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Salmony Goodness.

June 2, 2010 by 3 Comments

It’s been a long time. I’ve mostly been exhausted since we closed on our house at the end of April and have been dealing with the multitude of joys related to home ownership. While it has been completely overwhelming, I’m certainly glad we finally have a home and a place to spread out all of the crap we’ve accumulated over the years. It’s nice.

What’s not so nice? Is that I’ve actually had this post kicking around for awhile and just haven’t done anything with it. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to write it. Again with the exhaustion: I’M NOT FUNNY RIGHT NOW. But alas, I have to soldier on and fight the good fight. Or… something.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of slow roasting going on in various blogs, and you know I’m never one to pass up a trend. Or, conversely, see a trend six months ago and decide to try bringing it back now. Either way, it made for some tasty food, so what do you care? The one thing that people seemed to love to slow roast the most was salmon, so since the husband would probably sell my soul for his weight in salmon, I figured I’d give it a shot.

This is really the simplest of recipes: take whatever marinade/seasoning/rub you like best on salmon and slap it on. Preheat your oven to 225F.

My marinade of choice was a basic spicy honey mustard; I would’ve gone for a rub of some sort, but by this point I had stopped going grocery shopping and was just using up what I already had. So, mustard + honey + random spices = marinade.

Put it in the oven for about 25 – 30 minutes, or until it starts excreting moisture. That’s a horrible image, isn’t? The last thing you want is for your food to be described as “excreting” anything. But there it is:

Total excretion.

So even though it doesn’t look done, trust me, it totally is. It is amazingly soft and buttery, very nearly like smoked salmon but just shy of that. If you like a good, firm salmon, this is not for you. Even the husband was somewhat suspicious of the texture, but he of course ate it like the good blogger’s husband he is.

I’d definitely make this again, although I think next time I’d like to try a dry rub to see how it permeates the meat and also if it makes a difference in texture. And then when I get my smoker? WATCH OUT.

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Why don't we just move to Mexico?

April 2, 2010 by 31 Comments

Seriously. I feel like I cook some sort of Mexican inspired food quite frequently, we might as well live there. We actually did discuss this briefly on our honeymoon, after we were sold some Cuban cigars by an American expat living in Cancun. Of course, we will likely spend the rest of our lives in Boston, complaining about its weather, the college students that invade our fair city every September – May, and the joys of being moderate (me) and conservative (husband) independents in a city full of liberals.

Also, I almost gave everyone at poker salmonella, as I definitely undercooked some fried chicken. In my defense, the damn chicken was only about 1/3″ thick and 1.5″ wide; it was the damn beer batter that took so long! We shoved it in the oven and all was well. Also, note to self: Cap’n Crunch chicken is not worth the effort.

Anyway, back to me. Er.. back to the topic, I mean. Riiiiight. I made more tacos and they were delicious. Next, I really need to make my own tortillas, but I’m not going to drive myself crazy in making anything labor intensive until I know for sure whether or not I have to pack up my whole kitchen.

Since the husband would probably eat salmon every day if I let him/we could afford it, I decided to try making salmon tacos instead of the normal white fish variety you see everywhere. Man, these are good. Good enough for me to reconsider my indifferent response to salmon and say we should make these often. And to prove that point, I even bought more salmon when I went to Trader Joe’s last week.

Salmon Tacos
1lb salmon, cut into 6 fillets
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 flour or corn tortillas
Salsa, optional
Sour cream, optional
Shredded cabbage, optional

Preheat oven to 250 F. Mix together the spices. Lightly coat the top of the salmon fillets with olive oil, then dredge in the spice mixture [I realized I should have done this after the fact; what I did was just sprinkle the spices over the salmon]. Place tortillas in the oven to heat, wrapped in foil. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat, then add the salmon and cook 3 – 4 minutes on each side. Once the salmon is done, remove from the pan. Remove tortillas from the oven, place a salmon fillet in each of the tortillas and use the toppings of your choice.

Personally, I like cabbage, sour cream [with lime juice] and salsa on mine. My in-laws got me a great little food processor for Christmas, so I made up a really quick salsa to go with the tacos that was pretty good. I would have used the pictures with the sour cream, but… it didn’t so much drizzle as plop onto the tacos and this is a family blog. If you know what I mean. Enjoy!

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There's no cream in carbonara!

February 10, 2010 by 2 Comments

Or at least, there shouldn’t be. But I wasn’t about to tell that to the waitress at the restaurant I was at last night in Boston’s North End for my work-BFFs birthday. I’m not sure what possessed me to order it anyway; I think I was dazzled by the talk of lobster, diver scallops and ‘jumbo’ shrimp [ps, they looked more like 21/25 to me!].

But that reminded me of my own carbonara dish that I had yet to post; it was incredibly good and even though I always think of carbonara being a heavy dish, this was so light and flavorful that I regret not making it sooner. It was delicioso! See? Those are my Italian roots showing.

This is slightly less than authentic, but I’m not charging you $25 to eat my not-authentic food, am I? AM I? NO! And you know why? Because nothing I cook ever comes out exactly the same. I can follow the same recipe over and over again, yet inevitably I change something. It’s like my food is as unpredictable as my moods! Hee, sorry husband!

So without further ado, I bring you: Michelle’s Langostino Carbonara!

6 oz spaghetti/linguine/fettuccine
12 oz langostino (or lobster/shrimp/etc)
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 oz of Pecorino Romano, freshly grated
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon pepper seasoning, or to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 oz pancetta, diced
1 large carrot, julienned
10 – 12 stalks of asparagus

Preheat oven to 200 F. Once oven is heated, place bowls in there to keep warm. Bring pot of salted water to a boil; add pasta. In a small bowl, whisk together whole eggs, egg yolks, lemon pepper seasoning, and grated cheese. In a medium sized pan, heat olive oil. Once hot, add in diced pancetta and cook until fat renders. Remove pancetta to a a plate lined with paper towels; drain off all but two teaspoons of fat from the pan.

Add in the carrots and asparagus and cook until tender. Add back in the pancetta and heat through. Set aside. Once the pasta is cooked to your preference, reserve 1/3 cup of pasta water and then drain pasta. Add pasta into the pan with the veggie mixture, along with egg mixture and toss to coat. If the sauce is too thick, add some of the reserved water. Serve immediately in warmed bowls.

Again, this is so good. I can’t say enough good things about this incredibly simple dish. Also, please note that when I say “lemon pepper seasoning” I don’t mean the crap that is powdered and bright yellow. I mean the stuff you can buy at Trader Joe’s or any other store worth its salt, that has whole black peppercorns, dried lemon peel and sea salt with a grinder on top. The lemony flavor adds so much to the dish and obviously complements the seafood and asparagus beautifully.

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Lobster is love. Or somethin'.

July 9, 2009 by 2 Comments

Let’s talk about lobster. The husband and I are big fans, and living in New England makes it even easier since there’s Maine lobster in abundance all around us. We’ve had baked stuffed lobster a few times lately in restaurants around Boston, and it’s of course always delicious. However, besides being delicious, it’s expensive. Like upwards of $40 per person expensive. Aren’t these things the cockroaches of the sea? Why are they so damn pricey? So you can imagine how pleased I was to see lobsters at $6.99/lb at our local grocery store. OBVIOUSLY, I had to get some. And get some I did! [Ed. Note: that's not as dirty as it sounds. (My mother-in-law reads this!)]
 

 
Before I bought the lobsters, I did some reason on making baked stuffed lobster – not a recipe, so much as .. you know. The stuffing part. As in, how do I go from live lobster to not so alive lobster with tasty stuffing in it. Unsurprisingly, it’s kind of gross. The internets told me that in order to properly make baked stuffed lobster, you take a live lobster, and cut it in half while it’s alive. The idea is that if you cut it where the head meets the body, it should kill it instantly and be a better way to kill it than boiling or steaming. While I’m sure that’s true, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. After some tense negotiations, the husband gave in to my pleas and his desire to stab things, and took the task in hand. My hero!
 

 
Once that was done, I got down to the enviable job of cleaning out the lobster. While some people still eat the tomalley, we’re not down with that. Maybe it’s that it looks like green goo, maybe it’s the sliminess of it. See? SLIMY. Also, I’ll spare you the pictures, but let me just say that the tomalley was the only part of the lobster that came out easily. When I was done cleaning them out, my countertop looked like I had butchered all sorts of things on it. Clearly my method needs practice.
 
Now, the stuffing recipe I used is from RecipeZaar. Neither of us were huge fans. Even though we had both shrimp and crab in the stuffing, there were way too many crackers. I think next time I’d use about a 1/3 of the amount listed, so that the shrimp and crab aren’t overwhelmed.
 

 
Even though the stuffing wasn’t quite what we wanted, it was still great to make a meal at home that we both really enjoy for half the cost of what we pay in a restaurant. Although, I’m not gonna lie, next time I might parboil the lobster and then cut it in half, because I’m a wimp.
 

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The best tacos are shrimp tacos!

June 23, 2009 by 2 Comments

These tacos are delicious and not at all difficult to make. They will definitely be making another appearance in our rotation of meals, as the husband still talks about how good they were. I made them as more of a Baja-style taco, ’cause I loved the tacos at the greatly missed El Pelon and any way I can work more vegetables into what we eat is a-okay with me.

Along with the shrimp, I made some pickled cabbage, fried plantains, and corn on the cob. The pickled cabbage in particular is something I really enjoy, as the cabbage was still crisp, but had a great flavorful bite to it. I’m pretty sure I could have eaten this on it’s own, but that probably wouldn’t have made a good dinner.

The cabbage is being pickled in a mixture of a cup of rice vinegar, 2/3 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup water that was brought to a boil and then mixed into the cabbage along with a sprinkle of salt.

For the plantains, I sliced them kind of thick (maybe half an inch? .. actually, I’m not gonna lie, I don’t even know what half an inch looks like), then fried them in my cast iron pan until they started to brown. Then I took them out, salted them, and let them rest for a bit, and repeated the frying process again right before I was about to serve the tacos to crisp them up and warm them.

The shrimp were the easiest part, as I just tossed them with some spices (salt, pepper, cumin and cayenne pepper) and cooked them quickly in a pan. I figured they didn’t need to have overpowering flavor, since I had the cabbage and also some fresh salsa I picked up at the grocery store.

Once everything was ready (which, by the way, was a personal best of mine in getting everything to be ready at the same time – I almost always end up with something being just lukewarm by the time I’m ready to serve the meal), I set up a little taco assembly line complete with shrimp, cabbage, salsa, warm soft tortillas. And the end product? Such a perfect meal for a warm spring night:

Also, you guys? Why do people have such a hard time spelling shenanigans? It’s a word that’s bandied about occasionally by our group of friends (thus, the blog name) but for real, when I check how the stats on how people find our blog, I’m kind of amused/bewildered by the many variations of shenanigans that come up: shennanigans, shanagains, shannagians, and my personal favorite, shennanigin. The funniest part is that at least half of the misspellings came from our friends – I guess the important part is that they tried to find us?

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