Sunday Meal Planning

Holy food coma Batman! I've officially returned to the city (thanks Mother Nature for letting the heat wave break before I came back!) after almost a full week at my aunt's house down the shore. I headed down on Tuesday after work with my brother, his gf and one of his friends and trekked back late last night so I could run errands and what not. But mainly, I came home so I could recuperate from the food coma that a full week with my lovely family caused.

My family absolutely loves that I've taken over cooking...and I have to be honest, I love it too. Sometimes it gets a little stressful since I'll be planning a meal for five people and then suddenly my cousins bring 2 or 3 friends, but isn't that part of the fun? I may only be 24, but I feel like I'm getting experience for my future family already!

Anyway, what this means for all of you is that, like the week after Memorial Day, there are TONS of new recipes coming your way. And, more excitingly for me (and hopefully you), my wonderful mother will be guest blogging! Even more exciting (for you) is that...my mum's FAMOUS chili recipe is what she will be blogging about! I'm already stalking her because I'm dying to see what she's going to write about. I have a feeling she will put my blogging to shame...perhaps this needs to be a frequent thing? I'd love the feedback once I do post her blog--she might become famous before me!


On to the real topic of this post--Sunday Meal Planning. As I said, I'm already in a food coma from the past week so I need a detox week. Maybe I can drop those 10 lbs. I gained (just kidding...it was only nine...ok maybe 12. It depends which scale you asked! Sheesh, get off my back gurlllsssss!)


Sunday: soy-orange glazed salmon with roasted asparagus


Monday: bacon and apple clams


Tuesday: mushroom ravioli with sage-butter sauce


Wednesday: grapefruit, avocado and crab salad


Thursday: southwestern stuffed eggplan


Heading down the shore again this weekend! Hopefully heading down on Friday...if not, I see sushi in my future...

Happy Fourth of July!

Yogurt-Marinated Grilled Chicken

I like grilled chicken...kind of. Ok, I'm not the biggest fan. Actually I'm not the biggest fan of chicken in general. Have you ever touched that stuff? Talk about slimeyyyy. Ick.

Also...my family is obsessed with it. And by family, I mean parents. My brothers eats pretty much anything. Like, anything. My parents will eat pretty much...nothing. They don't even like steak. It pretty much comes down to chicken or pork. Do you know how easy it is to get sick of chicken and pork? During the summer, I would kill for a leg of lamb. Or some mussels. Or fish. Anyone heard of fish around here? Nope, chicken or pork please. 

Well I am sick of it. Putting the alert out--no chicken for me. However, one of my favorite blogs, Dinner: A Love Story, has a recipe for grilled chicken that is called, I kid you not, "Grilled Chicken for People Who Hate Grilled Chicken." Well...that sounds spot on. And...it kind of was. I'm not going to be running out this week to buy chicken, even if I were to make this recipe, but I was not totally against eating half a breast. And let's be honest, when you're totally sick of something, "not totally against" can be considered a massive compliment. 

Yogurt-Marinated Grilled Chicken

adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken breasts, pounded flat* (we had 5)

2 cups plain yogurt

3 cloves minced garlic

Juice from 4 lemons

4 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 tsp sugar

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, combine the yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, sugar and hefty helpings of salt and pepper. Whisk until the combo is emulsified. Place raw chicken breasts into a ziplock bag; pour the mixture over top, making sure to mush around to ensure all chicken is coated. Marinate for 3+ hours.

2. Heat and oil your grill. Add the chicken and grill, flipping once, until cooked through.

*I had the butcher I bought the chicken from do this. If you're buying it in packs, place chicken between two pieces of plastic wrap. Using a pan (since you're not tenderizing, just flattening, dont use your meat tenderizer)

Balsamic Salmon with Apple and Kohlrabi Slaw

I've been eating like a queen lately, and this week will be no different. It's the Fourth of July!!! Sadly, it falls on a Wednesday, which means that we do not get a nice long week end. The positive, however, is that my lovely company allows me to work remotely, so I will be working from my aunt's on Thursday and Friday and get to stay down the shore the whole weekend! 

It also means that I will be cooking for a very large group of people from Tuesday to Sunday...which, as you can only guess, makes me VERY EXCITED! My mum, aunt and I have already been emailing each other all morning planning each days dinners so that I can turn it into a food shopping list that my fam can handle before I get down tomorrow. They buy, I cook. Pretty good deal if you ask me!

Sadly, my family is definitely not as obsessed with seafood as I am. So last week I had fish almost every single day to get my craving filled. This was a recipe I made with the kohlrabi from one of the early weeks of my CSA. For those of you who are wondering, this is a kohlrabi:

I'll be entirely honest, when I got that thing I basically stared at it and was like...huh? But one of the positives of belonging to a CSA, besides you know, the vegetable part, is that one of the farmers is inevitably on-site during pick up to answer your questions. And you can only imagine how many questions all of the members had about kohlrabi! He explained that kohlrabi, aka the German turnip, and that the taste is similar to a broccoli stem but milder and sweeter. I think it tastes a bit like a cross between a radish and an apple. I decided to make it into a slaw because, really, even if I didnt like it, basically anything is good in a slaw. True? true. I'll admit this is barely a slaw, but because I was worried I wouldn't like the kohlrabi I didn't want to buy a ton of ingredients and waste money to just throw it out. Next time I'll be making one that has more depth of flavor, but this added a nice crunch to the salmon.


Balsamic Salmon with Apple and Kohlrabi Slaw

Ingredients:

4-6 oz. piece of salmon, per person
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Fresh herbs (I used basil and parsley)
1/2 kohlrabi
1/2 apple ( I used a Gala apple)
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Place tinfoil on a baking tray. Marinate your salmon in a mix of balsamic vinegar, oil and herbs for 10 minutes. Roast salmon for about 12 minutes, or until it flakes easily with a fork.

2. Slice the kohlrabi and apple into long, vertical, thin strips. Salt and pepper and allow to sit on a paper towel--this will let the kohlrabi and apple get even crispier. Once the salmon is cooked, toss the sliced fruit/veg in 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar. Serve slaw on top of the salmon.

Chile Lime Tilapia with Summer Zucchini

Sometimes living by myself can get sad. Not often, since its lovely to be able to eat what I want, when I want it (tomato salad 3 days in a row? Yes please!), watch all the crappy TV I want (I'm looking at you Real Housewives) and not feel bad if I have a fat day and go through 10 outfits before I leave for the office...and walk out without picking up the 9 outfits I decided not to wear.

But sometimes, cooking for yourself can be...hard. Not only that you're by yourself, but that you're cooking for one person! I think that's why so many single people order takeout or get frozen meals--it's a lot easier to do that for one person than to cook. And many times when you cook, you'll end up throwing stuff out because recipes are rarely for one. 

This is also why this blog is so important to me--I spent a long time getting used to cooking for an individual without wasting food and money. Hopefully I'm providing all you singles out there (and you families!) with recipes that are easy to make for one person without breaking the bank. That's also why I eat so much seafood...it's a lot easier to ask the guy behind the seafood counter to cut 6 oz. off that massive fillet of salmon than it is to ask a butcher to trim down that steak! 

The other good news about cooking for myself is that cooking for one has caused me to focus on yummy recipes that take a minimum of time to cook...mainly because if I look at a recipe and it looks too time intensive...I get a knock on my door and my delivery man is on the other side. This recipe took me, from start to finish...15 minutes. I kid you not.

Any recipes you're interested in? Shoot me an email at seasaltnpepa@gmail.com. I love to hear from you!

Chile Lime Tilapia with Summer Zucchini

Ingredients:

6 oz tilapia for each person
Cayenne chile powder
1 lime
1 zucchini
1 summer squash
Olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 400F. Line a large baking dish with tin foil.

2. Cut your zucchini and summer squash into small chunks--I cut crosswise down the entire zucchini and then cut those circles into four pieces. Toss with olive oil and put pieces in one layer on the baking dish. Place in oven.

3. Rinse and dry your tilapia. Brush the fish with olive oil and sprinkle cayenne powder over the fish, to your taste (I happen to love me some cayenne). Zest the lime over the fish; cut the lime in half and squeeze juice onto the fish.

4. After 12 minutes of the zucchini cooking, remove from oven. Place the fish in the center of the dish and return to the oven. Cook until tilapia is cooked through and flakes easily with a fork. Then enjoy!

Roasted Tomatoes on the Vine

I think it is safe to say that tomatoes are my favorite fruit. I also have to admit that I may or may not have just wikipedia'd tomatoes to figure out if they were a fruit or vegetable. Weren't they a vegetable when I was a kid? Is this another "Pluto is no longer a planet" things? Do scientists do this just to confuse us normal people? Is anyone else as confused as I am? ...probably not.

Anyway, back to tomatoes. Tomatoes have played an integral part of my childhood...and my general family history. As you know, I grew up in Jersey, so tomatoes (and corn) have been staples...forever. My mum has told me that she used to eat tomatoes the way some people eat apples (I must admit, I have since started doing the exact same thing). As you've seen from my summer sides post, the majority of the dishes we serve down the shore have tomatoes included. Even during the winter, we rely on tomatoes in our Italian food--marinara goes in lasagna, spaghetti pie, stuffed shells, meatballs, etc. I think if i could only eat one food for the rest of my life (and yes, this is a bold claim)...it would be tomatoes. Or chocolate. I am a woman after all!

Normally I stick with fresh tomatoes served raw. Or pureed and put into a sauce, like over pasta. But I've been dying to try to roast tomatoes...I mean, I like red peppers significantly more when they are roasted. Maybe I would feel the same about tomatoes! And this recipe is sooo quick and easy it's great to add to your arsenal.

Well, I have to say...these were delicious. Do I like them more than raw tomatoes? I don't think so, but the taste is so different it is amazing. I recommend serving these on a toasted baguette with a bit of ricotta served as a crostini. YUM!

Roasted Tomatoes on the Vine

Ingredients:

Cherry tomatoes on the vine
One large garlic clove
Basil (I used purple basil from my CSA)
Good quality olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Wash your tomatoes; chop the garlic and basil. 

3. Put foil on a baking dish (you all know my obsession with foil. Easy clean up!). Add the tomatoes and sprinkle the olive oil and balsamic over top. Sprinkle the basil and garlic so they fall on all of the tomatoes. 

4. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. When they're done, they should burst open if you cut through them.

Week 3 CSA

Another week, another pick up from my Roxbury Farm CSA! I so look forward to Thursday's because I get a fresh batch of veggies. Thus far, I've yet to use them all by myself, but when I head to the shore on weekends I bring any I haven't used/don't think I'll use the next week so that they don't go to waste. I still haven't figured out what in the world to do with all the turnips I have, so suggestions are welcome! Email them to me at seasaltnpepa@gmail.com.

This week's goodies:

• Turnips
• 2 zucchini
• 2 cucumbers
• 1 head green cabbage
• 1 head red leaf lettuce
• Salad mix
• Kale
• Snow peas
• Scallions
• Purple basil
• Parsley
• Cilantro

On top of the turnips, I'm not entirely sure what to do with all of those scallions. I also dislike that they're called scallions...stop being all stuck up, you're green onions! Sheesh. I've been making sauteed kale the way I used to do spinach and it has really been growing on me. If you like spinach, I highly recommend it.