Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fishy!

So I made this for dinner quite some time ago. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my cat had a freak accident and so I was dealing with that. He is all healed now, so now I blog.

I made Nut-Crusted Tilapia With Spinach and Carrots. This was so good! This was also a first for me in terms of cooking something I have never cooked before. I have grown up eating all kinds of fish, but I have never cooked it myself unless you count frozen fish sticks. The tilapia was quite easy to cook. I ground up some bread and cashew nuts in my food processor and then coated the fish with some horseradish infused spicy grainy mustard and the nut mixture and then baked the fish. It turned out really well and was very tender and flaky! With the leftover fish I cooked it a few days later and "fried" the pieces. That was good too! I consider this a hit because my friend ate the fish with me and she isn't a big fan of having nuts in her food, but she didn't even know until I told her. So I think if you are someone who hates nuts in food because of texture, this is the perfect recipe because the nuts are ground up into a powder almost, so it eliminates the texture that nuts tend to have.

The recipe also had spinach and roasted carrots on the side. The carrots were roasted in the oven. They turned out really well. The only I would do different is double the carrots, because there wasn't that much after I was done cooking them. And hey, they are vegetables so there is no guilt in doubling up on them! The spinach was easy to cook. The recipe suggested adding a little bit of crushed red pepper flakes to the spinach, so I did -- won't do that next time! It definitely took the spinach up another level, but it was spicy! Next time I will omit the pepper flakes.

So, all in all, this was a great recipe and I think kids would love this recipe! It would expose them to something more than frozen fish sticks but still have that fish stick appeal with the nut crust. I am thankful that my parents didn't always have money for eating out and even store bought meat. My dad always went fishing and so we always had fish in the house, and so I grew up loving fish and still do to this day! If prepared right, fish is mighty tasty!

Nut-crusted tilapia with Spinach and Carrots:

Grilling Some Cheese And Making Soup

Happy New Year! As I mentioned in an earlier post I received an indoor grill (think George Foreman) for Christmas. So I decided to use it for tonight's recipe. It has been awhile since I have actually cooked something, but I have been crazy busy with the holidays. Now that they are over I can focus on my cooking once again.

For tonight I made Grilled Cheese and Kale Sandwiches with Tomato Soup! You wouldn't think this would be good, but I was wrong! The tomato soup in this recipe is homemade! And it was very easy to make and very tasty! I don't like canned tomato soup, which is weird because I love tomatoes, but this tomato soup was actually quite tasty! This soup has carrots in it, so it adds a little bit of sweetness but it so good. I enjoyed blending the soup with the stick blender -- that was kind of fun!

The sandwiches were easy to make and very tasty! I am always looking for new ways to kick up my grilled cheese sandwiches and this definitely kicked it up! The cheese in this sandwich is havarti cheese, which is a white cheese. It is a little saltier and heartier than your typical monterey jack cheese. Each sandwich has two slices of cheese with the kale (which you cook prior to putting on the sandwich) in between. Two slices is more than enough because it is strong cheese. The bread is also a multi-grain bread which is healthier than your standard white. I must say I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed this sandwich! I am not a fan of wheat bread, but I love it in this. I also loved my grill because I used it like a panini press. I didn't have to babysit the sandwich and flip it -- I put on the grill, waited three minutes, and pulled it off and ate it! I also got the nice grill marks in the bread too!

The best part of this meal was dipping the sandwich into the soup! The combination of all the flavors really make it! This dish is a great way to introduce kids to a different kind of cheese and veggies while maintaining the classic grilled cheese sandwich and soup fare!

Vegetarians and carnivores will like this dish! It is very hearty and perfect for cold winter day!

This recipe and the ones coming up all come from the February 2011 "Everyday With Rachael Ray" magazine. There will be somethings that I cook this week that I have never cooked on my own such as flank steak and tilapia! Stay tuned for this month's culinary adventures!

Grilled Cheese and Kale Sandwich With Tomato Soup:

Should Have Babysat The Rice

My blog is a little late. Typically I blog about what I have made and eaten shortly after I have eaten it, but I didn't finish making my dinner until around 10:15PM, so by the time it was eaten, I was ready for bed.

For dinner last night I made Crunchy Chicken with Sesame Rice and Green Beans. Well, by the time I was done making everything, there was no rice.

I have a microwaveable rice cooker and I used that to cook the rice in. Well, I have only ever done like box rices (Rice-a-roni and the like) in my cooker. I have never done regular rice in it. I don't know where I went wrong, but when I went to take the rice out of the cooker, it was like this hardened white disk (see picture below). There was no way I could save it. So, I imagine the rice would have been good with this recipe if I had gotten to taste it. It was the rice tragedy that made my dinner be so late.

Again this recipe (just like last Thursday's) had fresh green beans in it. These beans were steamed and finished off with a little salt and sesame seeds. Definitely a tasty combo! I would recommend prepping the green beans ahead of time, so you don't have to snap ends of the beans right before dinner.

Last Friday, the soup I made had a baguette on the side. Well, I only used 2/3 of the baguette for that recipe. The rest of the baguette was used in this recipe. It was what made the coating for the chicken. I thawed out two massive chicken breasts overnight and then cut them into tenders. You could by chicken tenders at the store, but buying chicken breasts and usually in bulk save you money. The baguette was as hard as a rock by this point, but since I was turning into bread crumbs for the chicken, it worked out beautifully. The recipe said to use a food processor to make the bread crumbs, but you don't have to use a food processor. I don't own one and my bread crumbs turned out fine. I used my Tupperware chopper (it looks like a food processor but it has a hand crank). You could also throw the bread into a freezer baggy and roll a rolling pin over it.

The chicken turned out really well. I now know how to make crispy chicken tenders at a much cheaper price and the nice thing about these is that they are not deep fried, which makes them a healthy alternative to the ones you can get at fast food joints.

On the side I made a soy-mayo type sauce for the chicken. It was a nice fit for the chicken and painfully easy to make.

This meal was definitely one of my favorites this week. I was able to re-heat the leftover chicken tenders today for lunch. I paired them with some honey for dipping! I will also be making these again to be using in a wrap later. This meal is definitely kid friendly! I would recommend it to everyone! Next time, I will babysit the rice and just cook it on the stove top.

My rice "disk:"




The Chicken and Green Beans:

Meat On A Stick! Does it Get Much Better?

After much deliberation and thought I have finally decided what I am going to blog on for the time being. I don't have a husband and I don't have kids, so I can't really blog about my family. And my personal life isn't usually that exciting enough to blog about -- at least in my opinion. I have decided to start a food blog. Now, this is not a recipe blog -- there are enough of those. This is a blog about my personal experience with trying a new recipe and then eating it and what my thoughts are on it.

I have been in food rut as of late, and so I decided to try some new recipes. Last night I went to the grocery store and bought ingredients for seven recipes I decided to try. All of these recipes come from November 2010's "Everyday With Rachael Ray." So, these are not my own recipes, but these are my own attempts at them.

My first recipe I tried is called Beef Kebabs With Roasted Green Beans and Almonds. This recipe is basically meatballs on sticks, but it is tasty! This is a good recipe for kids. The green beans in this recipe are fresh, so they have to be prepped by breaking off the ends. This would be a good chore for kids, because it will allow them to learn how to prep a food they may only be familiar with in canned form. Fresh green beans are much tastier than canned! These green beans are very tasty too because of the almonds. The almonds are all nice and toasty and give a little extra crunch to the green beans! Yumness! I think kids would also like this recipe because meat tastes better on a stick, and it is very kid friendly that way. Easy to eat! There is fresh parsley in this recipe as well, but dried parsley could easily be substituted. The recipe calls for finely chopped garlic. Chopping garlic, in my opinion, takes a day and a half, so I recommend pressing the garlic. I also think pressing the garlic brings out the flavor more as well.

I had to change a few things. First of all, I don't have a grill -- indoor or out, so I had to use a skillet. Even with my biggest skillet, my skewers were still too long for the pan, so I cut them in half. Works well. If you do use a skillet, make sure you use a little olive oil so the meat doesn't stick.

The recipe called for squeezing lemon juice on the kebabs after they were cooked and a little on the green beans. I tried it both ways. I personally liked everything better without the lemon juice, but if you are one that likes things a little tart, this is a nice addition.

The nice thing about this recipe is that it has provided me three meals. The dinner I just ate, lunch for tomorrow, and a future dinner (Green beans and beef freeze well and thaw well.) This recipe technically serves four, but if you are one person (like me) or just a couple, I would still make the full recipe so you do have leftovers.

So this is my first culinary adventure! Here's to many more culinary adventures!

Green Beans:



Beef Kebabs: