Turkey Tacos

A quick and easy dinner - ground turkey spiced up with cumin, coriander, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and onions, served with shredded cheddar, guacamole, salsa, cabbage and tortillas - and a side of rice & beans.

Barbarian Salmon

About 9 years ago, I decided to use some vacation time to spend a week in San Francisco. Largely unfamiliar with the city, I asked coworkers for advice on things to do and places to eat - and my office-mate Peter suggested a little sushi restaurant called Country Station Sushi, in the Mission District.

I visited Country Station on that trip, and my next trip to SF soon after, each time by myself. On both occasions, I ended up chatting with the proprietor - a Japanese Butoh performer in her 50s who spoke about as much English as I spoke Japanese. But we communicated with hand signals and pantomime and what words we each knew - and each time she fed me items not on the menu. The last time I visited, it was a fish head - and she explained through charades and broken English which parts to eat and why they're good - the cheeks because the fish uses it's mouth so much and builds up those muscles, and the eyeball because it gives you strength. And on my first visit, it was Ba-ru-ba-ri-an Tuna.

It took me a minute or two to decode what she was calling the giant slab of tuna - fin and all - that she was slathering with spices, but came to understand it was Barbarian Tuna... another of her experiments that turned out delicious.

Sadly, Country Station Sushi is no more, and I'm not sure what's become of the chefs - but I'll always have fond memories of my visits.

Tonight, in honor of Country Station, I made Barbarian Salmon - mixing crushed garlic & ginger with Sriracha sauce, slathering it all over a fillet of salmon, then broiling it (along with sesame coated asparagus). I was surprised that it wasn't as spicy as I thought it would be - so I could actually kick it up next time with some chili powder or red pepper flakes. But it turned out tasty and brought back memories - which I think is a little appreciated value of food.

Chicken Phad Thai

Tonight's dinner was a chicken & tofu Phad Thai made using the simple recipe I always rely on from Quick & Easy Thai.

This time, I remembered to add some red chili flakes to try to kick up the heat - but the tablespoon turned out to be still shy of the level of spice Dan & I enjoy in our Thai food, so next time I need to step it up with more chili flakes, maybe some dried chilis, and/or Sriracha.

I also need to soak the noodles for at least 3 hours, as I keep finding myself overcooking the meat because the noodles need longer to get transluscent than I expect.

Frozen Pizza

Not much to say about a frozen pepperoni pizza - other than sometimes, it's nice to have the option.

Spam & Kalua Pig Sliders

Our friends Ruth & Paul, Sarah, and Spencer came over tonight to enjoy some time in Ke Ala 'Ula - our tiki bar.



Along with snacks, I served up some spam and kalua pig sliders. The kalua pig spent 5 hours in the oven today, and then I used a trick offered up by my office-mate Adam (who cooked his way through college): I put the cooked meat in my KitchenAid mixer with the paddle attachment, and turned it on low. The mixer perfectly broke the meat down, and was much easier than using two forks (my standard method). It also allowed me to pour back in juices (after deglazing and reducing) to add flavor back into the meat and get it distributed well.



For the spam, I cut the block in half, then sliced each into 1/4-1/2 inch slices. In a pan over medium-high heat, I poured in about a 1/2 cup of shoyu soy sauce, and a handful of sugar, and then laid in the spam and let it cook down, flipping once. The soy sauce and sugar carmelize into a sweet and salty coating on the spam, making it extra 'ono.



Sarah brought some amazing champagne mangos and cut them up for everyone to enjoy, as well - which as a nice, healthy counterpoint to sliders, shrimp chips and donkey balls (chocolate covered mac nuts).

Seafood & Veggie Pasta

After a long week at work, and a particularly bad experience as I ended a 10+ hour workday, I got home around 7pm not particularly motivated to cook. Thankfully, my husband's meal planning skills are exemplary, and tonight's dinner was an easy yet satisfying one: seafood and veggie pasta.

The hardest part was getting the water to boil - as our gas stove seems to have trouble in that department. Perhaps the pots that worked well on electric don't do as well with gas? I'll have to research that a bit. But once the water (salted generously) boiled, I cooked up some fettuccine, pulled it out, blanched some chopped broccoli, pulled it out, and then tossed in some chopped kale. While the pasta was cooking, I put 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and melted it down over medium-high heat, then added 2 tablespoons of flour, whisking quickly, then added milk until I got a nice thick sauce going. I added Parmesan cheese and Mizithra cheese, and then realized the Mizithra smelled bad, so I tossed that sauce and started over. 2 more tablespoons each of butter & flour, the last of the milk in the house, and some more Parmesan, and I had a good sauce (seasoned with some salt and pepper to taste, of course).

I also tossed a very little olive oil in a medium high heat pan and cooked some prawns and scallops, just until they changed color.

When everything was cooked, I poured out the cooking water and tossed everything in the big pot to toss it together - sauce included - then dumped it into a big bowl for serving.

The kale could've either used more cooking time or to be de-stemmed first, but other than that I felt the dish was successful.

Roasted Pork Tenderloin & Sweet Potatoes w/ Collard Greens

A couple weeks back, we planned to roast a pork tenderloin - but didn't realize doing it right meant letting the meat come to room temperature for about an hour - so instead we cut the loin in half, froze half and made medallions with the other half. Tonight, we revisited the other half.

Dan defrosted the loin in the fridge for a couple days, then when he got home from work he pulled it out. Before I left work, I had him preheat the oven to 450 degrees, so it would be ready when I got home. Loosely following the guidance in Martha Stewart's Cooking School, I dried off the loin, seasoned it with salt and pepper and rubbed rosemary all over it. I also cut some garlic into little strips, and tucked them between the two halves of the loin (it was split). I didn't have any cooking twine, so I used some herb seasoned skewers we got free from AmazonFresh awhile back to hold the two halves together with the rosemary and garlic tucked inside.

In a cast iron skillet over high heat, I seared both sides of the loin until they were golden brown. I added two sweet potatoes (sliced in 1/4 inch thick half-rounds, tossed with olive oil and seasoned with salt & pepper) to the skillet and put the whole thing in the oven. I tried using my meat thermometer to tell me when it was done, but the small size of the roast threw it off, I think. Instead, I just estimated cooking time to about 35-40 minutes, which turned out great. The potatoes needed a little more time, so I pulled everything out, moved the pork to a plate to rest for 10 minutes, spread the potatoes on a baking sheet and popped them back in the oven to finish. While waiting, I put the skillet over medium heat, put in a couple pieces of pork fat, tossed some chopped collard greens in, and seasoned with pepper and a splash of liquid smoke - cooking them until wilted but still bright green.

The pork turned out great, though perhaps I could've shortened the cooking time a little. The potatoes were beautiful and golden from cooking with the pork, and the greens were okay - the liquid smoke was a bit much.

Mexico! (at Pacific Place)

Dan had a dental cleaning downtown this afternoon, so we decided to cash in our 'free' night tonight and meet up for dinner at Mexico - a restaurant in Pacific Place.

Dan went for a spicy chicken dish (was it mole or chipotle?) and I thought I'd go light with just a torta. Light it wasn't - pulled pork, chorizo, refried beans and cheese on a big bun, with a side of sweet potato fries topped with cotija cheese. Yeah - definitely not light, but absolutely tasty. It was a little messy, and the serving of potatoes was too much, but the flavors were great and a night off mid-week was a nice change - and something we may do more of in the future, instead of saving our free night for Friday (when we usually are so tired from the week we just want to stay home anyway.)

As you can see from the weird picture above, I didn't have my camera with me because we didn't plan this meal ahead - so my phone had to do.

Larb Gai - Hungry Monkey Style

No - Hungry Monkey Style isn't a kung fu move (well, maybe it is, but I haven't had my formal kung fu eduction yet from FP). It's a reference to the book, Hungry Monkey, by local Seattle author Matthew Amster-Burton. It's a memoir of his experience feeding and cooking with his young daughter, Iris. I read it some time ago, and the recipe we've been making out of it most is for the Thai ground chicken dish, Larb Gai. It's easy, cheap, and as good cold as it is hot - so makes great leftovers (and would probably be perfect picnic food). Amster-Burton admits this version isn't exactly true to the authentic dish (which poaches the chicken in seasoned liquid), but it's damn good.

Larb Gai
2 Tbspn white rice (jasmine or Thai sticky rice preferably)
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots
2 Tbpsn sliced scallions
1 Tbpsn peanut oil
2 Tbpsn fish sauce
3 Tbpsn lime juice
1 tspn crushed red chili flakes
cabbage leaves

Place the rice in a skillet over medium-high heat, toasting them while shaking the pan occasionally, until golden brown. Remove from heat. Place chicken thighs in a food processor and pulse until well ground but not a paste - about ten one-second pulses. In a bowl, combine the ground chicken, shallots and scallions. Heat the peanut oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken mixture and cook until no longer pink and just starting to brown - about 5 minutes. While the chicken cooks, stir together the fish sauce, lime juice, and chili flakes, and grind the toasted rice into a powder using a clean spice or coffee grinder. Turn the chicken mixture out into a large bowl. Stir in the sauce and rice powder to taste. Serve with rice and green cabbage cut into large wedges. To eat, peel leaves off the outside of the cabbage wedge and wrap a small amount of larb in the cabbage.

Free Food Day!

This morning until 10:30am, you can get a free pastry at Starbucks with the purchase of a "handcrafted beverage". To clarify what that means, I checked with a friend who manages a store, and he confirmed that any drink where the barista touches the cup is a handcrafted beveage - so drip, iced coffee, lemonade, etc. are all fair game. As he said, "it's gonna be a madhouse."



And this afternoon, from 12-8pm, swing by a Ben & Jerry's store for free cone day.

Plus - if you're a Coastal Kitchen fan, check out the $50 for $25 deal over on LivingSocial today.

Macnut Crusted Mahi Mahi w/ Spicy Mango Sauce

Dan got some big Mahi Mahi fillets from AmazonFresh this week, along with some mangos, and asked me to incorporate some macadamia nuts we had in the pantry.

I put some jasmine rice on to cook, then got to work on the sauce. The mangos were a little under-ripe, so I chopped just one of them and put the pieces in a blender with just enough pineapple juice to get them to blend well (maybe about a 1/4 cup?). In a saucepan, I melted one tablespoon of butter then strained the mango puree into it, bringing it to a boil while whisking periodically, then turning down the heat and letting it cook down (again whisking periodically). I tossed in a little salt and black pepper to taste, as well as a 1/2 teaspoon or so of crushed red pepper flakes, for some heat, and 1/4 tspn of ginger powder.

Next, I skinned the fish and divided it into 4 pieces, then dried them thoroughly. I whisked one whole egg in a bowl, and set that next to the stove. I put about 1/4 cup of macadamia nuts in a bag and smashed them with my meat pounder, then poured those in a pan and set next to the egg mixture. I put my large saute pan over medium heat with a tablespoon of macadamia nut oil in it. Once the oil was heated, I powdered each of the fish pieces in a little all purpose flour, dipped each in the egg mixture on both sides, then pressed one side into the mac nuts. Then each one went nut side down into the pan and I let them cook, covered, for about 3-5 minutes, until the nuts were browned, but not burnt. Mac nuts are a fatty nut, so they tend to burn easily at higher temperatures or if left too long. Once the nuts were browned, I flipped the fish and recovered, cooking until the flesh was opaque throughout - then served with the rice and sauce.

Midge & Milo's Birthday Dinner

This afternoon, Dan & I headed down to his folks place (the house he grew up in down in Kent) to celebrate the birthdays of his sister Midge and our nephew Milo.



Dan's Mom, Carolyn, did the lion's share of the cooking - making a delicious flank steak (with two marinades!), oven-fried chicken (Milo's favorite), salmon for Tim (Midge's pescatarian husband), plus a new ranch potatoes recipe (that was very rich and creamy... and tasty). Dan's sister Jennifer brought a salad, and I baked a cake.



Since the birthday celebrants get to pick dessert, I honored the wishes for a Devil's Food cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I had Dan call Jennifer (Milo's Mom) to find out his favorite color - orange, as it turns out - and made the frosting that color. I didn't think about the fact that orange frosting with a chocolate cake would end up looking pretty Halloween-tastic, and I guess adding chocolate truffles for garnish didn't exactly steer away from the jack-o-lantern feel, but hopefully it tasted okay. I tried out a recipe from a new cookbook I picked up at work: The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook by Alyssa Torey and Jennifer Appel. The recipe called for baking the cake for 40-45 minutes, and when I checked at 40 minutes my toothpick didn't come out clean - but I think it might've been the right time to pull it out, as the cake ended up a little dry. I consulted a brutally honest expert on that (my nephew Blake) and he confirmed it was good, but a little dry around the edges. So next time I use this recipe, I need to add something to contribute more moisture, cook lower & slower (325 degrees, maybe?) or just pull it out sooner.



Devil's Food Cake
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tspn baking powder
1 1/2 tspn baking soda
3/4 tspn salt
3 large eggs, separated, at room temperature*
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
8 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 cups milk
1 1/2 tspn vanilla extract

Place chocolate in a double boiler over simmering water on low heat, for 5-10 minutes. Stir occasionally until completely smooth and no pieces of chocolate remain. Remove from heat and let cool 5-10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9x2-inch round cake pans, then dust with unsweetened cocoa powder and line the bottoms with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until smooth, about 3 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly beat the egg yolks by hand until thick and lemon colored - about 2 minutes. Add the yolks to the sugar mixture, beating until well combined. Add the chocolate, mixing until well incorporated. Add the dry ingredients, one third at a time, alternating with the milk and vanilla extract - beating each addition until smooth. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate batter. Divide the batter between the two cake pans and bake 40-45 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.) Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then cool completely on wire racks. When cooled, ice with frosting.

(*It's best to separate the eggs while cold, then allow them to come to room temperature.)

Vanilla 'Buttercream'
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
6-8 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tspn vanilla extract

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of sugar and then the milk and vanilla. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy - about 3-5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the iciing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. Depending on humidity and other factors, you may not need all the sugar. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly.

Stellar Pizza

In our last AmazonFresh order, we got a free magazine, and I picked Seattle Metropolitan, as the cover story was about local pizzerias. Seward Park's own Flying Squirrel was included, as was a feature on Filiberto's (which was the first place I ate a meal with my husband's family), but Georgetown's Stellar Pizza was totally snubbed. The article got us hungry for pizza, and perhaps the snub made us crave Stellar most of all.



Pizza is a contentious culinary subject, surpassing even the 'Authentic Mexican Food' argument for degree of fervor and number of disparate camps. I gotta give Seattle Met Magazine props for approaching the subject matter carefully, and matching up like-styled pizzerias for their head-to-head evaluations (Best New York, Best Large Slice, Best Greek, etc), to largely avoid the inevitable backlash over how much better thin crusts are than thick, saucy vs. spartan, etc, etc, etc.



I'll try to sidestep the same by prefacing the following with the statement that I'm not a pizza connesieour. I'm pretty equal opportunity, and don't consider one style more authentic or better than another (I'm the same way about Mexican food.) I think there's room for a lot of varieties that appeal to all sorts of tastes.

That said, I happen to really like Stellar pizza. I think it reminds me of the pizzas of my childhood - Shakey's and Alfy's, in particular. The ratio of cheese and sauce and toppings, and the thickness and lightness of the crust bring back really fond memories of standing on my tip-toes to watch them make the pies at Shakey's, then watching cartoons or Laurel & Hardy films on the projection screen while we ate. Or when I was a little older, visiting my sister at her part-time job at Alfy's in Lynnwood, where the lighting was always dim and there was a stone fountain inside that fascinated me.



I remember coveting the slices with the biggest bubbles in the crust - huge air pockets that you could bite through to create a pizza cave. I never seemed to get tired of that, and still to this day marvel at the structure of the crust - so soft, yet strong enough to keep the bubble shape even when biten.



Today, we went for the GEORGETOWNER pizza - Pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, black olives & onions - which only helped the memories, since those were the ingredients of my childhood pizzas, too. Back then, I washed it down with orange soda, but today I went for a local pilsner from Maritime.

Pomegranate Margaritas & Chipotle Shrimp

I've been craving Mexican food for two days now, so on our 'free' night (we usually leave one night open when meal planning) we headed down to El Sombrero to satisfy me.

They were featuring some new pomegranate cocktails, so I couldn't resist trying out the pomegranate margarita - which didn't disappoint.



For our meal, Dan & I opted to again split an entree - this time the Camerones Con Chipotle - a spicy shrimp dish with mushrooms and onions, and sides of beans, rice, pico de gallo and tortillas (corn for Dan, flour for me).

Mediterranean Chicken

Tonight's meal plan said 'Mediterranean Chicken' - but I wasn't exactly sure what to make. I thought about getting in touch with a certain Greek friend who sometimes reads this blog for ideas - then remembered I was recently given a copy of Michael Psilakis' oxymoronically titled cookbook, How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking. From it, I used the marinade ingredients for a pan roasted chicken dish to inform my own ingredients choices.

Pairing it with a store bought saffron rice and oven roasted zucchini, I cooked shallots, garlic and thyme in olive oil, then added the chicken breasts and seared them on one side. Then I added lemon juice and capers and let it cook (covered) for about 10 minutes - tossing in chopped tomatoes about half-way through.

Salmon Pasta Salad

A quick and simple dinner tonight of pasta salad featuring Pike Place Fish salmon, cucumber, tomato, olives and mozzarella.