Cod Fish Tacos

With the sun finally coming around, Kristin and I made summer-worthy cod tacos with a zesty cilantro salsa aioli.  We are fans of spice, and this meal had a great kick to it.  Plus, I am a sucker for colorful food, so I loved the punch of purple cabbage.

Kristin just got a Cuisinart food processor, and this meal gave us plenty of chances to experiment with it.  We blended the salsa and shredded cabbage in the processor, but if you don't have a food processor you can dice and shred by hand.

Ingredients

Cod fillet, bones removed

1 package cajun corn meal batter

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 head red cabbage, or 1/2 head of both red and green cabbage, shredded

juice of 1/2 lemon (save the other 1/2 lemon for serving)

1 cup mayonnaise

1 tomato, roughly chopped

1 onion, roughly chopped

1 head of cilantro

a few slices of jalapeno pepper

1 avocado, diced

vegetable oil for frying

1 package tortillas (we used flour, but corn tortillas would be great too).

1 package feta cheese crumbles

We got a cheap cajun corn meal batter from the grocery store, and it tasted fantastic.  It was essentially just corn meal and spice.  You can batter the fish however you'd like; we dipped it in an egg and milk mixture, and then tossed it in the cornmeal batter.  

Here's a tip for neutralizing the fish smell: keep a bowl of vinegar on the counter while cooking.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat with about a half an inch of vegetable oil.  Fry the battered cod on both sides until golden brown.

Blend the tomato, onion, cilantro, jalapeno and lemon juice in a food processor until you reach a desirable consistency (we basically pureed ours, but you can do a chunkier salsa if you want).  Mix the salsa into the mayonnaise.

Warm the tortillas by frying them briefly on both sides.  Layer tortillas with battered cod, cilantro salsa aioli, cabbage, avocado slices, feta cheese crumbles, and lemon juice.  Eat up!

Steamed Artichokes and Aioli

Artichokes are like hedgehogs- prickly and ferocious on the outside, cuddly on the inside.  I know many people are put off by the artichoke’s confusing exterior, so this week we thought we’d lay out a simple steamed artichoke recipe along with easy, how-to-eat instructions for anyone unfamiliar with this vegetable.  This is one of the most addicting vegetables, and it’s the perfect summer food!

Steamed Artichoke

2 artichokes

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

How to cut an artichoke:

Using a serrated knife, cut off most of the stem (you can leave about an inch of stem on the artichoke if you’d like).  Also cut about two inches off of the tip of the artichoke, so that all the layers of petals are exposed.

Place the artichokes snugly together, stems-up, in a pot of simmering water.  You only need a few inches of water in the pot – the artichokes should not be completely submerged.  Add the roughly chopped garlic to the water; this infuses the artichoke with a yummy hint of garlic.  Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes, until the stem of the artichoke is tender and the petals are easily removed.

Aioli

¾ c. mayonnaise

juice of ½ lemon

3 cloves minced garlic

Combine ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

How to eat an artichoke:

Remove and discard the outermost petals near the stem of the artichoke – these petals don’t taste great.  To eat the petals, hold them by the outer “pointy” end, and dip the fleshy end in aioli.  Pull the petal through your teeth to get the meat, and then discard the petal. 

When you get to the center of the artichoke under the little purple petals, you can simply take a spoon and scoop out the seeds to discard them.  Underneath those seeds is the delicious artichoke heart (attached to the stem), which is the best part!

Rosemary Focaccia and Black Bean Bell Pepper Soup

Although it's April, Bellingham still has a few stormy days in store.  To combat the rain, we made some warm comfort food: hearty black bean and bell pepper soup with lots of toppings, and very easy rosemary focaccia bread.

Black Bean Bell Pepper Soup


Ingredients:
1 medium onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 anaheim pepper, diced
cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

1 chipotle pepper (canned), minced

3 cans black beans, drained but not rinsed

1 can crushed tomatoes with green chiles

1 cup chicken broth (or vegetable broth)

salt and pepper

olive oil

turmeric
cayenne pepper

lemon juice from ½ lemon

Fry onions at medium heat in olive oil until translucent; add turmeric.  Add garlic, anaheim and bell peppers and sauté.


Add chicken broth, black beans, and salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer and stir in chipotle pepper, lemon juice and cayenne.  Both chipotle peppers and cayenne can be very spicy, so it's up to you how you want to balance these two spices.  Allow the soup to simmer and thicken, covered, for about a half an hour.  Before serving, stir in fresh cilantro leaves.

Top with:

Cilantro, sliced and salted avocado, grated cheddar cheese, and sour cream.

Rosemary Focaccia

For the focaccia, we cheated a bit and used a bread maker to prepare the dough.  If you have a bread maker, this is really simple: follow your bread maker's directions for preparing pizza dough.  Ours called for:
1 1/8 c. warm water
1 1/2 tbs. olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3 1/3 c. all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. yeast

While the dough is rising (it takes about an hour), you have plenty of time to cook the black bean soup.  When the dough is ready, sprinkle with cornmeal and spread it across a pizza stone or pizza pan to about 1/2 inch thickness.  

Press indentations into the dough with your fingers, and drizzle the dough with olive oil.  Sprinkle with dried rosemary and salt (we think ground salt crystals taste the best on this, and Trader Joe's pink salt looks pretty!)

Let the dough rise for 20 minutes.  Bake at 400 degrees until golden brown.  Enjoy!

Restaurant Inspired: Black Bean Wontons with Lemon Cilantro Pesto, Corn Salsa and Prawns

Welcome to our first blog post!

Way back in December, Kristin and I had lunch at a pub in Seattle where we tried an amazing black bean ravioli with prawns and cilantro pesto, and this is our attempt at recreating it.  It turns out black bean ravioli is hard to come by, so we thought we'd make our own using wonton wrappers from the grocery store (which are cheap and delicious).  We also added a little twist by making the cilantro pesto extra lemony, complementing the prawns.  The whole meal turned out fantastic, and we highly recommend trying it out yourself!  It might seem complicated, but each of the steps is actually very easy.  If you do give any of our recipes a try, please let us know how they turned out!

P.S: we're working on getting better at paying attention to measurements, sorry for the approximations this time.

Ingredients:

Black Bean Wontons:
1 package wonton wrappers
1 can black beans, drained
a few tablespoons Parmesan cheese (we used slivered rather than grated)
salt and pepper to taste

Cilantro Pesto:
about 2-3 heads of cilantro, removed from stems
juice of 1/2 a large lemon or 1 small lemon
1/2 cup slivered Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
1 clove garlic

Corn Salsa:
3 roma tomatoes, finely diced
1/3 red onion, finely diced
1 cup yellow frozen corn, defrosted and drained (use fresh if in season)

2/3 lb Prawns or Large Shrimp

To make the corn salsa, simply combine diced tomatoes, diced onion, and corn in a bowl.  Salt and pepper to taste.

To make the cilantro pesto, combine cilantro leaves, garlic and parmesan cheese in a food processor.  Add sufficient olive oil to coat the cilantro.  Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.  Process until blended to a nice pesto texture.  Pesto is pretty subjective, so taste it and feel free to adjust measurements based on what you prefer.

To make the black bean wontons, mash black beans and parmesan together in a mixing bowl.  Add salt and pepper to taste.


Place about 1 tablespoon of bean mixture in the center of each wonton wrapper.  Moisten 2 adjacent edges of the wonton wrapper with water, and fold the wrapper over so that the wonton makes a triangle.  Seal and crimp the edges of the wonton wrapper with your fingers.

Fry wontons in a large frying pan in oil over medium-high heat, until both sides are browned and crispy.

While the wontons are cooking, preheat the oven to 425 F.  Line a baking sheet with a single, even layer of prawns, and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Bake for around 10 minutes (depending on size of prawns), until the prawns are opaque and pink throughout.

Top black bean wontons with lemon cilantro pesto, corn salsa and prawns, and enjoy!