I'e started repeating recipes and those don't need to be posted again. The reasons continues, but by now you want to see some food!

Last week before I left for work, I had moved some chicken from the freezer and into the fridge to thaw out so that by the time I returned home that evening, my chicken would be ready to go...and that almost worked! The chicken was close to being thawed throughout, so I just soaked it (in the package) in cold water and finished 'er off.

Oh yeah, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. First thing I did after thawed the chicken was to boil the water for my pasta...always takes the longer than you think so I try to do it first.

While the water boiled, I started cutting up the chicken into smaller, bite-size pieces. I've cooked chicken both on the stove and in the oven, and for whatever receive, I decided the stove top was the answer for tonight.

I coated the pan in pam (hah!) and tossed the chicken in. I added some black pepper, red pepper flakes, and garlic salt to season the chicken just a bit. This will only take about 6-8 minutes to cook, but the time here is just an estimate. Flip the chicken constantly, making sure it is cooking throughout. You need to make sure to check the toughness of the chicken and make sure it's moist. If you only were to listen to my time guidelines, there's a decent chance you'll end up with dry chicken...and you probably don't want that.

I poured in the pasta (about half a box's worth) at just about the same time as I started the chicken. When the pasta was cooked, I strained it and left it in the strainer while I added the pesto. Here's the recipe I followed:
-1/4 cup of butter
-3 tablespoons minced garlic
-1/4 cup pesto

After following this recipe, I'd recommend using less butter and more pesto. I found the flavor to not be as pesto-y as I wanted, so added more pesto would be my suggestion...

By now, you've noticed that there's a salad in this meal too...but I didn't make it! Luckily, I had some assistance from my friend Andrea to whip up the salad. She enjoyed my cooking and lives to see another day! (Ok, my cooking is not nearly close to being that bad, promise!)

Bon Appetit!

Chicken Sammie

Tonight I pulled some chicken out of the freeze and thawed it out by placing it in cool water for an hour. While I let the chicken thaw, I went to the internet for some inspiration - to find a way to combine the ingredients I had to make something delicious. 

It started when I realized I had two left over hamburger buns...chicken sandwich it would be! I had two chicken breasts to cook and decided I would bake them in the oven. I set the oven to 450 F and to season the chicken, I sprinkled on some 21 Seasoning Salute, a Trader Joe's brand. I put in the oven and baked for 15 minutes. 

While I was scanning the web, I came across a Chicken Cheesesteak sandwich...and that's when I remembered I had bell peppers! So while the chicken was cooking, I cut up some red bell pepper and sauteed them in a pan on the stove with some olive oil. 

As soon as I pulled out the chicken from the oven, I laid a piece of cheese on top of it to melt a little. Then a little plating, added some BBQ sauce, and I had myself a tasty chicken sammie!

Pretty simple stuff here. Warmed up some left over quinoa from a previous meal and I had a nice dinner. I was thinking about adding a salad to start, but that just didn't end up happening. 

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese...Hamburgers!

Yesterday, I had a few friends over to watch the Stanley Cup Final and figured hamburgers would be an easy meal to make...And then we decided to fix it up a little bit and as the title suggest, we made ourselves some delicious Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Hamburgers (Insert cool name for burger here!).

I started with 1.5 lbs. of ground chuck and formed 6 1/4 lb. burgers. I seasoned with garlic powder, salt and pepper and cooked them in the oven using the broiler. I used my same trick, where I cover the pan in foil for easy cleanup. I flipped the burgers ever 5 minutes and cooked for about 15 minutes, give or take a few for how well done each of us wanted our burgers.

While I prepped and cooked the burgers, my friend Clay worked on cooking the bacon. Bacon is pretty darn easy, just throw it in a saute pan on the stove and cook on low heat to prevent grease from splattering everywhere. He used tongs to flip the bacon and cooked until the bacon was nice and crispy. Just a friendly reminder, bacon grease does not go down the disposal! We poured in a cup and then to dispose of, either throw outside in the grass or dump in the trash. Oh yeah, and you probably also want to pat the bacon after it cooks to remove some of the grease.

Now the interesting part. Well it shouldn't have been so interesting except for my shortcomings. I had never fried an egg before, much less done over-easy or over medium. Needless to say, it was a learning experience. They came out as more over-easy/medium, but on the third egg, I was a little impatient, tried to flip too early, and spilled the egg everywhere -  on the burner, on the side of the pan, it was a mess. I definitely should have stopped and cleaned the pan, but of course, as an amateur and not thinking, I kept on cooking. I'm certainly not perfect and some picture evidence is a great reminder.

But it the end, the burgers turned out really well and it was not that hard to make! We served with chips to keep it easy, but of course a nice side dish would be great here.

Delicious!

Let me know what you think!

I also need to throw some credit to my friend Daniel for fanning the smoke out of the air and preventing the smoke detector from going off again!

Sriracha Salmon

On Thursday night I decided I was going to have salmon, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to prepare it. Luckily, with a little help from Cate, we found a great recipe that was easy to follow and delicious to make!

Here it is:

One of my friends asked me if I thought of that sauce on my own...I did not, but that's the hope that one day I'll understand flavors enough that I'll be able to get crafty and throw something nifty together. Anyways, I followed the recipe except I used 1 lb. of salmon and did not use the chopped cliantro.

Before entering the oven

To complete my meal, I made quinoa and broccoli. Quinoa is really easy to make, I followed the instructions on the box. Only thing to note here is that it takes about 15 minutes to cook, so make sure you start it right around the time you throw the fish in. Also, quinoa lasts for days and is a great leftover to heat up quickly to supplement another meal (like lunch leftovers!).

Now I couldn't quite figure out the way I wanted to prepare the broccoli. I ended up throwing the broccoli in boiling water for about 4 minutes and then strained it after. The broccoli was alright, definitely not the best, so I'm looking for suggestions on broccoli prep. It'd be great if I had a steamer and just could throw it in the microwave, but I don't...so other ideas are welcomed! Click here to share some advice

After cooking...yum!

Finished product!

Need a Quick Meal? Try this!

On Monday, I made the following: Chicken pesto, salad, and fruit.

For the chicken, I had removed from the fridge the day before and had thawed it out in the fridge. I cooked the chicken on the stove top, so first, I cut up the chicken into small bite size pieces. Then, I sprayed the pan with olive oil (you can use pam/canola oil, etc.). Dump the chicken in and a minute or two later, spoon in as much pesto as desired. I had bought store bought pesto and had it in my fridge, so it was easy to add in.

Cook the for about 8 minutes or as long as it takes to cook through. You'll want to check the chicken, make sure it's still moist inside but cooking well on the outside before eating.

For the salad, cut up whatever vegetables/toppings you'd like and you've got yourself a salad!

Tried to keep this post short, so ask questions if you need help/clarification!

Mint Brownies!

This recipe goes out to the Rembold Family, for sharing this yummy recipe with me! 

Couple notes about these brownies:

-You'll be making a three layer brownie: Brownie, Mint, and Chocolate

-This recipe takes time! You want to make sure each layer sets completely before you try spreading a new layer on top, or else all will mush together...

-My suggestion: Make the brownies when you know you'll have an extended amount of time to let them cool after. When I recently made these, I made the brownies at night and then got to adding the second layer in the morning...worked really well!

Great for sharing with friends or to bring with for a dinner party!

Steak and Shrimp

After a week hiatus on the blog life...I'm back with some meals to post!

Last Saturday, Cate and I whipped up my first dinner in my apartment for the summer. And what a better way to bring in a new place like a nice steak dinner. 

This meal consisted of the following: Steak,Shrimp, Salad, Potato, and Pineapple:

First things first, you got to turn on the oven. For this meal, I used the broiler and cooked my steak in the oven. I set the broil setting to high. Then, I started adding spices. I coated all sides of the steak with garlic powder and then coated only the top and bottom with salt and pepper. SPECIAL TIP: I covered the broiler with foil and cooked on top of the foil, so that after the steak was cooked, the cleanup would be super easy!

I then placed the steaks on the covered broiler and placed in the oven for 15 minutes. After the first 5 minutes, I flipped the steak a quarter turn. And five minutes later, I did another quarter turn and rotated the steak around, because the further in the oven, the faster it cooks, so I wanted to make sure the steak cooked evenly throughout. Then around the 13-15 minute mark, you need to start checking the steak and cooking to desired level.

NOTE: If you’re reading this, I’ve probably never used your oven and have no idea how quick/slow your oven cooks. So take the times I give with a grain of salt and know that you’re going to need to monitor how well the steak cooks.

That’s all I did for the steak!

For the shrimp, I bought uncooked, pre-cut shrimp (I think about ½ lb. if I remember correctly). First, I rinsed the shrimp and then used a paper towel to pat the shrimp and get some of the water out. Next, I made a small aluminum foil dish, by folding in the ends of the piece I ripped off. The dish was big enough to hold all the shrimp and it’s important to keep the ends up to serve as a mini handle when you pull them out of the oven…so yes, that means I cooked them in the oven.

But before I put them in the oven, in a mixing bowl, I poured in BBQ sauce and honey and stirred around to make sure all shrimp was covered. Then I sprinkled on some red pepper flake to give the shrimp a little kick (This is optional if you don’t want the spice). After, I dumped the coated shrimp into the aluminum dish I made.

When the steak had about 3-4 minutes left, I put the aluminum dish right in the oven on the rack. Try to flip the shrimp if possible and after about 4 minutes, you should be good to go!

The tricky part now is pulling the aluminum out of the oven. It will be hot, but aluminum doesn’t retain heat for very long. If you’re not comfortable pulling out the aluminum, then I’d suggest cooking the shrimp in something else. I use the aluminum, because, of course, there’s no additional cleanup!

Potato this time was simple. I bought a pre-wrapped potato from the grocery and cooked in the microwave per the instructions on the wrapping.

Salad was simple too. I cut up some bell peppers, green onions, carrots, and gouda cheese and toss them all in.

Pineapple: Cutting a pineapple wasn’t as difficult as I had anticipated. Cut off the top and bottom and then make sure you skin the sides. Here’s the catch with pineapple., you can cut it as closely as you want, meaning the pineapple can be smooth and juicy, or, if you leave the inside core, tough and chewy. If you want to remove the core, cut the pineapple in half and then each half into strips. Once in strips, it's easy to find the tough core...cut it out, cut the remain pineapple into the desired size, and enjoy.

Bon Appetit!

Fish Tacos!

I really thought I was going to write this post last night immediately after dinner...so much for that.
Alright, let's get to it. I made fish tacos yesterday and found it to be a simple dish to make.

Ingredients:

1. 1-2 tbsp of Olive Oil
2. 1 pkg of fish - I used Mahi-Mahi (only $6.99 at the grocery!)
3. 2 tbsp taco seasoning
4. 1/2 cup water
5. 1/2-1 bell pepper cut in strips (use as much or as little as you like - I used 1/2)
6. 1 lime
7. Coleslaw (yes, you can use the pre-packaged kind)
8. Handful of Shredded Carrots (if you're feeling lucky)

Directions (for cooking on stove top):

1. Coat pan with olive oil
2. Put fish in pan and flip every 3 minutes for 10-12 minutes (this time will vary depending on how thawed out the fish is)
3. Immediately after putting the fish in the pan, add the 2 tbsp of taco seasoning and the 1/2 cup of water
4. Towards the end of cooking the fish, you'll want to flake apart the fish into smaller pieces
5. After doing this, add the peppers and carrots and stir
6. Add lemon juice
7. Serve with coleslaw as garnish

Okay so maybe the carrots actually provided a little color and crunch too.

Works great with Guac, so how about a quick guac recipe:

-Use 3 avocados, cut open and squeeze out insides (I've explained the technique in a previous post)

-Add some fresh salsa, like the jar you see in the picture above.

-Squirt on some lime juice throughout the bowl, to prevent browning and for flavor.

-Start off with a little salsa and add more as desired for the flavor you want...yes, you have to try it and see how it tastes!

Here's my plate, but I could definitely use some work on my plating abilities.

Look at this thing! You probably want one...and I don't blame you!

Note: Yeah, we used fresh berries as our fruit, which was delicious, but fish tacos would pair better with pineapple...I'll try that next time.

The First Supper

This was my first adventure into the untraveled frontier known as the kitchen. So bear with me as I explore and tinker with my postings..

About two weeks ago, I prepared part of dinner, but I really just want to talk about one dish in particular. I'm calling it a Shrimp Ceviche, but the name from the website says "Zesty Lime Shrimp and Avocado Salad".

Ingredients:

1 lb jumbo cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined, chopped*

1 medium tomato, diced

1 avocado, cubed (see photo above - chunks are desired)

1 jalapeno, seeds removed, diced fine (add less then 1 if you don't want it so spicy)

1/4 cup chopped red onion (be prepared to cry - I learned the hard way!)

2 limes, juice of

1 tsp olive oil

1 tbsp chopped cilantro

salt and fresh pepper to taste

Prep time is dependent on how well you can cut the ingredients up and for a first timer, it took me longer than it probably will for most.

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, mix together the red onion, lime juice, olive oil, and pinch of salt and pepper.
2. Let this mix marinate for at least 5 minutes
3. In a large bowl, combine shrimp, avocado, tomato, and jalapeno.
4. Combine all ingredients together, adding cilantro and then gently toss.
5. Serve with your favorite chip (pretzel chips are one of my go-to's)

It's a delicious dish, and it's so good, I'm thinking about using it as the filling for fish tacos!


With time, I'll get more detailed and what not, but for now, this should do the trick.

Additional info about the recipe can be found by clicking here

Refreshing Watermelon Slush

Not messing around with this point, quick and to the point, just like this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups frozen watermelon cubes
• 2 whole limes, juiced
• 1/2 cup water

Directions:

1. Take a quarter of a watermelon and cut it cubes. (If you've never cubed a watermelon, click here) A quarter of a watermelon will yield a little more than the 4 cups prescribed.
2. Place the cubed watermelon in a Ziploc bag and freeze for at least an hour...and now we wait.
3. When you pull out the frozen watermelon, take note of how frozen it is. If it doesn't look all that frozen, I would use a cup of ice instead of water in order to get that slushie consistency. If the cubes are sufficiently frozen, use the 1/2 cup of water as instructed
4. Place the frozen watermelon, lime juice, and water/ice into a blender and blend until desired consistency
5. Add more water or ice if needed to achieve that perfect consistency!
6. Enjoy!

Need a quick, easy meal? How about Salmon!

If you've followed me on Facebook, you've seen I've now made two meals with Salmon...

Last night, I made salmon for my sister and I, which was about 1 pound of fish for reference.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F
2. Cover a broiler with foil and spray with olive oil/pam/etc
3. Rinse salmon with cold water and then pat dry
4. Put salmon on pan and season accordingly. I used a seafood blend that was delicious
5. Put in oven for 15 minutes (time will vary depending on amount of fish)

Boom, that's it!

This meal also includes some fresh cut fruit, some potatoes, and a fresh salad. Salad includes cucumber, carrots, green onions, yellow tomatoes, and bell peppers. Pair with your favorite dressing and you've got a great meal!

Total prep time is around 20-25 minutes!

Avocado Chicken Pesto Pasta

This meal started out in a group text with Don and Cate (my father and step-mom for future reference) with the good 'ol question: Whatcha cooking for dinner?

I suggested some kind of pasta and chicken dish and Cate went off trying to find one. We finally settled on an avocado chicken pesto pasta...

NOTE: This is from pinterest, gotta give credit where credit is due. I've copied the list of ingredients and directions below the image.

Ingredients:

• 1 box (12 oz) spaghetti nuoodles
• 1 cup pesto
• 2 avocados, halved and pitted
• Fresh lemon Juice (use 1/2 a lemon's worth of juice)
• 1 cup Sun-dried Tomatoes
• 2 cuups cooked chicken, shredded to bite size

Directions:

1. Cook spaghetti noodles according to package directions and drain
2. Mash avocados, lemon juice, and pesto together in a large bowl
3. Toss spaghetti with pesto, chicken, and sun-dried tomatoes
4. Serve

A few notes:

-In terms of timing, you probably want to start boiling the water first. 

-I grilled the chicken on the stove. Threw some olive oil in the pan, some salt and pepper on the chicken and in the pan it went. Very easy to cook this way.

-An easy trick for the avocados: Cut them open just like you normally would. But inside of spooning out the inside, just squeeze the outside and push the avocado out. Because the avocados will be mashed up with the pesto and lime juice, this method works well.

-I'm not a huge dried tomatoes fan, so I used fresh-cut tomatoes instead (out of a can).

-I found the pasta to be fairly heavy from the avocado/pesto mix, so in the future, I might try reducing a bit of each from the recipe. I'm gonna try half the amount of both the next time I make it.

Now check out my final product:

If you want to add a little heat, we added some cayenne pepper and it was terrific - I recommend it!