My journey of cooking, gardening, preserving and more
Lemon Spaghetti is a pretty easy dish to make – toss some fresh lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil and parmesan together, throw it over some hot, cooked spaghetti (or pasta of your choice) and you’ve got a great-tasting meal. Leave it to me to …
In my last post, I promised to share an easy way to use an over-abundance of fresh herbs from your garden and here it is: homemade herbal vinegar. I just love these and they make beautiful house-warming gifts! This is all there is to it: Fresh …
I am a summer lover, it’s true. I love heat and sunshine and long days. But seriously. Enough with the 100+ degree days already. The heat here in the Northern IL area is becoming oppressive and depressing. I hate air conditioning normally. Does that make me weird? Probably. So does about 3,522 other things but I digress… If I can whip up a delicious dinner without major stove time right now, I’m pretty happy. I have favorites for these kinds of days but I’m really not used to having so many of these days in a row. Of course, a cold beer helps with getting into the “I really need to make dinner” mindset. Tuna is a favorite of ours and I like to just sear it on both sides, keeping the center medium to medium rare. This is a very easy dish and the vinaigrette adds a kick of soy, vinegar and wasabi, without being overpowering. Now, you can cook your tuna however you like it and you can customize the vinaigrette with less or more wasabi, to suit your tastes.
First, let’s make the vinaigrette, so the flavors have time to blend a bit. Wasabiko Powdered Horseradish made by Hime, is the closest taste to what I’ve had in sushi restaurants. The ready-made pastes in tubes always seem to have a chemically or artificial taste to them. With this powder, all you do is put a bit of powder in a dish, add a bit of cold water and mix well with the back of a small spoon, until all the little dry crumbles are mashed and dissolved. Sometimes you’ll have to add a bit more powder or sometimes a bit more water but trust me when I say this isn’t rocket science. You put the two together until it’s a thick yet creamy consistency. Done. You’ve just made wasabi. Now back to the vinaigrette – in a medium-sized glass bowl:
Whisk together and, while whisking, drizzle in:
Keep whisking until well blended. Taste. I had to amend this about 3 times with a bit more soy, a bit more vinegar and a bit more oil until I got to the amounts above. Trust your palate – close your eyes while tasting – and adjust to what you like. Okay, now the tuna:
Okay, I’m gonna babble again. If you have sesame oil, make sure you’re keeping it in the fridge or a dark, cool place – it goes rancid very quickly otherwise. And if you don’t have black and/or white sesame seeds than don’t worry about it. This is awesome even without them.
Put the tuna in a bowl in a single layer, add soy sauce and sesame oil and turn tuna over to coat. Let marinate about 15 minutes, turning again once about halfway through.
Heat a heavy skillet on medium heat; I use my big cast iron skillet for this & it works great. Add olive oil and let heat about 3 minutes. While olive oil is heating, pat the tuna dry with a paper towel and sprinkle half the sesame seeds on one side of each steak, pressing them in a bit. Turn and repeat. Add tuna to heated oil. Heat about 4 minutes each side for medium; the nice thing about cooking tuna is you can see the cooking happening along the side of the steak.
Remove to a plate and slice into slices.
Divide spinach between two plates. Give your vinaigrette a good whisking again. Transfer tuna to top of spinach and drizzle with vinaigrette. Not the most stunning of photos but I was hungry. 🙂
Warning: this vinaigrette is highly addicting. You can thank me later.
I am a pasta lover, especially if it’s homemade pasta. When I buy dried pasta at the grocery store, my personal favorites of the mass-produced ones are Barilla or De Cecco. When I make fresh pasta at home, it’s in large batches, so that I …
My husband is the bartender in our house. Though we both did stints as a bartender, mine was much shorter than his and therefore he’s much more accomplished at mixology. I also think it’s only fair that since I make the majority of the meals …
This is one of those dishes that I toss together with hardly a thought. It’s so easy and the fresh flavors are stunning – minced garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, extra-virgin olive oil, fresh parsley.
Garbanzo beans – aka chickpeas – are a great source of fiber, protein and several other nutrients. This is also a great made with cannellini beans instead. The key here is to use good quality beans – if I have to use canned I like Bush’s – and a good quality extra-virgin olive oil.
I don’t truly follow a “recipe” for this, but here’s a basic idea:
Combine everything in a bowl and toss well. Let sit for a 1/2 hour at room temperature before serving.
The key to this recipe is to add more of what you like and less of what you don’t. I love all the ingredients of this dish, so it literally bursts with the fresh garlic, lemon, and parsley.
Another great addition to this salad? Freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Just a bit though – you want to let the fresh flavors really shine.
You can also add a few minced pepper flakes or fresh jalapeno, diced, to add a little kick to it. This is a recipe that you can really play with and customize and make your own.
And, I almost hate to tell you this because it’s sooooo delicious but it’s also really good for you.
If you love bean salads as much as I do, you also need to check out my Bean and Veggie Salad with Cumin and Cider Vinegar Dressing. It’s a favorite in my house.
Enjoy!
Ahhh….Lamb Loin Chops with Garlic and Rosemary. One of my easiest, most delicious, go-to dishes. And yet, I read this weekend that, according to a 2011 survey by the American Lamb Board, nearly 40 percent of Americans have never eaten lamb. Really? Okay, I admit it: …