Miso Glazed Salmon Filet

 I got some news last week. My back is in shambles. I have a protruding disc and I have degenerative disc disease. I also am in need of both hips being replaced because of osteonecrosis. So, not only am I trying to bounce back from that toxic mattress, I have to deal with these other issues, as well.
It was suggested that I make an appointment with a health coach and talk to them about gastric bypass. I'm really not interested in that. I'm not saying that it won't happen, but I'd like to try to take the weight off myself, first.
I started by eating salads with a couple of boiled eggs on them for dinner for the past 2 or 3 nights. It got old rather quickly. I opted to go with a lean protein, salmon, for tonight.

First, though, I needed to make a side dish to go with the salmon. This is a recipe from Maangchi called Signumchi Namul. Click on the name to view the recipe. It's a super simple spinach recipe that takes, literally, just a few minutes to prepare.

It's a delicious addition to any Asian meal.

Now, onto the Miso Glazed Salmon.

Miso Glazed Salmon
makes 1 serving

1 4-oz. salmon filet
2 teaspoons white miso paste
1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon coconut palm sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
Chopped scallion and toasted sesame seeds for garnish

In a small bowl, combine miso paste, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar and sesame oil to make marinade. Whisk to combine. Reserve 1 teaspoon of marinade.
In a small bowl, add salmon filet. Pour over marinade. Cover and refrigerate 1-3 hours.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly oil a cast iron skillet with avocado oil. Put salmon in skillet, skin side down, discard marinade. Bake 12-14 minutes or until not quite done. Pour reserved marinade over the salmon, put under broiler and broil for 1-2 minutes.
Garnish with chopped green onions and toasted sesame seeds.

Enjoy!

Creamy Chicken Orzo

 It's been snowing off and on all day today. We wanted some serious carby comfort food. Bob took out a chicken breast for dinner. Normally, I'd cut it up and marinate it in yogurt and make some Indian inspired dish with a side of rice, but I didn't want that today. I wanted pure comfort food. I found this recipe online and used it for inspiration. Click here to view. I reworked the recipe.

This recipe starts out with me poaching the chicken breast in some chardonnay, water, salt, peppercorns and 4 cloves of garlic that I put through my garlic press. I let it cook and I diced it up.

Then I diced up celery, onion and carrots.

I minced up a few cloves of garlic. I didn't put these through the press because I didn't want that heavy of a garlic flavor.

Gather the rest of your ingredients.

Saute the vegetables in some olive oil in a pot with a heavy bottom. I use my enameled cast iron Dutch oven.

Cook for about 5-7 minutes and then add the garlic, broth and orzo pasta.

Stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer for about 20 minutes or until the liquid is mostly absorbed by the pasta.

Just as it is finishing up, add in 1/4 cup of heavy cream and mix it in.


Creamy Chicken Orzo
4 servings
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups chicken stock
1-2 cups shredded cooked chicken
1/2 pound orzo
1 teaspoon dried parsley
Salt & pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup heavy cream

Heat the olive oil in a large pot. Add the onion, celery, and carrots and cook until the onion is translucent, about 7 minutes. Add garlic and cook about 1 minute longer
Add the chicken stock, increase the heat to high, and bring to a boil.
Once the stock is boiling, stir in the chicken and orzo. Reduce the heat to medium and add the parsley, salt, thyme, and pepper.
Simmer until the veggies are tender, the orzo is creamy and amost of the liquid has been absorbed, about 20 minutes. Add heavy cream and mix to combine.

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Hawaiian Loco Moco

 I hadn't heard of Hawaiian Loco Moco until recently. I'm not sure why that is and I'm not sure why I waited over 50 years to taste it, but this recipe will be going into our regular rotation. There are 4 components: the base of steamed rice, the burger patty, the gravy and the sunny side egg that goes on the top. It's delicious! It's economical. It's very filling and, the best part is that you only need 1/2 pound of ground beef for 2 servings.

I did serve this with Hawaiian Mac Salad.

 Very quickly, the the ingredients for this salad are:
Salad macaroni
Grated carrot
Minced onion
Finely diced red bell pepper
Cubed cheddar cheese

The dressing is:
Mayonnaise
Milk
Apple Cider Vinegar
Sugar
Salt & pepper, to taste

It's very simple. I can't give you measurements because I don't measure.

Now, back to the scheduled program of Loco Moco.

This is absolutely delicious! You have to put a crispy edged sunny side up egg on the top. The yolk mixes with the gravy on the ground beef patty and makes this delectable, silky sauce.

Hawaiian Loco Moco
2 servings

Prepare 1 cup of rice. You can use jasmine, basmati or just regular white rice. It's up to you. Rice is cooked using a 2:1 ratio. That means for every 1 cup of rice, use 2 cups of water. You don't even need a measuring cup. You can use whatever vessel you have on hand. Just use 2 water to every 1 rice. Rice cooks, covered for 20 minutes.

1/2 pound 93% lean ground beef
2 or 3 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder


Mix together in a bowl and form into 2 patties. Cook in a heavy bottomed skillet (we used cast iron) until desired internal temperature is reached. I prefer my burgers to have no pink. Remove from the skillet, tent with foil to keep warm, and set aside.
In the meantime, make the gravy.

For the gravy:

1 tablespoon butter
1/2 medium onion, diced
1-2 mushrooms, sliced (I diced mine as my husband has difficulties eating some food unless it's finely diced)
3/4 cup beef broth
2 teaspoons shoyu soy sauce (use regular if you don't have shoyu, it's perfectly fine)
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon ketchup
2-1/2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with a bit of water to make a slurry

Cook the onions and mushrooms, in the butter,  in the same skillet that you cooked the burgers in, making sure to scrape up the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Once everything is cooked down, about 5 minutes or so over medium heat, add the rest of the ingredients except the cornstarch. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 3-5 minutes. Add the cornstarch slurry, bring back to a boil, whisking continually, until thickened. Remove from heat, cover and let set for a few minutes while you make 2 sunny side up eggs.

You will also want to slice up a green onion to use as garnish.

On a plate, add a mound of steamed rice, top with a burger patty, top that with gravy, top all with a sunny side up egg and garnish with green onions.

Enjoy!

Super Bowl Grub

 I roasted a chicken last night for dinner. Bob wanted it and I told him that I had no problem with it but we were going to use the leftovers to make his Super Bowl dinner. I'm not a football fan. I don't watch the game at all. I wouldn't know a quarterback from a linebacker, nor do I care to. I do like to make Bob a good dinner, though, and I'll use anything as an excuse to do so.

I got online and did a Google search and found a collection of like 125 recipes that use leftover chicken. I found one for Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese. It sounded good. I had everything on hand to make it. I did cut the recipe in half because, as written, it just made way too much for the two of us.
I also found a recipe for Mexican Street Corn Casserole. Again, I had all the ingredients on hand and it sounded good and I've been meaning to make some Mexican street corn and haven't quite gotten around to it yet. So, I figured tonight would be the night to do that.

Any good mac & cheese recipe starts out with a boatload of shredded cheese. This one is no different. Do yourself a favor and do not buy pre-shredded cheese. This is extra sharp cheddar and mozzarella. I froze the leftover cheese for another time.

It's amazing, to me, that I had some fresh cilantro on hand. I chopped this up for the corn recipe.

The mac and cheese starts out with the typical roux. The different thing about this recipe is that the macaroni noodles are cooked in the sauce rather than cooked separately in salted, boiling water.

The sauce for the mac and cheese has all the components as buffalo chicken: buffalo sauce and ranch dressing.

This Mexican Street Corn Casserole was delicious. There's no two ways about it. I did add a can of rinsed black beans to it because I thought they would taste good. It didn't disappoint. I'll make this recipe in the future.

What I like about the Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese is that it's a one -pot, stove top recipe. It worked out well because I had the corn casserole in the oven while I was making this recipe on the stove.

Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese. I'll make this recipe again, with some tweaks. First, I'll leave out the cream cheese. It wasn't needed, in my opinion. I'll cook the noodles separately, as well. I'll cut back the cheese to 1 cup total. I'll up the blue cheese (I used gorganzola) to 1 cup and I'll melt that into the sauce that coats the noodles. I'll also leave out the bacon. It wasn't needed. As written, the recipe is roughly 3.2 stars out of 5. I made this recipe exactly as written except I cut it in half.

Mexican Street Corn Casserole. This is going into my regular recipe rotation. I like my addition of black beans. I'll leave that in there. This recipe was 4.1 stars out of 5.

Here is a photo of our Super Bowl dinner tonight.
Bob said he hopes the Eagles win. Me? I don't really care, but I'll say the Eagles, too, because we're going to see the band The Eagles in a week. The tickets were our Christmas present to ourselves. I'm super excited about that.

Cowboy Calico Beans

 Bob and I are trying something a bit different this month. I found a menu template and I sat down and figured out 31 main dishes for dinner. I filled it in with all sorts of different ideas. I put in everything from Cod Mappas to breakfast for dinner. I let Bob choose what he wants for dinner the following day.

He chose Cowboy Calico Beans.

I've made this recipe multiple times since we moved out here into the country. It's become a favorite.

All good recipes, in my opinion, start out with a chopped onion. This was no exception.

I used 1/2 of a green bell and 1/2 of a red bell. Color is a great thing in recipes as you eat with your eyes first.

This recipe contains four different types of beans. I ordered a case of butter beans from Amazon so that I could have them on hand. That's how much we like this recipe. Butter beans are hard to find here locally.

Everything cooks together, slowly, for 45 minutes to an hour.

This is a perfect ending to a cool and blustery day.


Cowboy Calico Beans

1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons yellow prepared mustard
1 15-oz. can butter beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can lima beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can pork and beans

Cook beef with onion and bell peppers until cooked through and no pink remains. Drain. Add to a large pot with all the other ingredients. Cook, covered, over low heat for 45-60 minutes until everything has melded together. Make sure to stir every now and then to stop from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

**You can also add all the ingredients to a slow cooker and cook on low temperature 8 or so hours.

Harvest Chicken & Rice

 Today was relatively cool at. We barely broke 70 degrees out. I had harvested quite a few of my Walla Walla Sweet onions a few days ago and we had a pretty decent picking of green beans. I also harvested my garlic so that I could get ready for the new seed garlic that I have coming in.

I came up with a new recipe for dinner tonight.

Bob had taken out a package of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs to thaw a few days ago and I needed to get them used up. We also picked a pretty decent sized mess of beans.

These are a mixture of my Tongues of Fire, Dragon Tongue, Tanya's Pink Pod, Cherokee Wax, Blue Lake and Contender beans.

The Harvest Chicken & Rice recipe starts out with a chopped sweet onion. You could use a Vidalia if you don't have Walla Walla Sweets available. I also chopped up one of my small heads of garlic. It doesn't get much more fresh than this.

I melted butter with olive oil. This is what I used to saute the onions and garlic.

Once the onion gets translucent, add in the rice and orzo mixture.

Saute this until the orzo starts to smell toasty and gets lightly golden brown. I cooked this in an enameled cast iron Dutch oven, so I did this low and slow.

I removed the skin from 4 chicken thighs. Then I sprinkled them, both sides, with a blend of spices.

Those get set upon the rice mixture once it has been browned.

Then I poured in chicken broth and water. I put the cover on the Dutch oven and let it cook in a moderate oven for 45 minutes.

This is a simple and delicious recipe. It hit all the right spots for us.

I served this with simple boiled beans. I cooked these in part chicken broth and part water. I didn't get a photo of the end result because we all know what boiled beans look like.

Harvest Chicken & Rice

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 small chopped sweet onion (like a Walla Walla Sweet or Vidalia)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil (or avocado)
1-1/2 cups long grain white rice
1/3 cup orzo
1-3/4 cups chicken broth
1 cup water

Spice Rub for Chicken:

1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pull skin off of chicken thighs and rub with spice rub on both sides. Set aside.

Saute onion and garlic in butter and olive oil over medium heat until onion is soft and translucent. Add in rice and orzo. Stir to coat with oil/butter. Cook until the orzo begins to smell nutty and gets lightly golden brown.
Place seasoned chicken thighs on top of the rice, add broth and water. Remove from heat. Cover tightly. Place in preheated oven and cook for 45 minutes or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees on a meat thermometer.

Fluff rice and serve.

Enjoy!

Spring Frittata

 We decided to have a veggan meal today. Not vegan. It's veggan. Veggans eat eggs. It's spring. I have some fresh veggies in my fridge. I felt like making a quick meal and that would be a Spring Frittata. This is fantastic served with toast or with a green salad. We made a couple of pieces of toast from that loaf of bread I baked off yesterday.

This recipe starts out with a bit of milk and a cast iron skillet. It doesn't matter what type of milk. You can use whole milk (like I did), you can use 2%, you can use skim, you can use half and half...you can even use oat milk, if that's what you like! It doesn't matter. Just use what you have or what you want.

Next, you crack 6 eggs into the milk. I added in some herbs and freshly cracked black pepper before I mixed it all up.

I used a Penzey's Spice blend called Parisien Bonnes Herbes.This blend contains chives, dill, basil, tarragon, chervil and white pepper. It's absolutely delicious and it's right up there in my top 3 favorites from Penzey's.

Next up, I opted for some nice spring type flavored veggies. I used some spring onions, frozen peas and asparagus.

Just measure out your veggies so that they total one cup. 

These get cooked in a tablespoon of olive oil for about 7 or 8 minutes. You don't have to cook them that long. You could just sprinkle them over the eggs, but for Bob, they have to be cooked. I'm okay with that. 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Add your beaten eggs in. Sprinkle the top with 1/3 cup of cheese (again, whatever cheese you like will work). I used pepper jack. This goes in to the oven for 20 minutes and it comes out like...

This was our veggan dinner tonight. 

So, this dinner was completely from scratch and that includes the strawberry jam, as well.


Spring Frittata


6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup grated cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup total chopped spring onions, asparagus and frozen peas
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon Penzey's Parisiene Bonnes Herbes herb mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk eggs with milk, pepper and herb mix.
In cast iron skillet, saute vegetables in olive oil for 5-8 minutes, sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add egg mixture, shake to distribute evenly.
Put in preheated oven. Bake 20 minutes.