Maria Cooks Light

With all these guest posts you'd think I was on vacation instead of spending my days in the cube or waltzing about enjoying summer in my Homaha. Here's another post from Maria. I've been trying to eat healthier lately. Everyone who knows me knows I eat fairly healthy (except for my baking habit). However, my portions have been "American" sized--with all the running I do, I tell myself I can eat more. It's a lie. You really only burn 100-150 calories per mile of running, and I don't run 10 miles every day. Anyway, my mom and stepdad came to visit in May. Not only did they help me plant a potted garden on my patio, but they also showed me some good ways to prepare healthy dishes. We had a huge feast one night consisting of the following:

and:

Asparagus:

In the iron skillet we put some water (no need for oil!), garlic, and asparagus pieces and sauteed under tender.

Tilapia with mango salsa:

I don't have a picture of the fish, sorry. We baked it in a foil-lined baking dish after putting lemon juice, lemon pepper, a little salt, parsley and basil on each side of the fish. The mango salsa consisted of a chopped mango, chopped jalapeno (only use half if you don't like things spicy--oops!), chopped avocado, handful or twoof chopped cilantro, and a couple squirts of lemon juice and limejuice. Salt and pepper to taste. No need to blend, this is a chunkysalsa served on the tilapia (also tastes good on salads or lemonpepper chicken).

Salmon patties

I'd never tried salmon and was skeptical (WHAT!), but Mom promised it wouldn't taste "fishy" (my big fear). We bought the large sized foil pouch of salmon and combined that with 5 or 6 crushed saltine crackers, and 2 egg whites in a bowl. Mix with hands until combined, then form 3 patties. We again used the iron skillet and cooked them with just water on medium heat.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

My mom invited me over for lunch yesterday. She promised salmon (it's actually trout), and I came running. She could have given me beef stroganoff and I would have come (well, maybe not, I hate beef stroganoff). The meal turned out perfectly: butter lettuce salad, topped with sauteed trout and dill with an olive-oil-lemon-juice dressing. But there was a moment or two, when the kitchen filled with smoke, that we thought that was the end of the fish. Could there be any question about where I get my cavelier carelessness in the kitchen? Obviously it's courtesy of my mother. Salad with Trout and Dill: butter lettuce 1 filet of trout (or salmon--my mom declared that salmon has a better taste) a couple sprigs of fresh dill from a potted plant in your mom's yard drizzle of olive oil juice from half a lemon (per salad) dash of salt and pepper My mom cooked the fish (scale side down) in a skillet without any oil or butter but with the lid on so that the steam would cook the top of the fish. Even though it burned the scales, the thick part of the filet was still a bit raw, so she cut it up and sauteed it for a few minutes until it was flaky. Mint Sun Tea: one-gallon glass jug one gallon of water four or five tea bags (depending on how strong you like it) big handful of fresh mint leaves sun Fill the jug with water (the jug cannot be opaque). Toss in the tea bags near the top and throw in the mint leaves. Leave the jug with the tea and the mint outside in the sun all day. Bring it inside and pop it in the fridge. Serve over ice.

Orange Upside-down Cake

I went all out for Easter this week. In fact, everyone went all out. I had a half-day of work on Friday and spent my afternoon baking. I can't think of a better way to spend a few free hours, well at least off the top of my head. Joanie and Doug spent all of Saturday smoking the beautiful salmon pictured below. It was so good, it led my mother to loudly declare "I could eat salmon all day," in response to Jason's pensive ponderings on why he loves studying philosophy. Jason said something like, "Philosophy is something I'm really passionate about." And my mom (basically) said (in no small voice), "I'm passionate about eating." Katy was laughing so hard she started crying. To be fair, the salmon was good. (The creme fraiche-ish recipe is also listed below). We had a fun afternoon cramming a dog underneath the table and 13 people around it, even though we were missing my sister Allison. After dessert and ridiculously strong coffee, a group of us rolled ourselves out of the house and down to the park to play croquet. We sort of look like a J. Crew catalog in our Easter best (aside from my house slippers). Even Shelby enjoyed croquet. She frolicked from person to person asking to be petted and didn't even try to steal any of the balls. Orange Upside-down Cake is dessert one of three that I made for the holiday meal. This one was probably the sweetest and the most like a regular cake. Sweet with a subtle note of orange (sounds like perfume). And look how pretty with the caramelized oranges on top. My little sister Emily would not eat them even though I swore they were edible. "It's like candy, Emily." Megan, champion convincer, even joined in. "Emily, it's good. Just try it. Try it." She did. But even Megan couldn't convince her to try the asparagus. Orange Upside-down Cake: inspired by Gourmet Magazine 1 orange 3/4 cup sugar 3/4 cup water orange zest 1 1/2 cups flour 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 stick unsalted butter 2 large eggs 1 1/2 teaspoon orange zest 3/4 cup buttermilk To caramelize oranges, slice orange into 1/4-inch thick pieces. In a skillet, cover with cold water and bring to a boil. Drain and set aside. In the same skillet, add sugar, water and orange zest and bring to a simmer, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Put orange slices back into the water and simmer gently until water has reduced and is syrupy. Should take 30 to 40 minutes. Remove orange slices with a fork and place in the bottom of greased 9-inch round cake pan. Pour syrup over oranges. Preheat oven to 350. In a medium mixing bowl, blend together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix sugar and butter until smooth. Add eggs one at a time and mix until smooth. Add in orange zest and mix. (I bought the cutest citrus zester at Target for like $3 on Friday, best buy ever!) Alternately, add dry mixture and buttermilk to the wet mixture until fully incorporated. Pour batter into the cake pan that already has the orange slices and syrup in it. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool and dump cake onto serving dish. Creme Fraiche for Smoked Salmon: sour cream chopped red onion capers parsley Mix all the ingredients together.

Salmon with Aioli and Leeks

You could say it is a New Year's resolution of mine to cook more French food and less Italian. And now that I think of it, why? Italian food is quite delicious, and I pretty much know what I'm doing. I'm familiar with the ingredients and techniques, yet there is still so much I haven't cooked, so many territories yet to be discovered, enjoyed and documented. And I'm so much less likely to biff things up. But that would be so boring--delicious, but boring. I got a couple French cookbooks for Christmas, and I wasted no time jumping into a braised lentils recipe one dark and lonely night a couple weeks ago. But then friends called and I was out eating Creole rice with them mid-preparation. As a result (or maybe because of some other fluke), the lentil were heinous and inedible. Well, I did eat them, but I didn't enjoy it. And then I tried to bring the leftovers to work and the smell solicited dry heaves.

But instead of giving up, I went straight for the gold, the quintessential French accoutrement: aioli. Made of garlic and olive oil, what's not to like about the sauce? Well, there's a thickening process for one thing, and that always makes me nervous (unnecessarily in this case, and now I'm fascinated with emulsifying). And raw egg yolks, hmm, fishy. I'm no chef, but I'm pretty sure the lemon juice and vinegar cook the eggs. Truly, this recipe was surprisingly easy, not very messy and pretty quick.

I even got to use my garlic mincer last night. The mincer may have been the kitchen accessory that spawned my interest in cooking. Before then I thought the only garlic available was in a powder or salt. What's not fun about squeezing the guts out of a pungent clove?

But when I got to the part of the recipe that said "1 1/2 cups olive oil," I balked. "WTF? We're in an economic crisis here, I am not pouring five dollars worth of oil into aioli." It turned out I didn't even have that much oil.

So I halved the recipe (the remainder of the oil is back in that bottle), and voila, still more aioli than I was able to use on the salmon. What I love about this as well is that there is so much room for improvisation on this recipe. I've seen aioli with all manner of herbs and spices. One of my favorite restaurants serves it with their sweet potato fries--a-maz-ing. The salmon recipe is a tweak from The French Market by Joanne Harris and Fran Ward--do yourself a favor and skip the braised puy lentil recipe--with aioli and leeks instead of straigh dijon mustard (leeks are a mild member of the onion family, no worries, that's a vegetable I've looked up before on Wikipedia).

Aioli: 4 cloves garlic, minced sea salt (or kosher) 2 egg yolks 3/4 teaspoon dijon mustard 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar (yeah, I used balsamic) 1 1/2 cup olive oil pepper Mince garlic cloves (or bash up with a pestel and mortar) and whisk with salt. Add egg yolks (if you save the whites you can make macaroons--I am kicking myself for letting them go down the drain), vinegar and dijon and whisk together until smooth. Slowly whisk in the oil. Add pepper and more salt to taste. Salmon with Aioli and Leeks: 2 salmon fillets 1 leek aioli olive oil salt and pepper Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place fillets on baking tray and sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Brush aioli generously onto the fillets. Dice leeks to make little disks (as seen in the photo above) and place on the fillets. Bake for 12 minutes or until the salmon is flaky.