Trout with Cilantro Mint Salsa

This made for a great dinner tonight. We love trout, however, the salsa is what makes this dish.
It is easy to make and can be made earlier in the day, which I like for convenience. The trout is grilled skin side down the entire time. It keeps it from drying out and from being too difficult to get off of the grill.

The salsa consists of a bunch of cilantro, a handful of mint, a Fresno or Thai chili, ginger, lime and a teaspoon of honey.

 

I do not use the seeds or veins of the chili, too hot for my taste.

 

Peel and grate about a 1/2 inch of ginger.

 

Juice of a lime.

 

Teaspoon of honey.

 

Salt and pepper to taste.

 



 

Good drizzle of olive oil.

 

There is the salsa. Leftovers are great on chicken, bread, eggs, etc.

 

I made a simple spring mix salad with olives, almonds and goat cheese. Dressed it with lemon juice and olive oil right before we ate.

 



 

A trick my sister taught me years ago when you have made your salad early in the day; cover it with a damp paper towel and it will stay fresh until dinner.

Ceviche

I love ceviche. It is fresh, summery and guilt free. The first time I made this recipe, I must admit that I was slightly terrified that the fish wouldn't actually cook. It did, to my great relief. This is a Marcella Valledoid recipe that I have modified just a bit.

First, you take a piece of  fresh tilapia.

 

Cut it into bite size pieces. PLace in a shallow small bowl.

 

 

Squeeze the juice of 4 limes into the bowl of raw fish.

 

 

Place the lime soaking fish into the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

 

 

Make some pico de gallo.

 

 

 

Add a peeled, seeded cucumber that had been diced to the pico.

 

 

A KEY step is to drain the fish from the lime juice that it "cooked" in.

 

 

Combine the fish with the cucumber pico de gallo and voila, ceviche!

 

This will be dinner tonight. I am serving it with a green salad that has some corn, onions and roasted red peppers. I am going to top it with Mexican Green Goddess dressing from Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook, It's All Good.

 

 

I had to include a picture of this onion, as I grew it in my garden!

 

Ceviche

 

1 fresh tilapia filet, diced into bite size pieces

5 limes, halved

2 tomatoes, seeded and diced

1/2 small onion, chopped

1/2 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped

handful of cilantro, chopped

1 clove of garlic, grated on a micro plane

3/4 cucumber, peeled seeded and diced

salt and pepper

 

Put the tilapia into a small nonreactive bowl. Add in the juice of 4 of the limes. The lime juice should completely cover the fish. Place the fish into the refrigerator for 30 - 45 minutes. While the fish is "cooking" in the lime juice, make the pico.

 

Combine the onion, tomatoes, cilantro, jalapeño, garlic and cucumber. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the juice of the remaining lime.

 

When the fish is ready, drain all of the lime juice that it "cooked" in off of the fish. This is an IMPORTANT step. The discarded lime juice will not taste good and you o not want it in your final product. Combine the fish with the cucumber pico de gallo. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to two days.

 

 

 

I have been gone for a year...

I haven't posted anything for a year. Well, I got a new job that kept me very busy!! Also, I have been reexamining my relationship with food. Our household was eating way to much processed food, gluten and sugar. I have been on a mission to try to eat healthier. I am now on a mission to eat healthier and for it to taste good! My goal this summer is to post delicious and healthy recipes. Some things may be a disaster, some will be hits. I have a new admiration and love of quinoa. It will probably be showing up a lot on posts, especially ways to use up the leftover quinoa. Lives are busy, cooking has to be doable. The reason we turn to to processed food is because it is easy. While I know that I am a better cook than the factory that makes the frozen pizza, it is far easier to open the freezer that to knead a clump of dough. Being a teacher, I have time to play this summer to be a better, healthier home cook.

When Life Gives You Limes.......

Recently my husband was going to Costco to pick up a couple of things. I needed a couple of limes for some guacamole that I was making. Not wanting him to have to stop at two places, I asked him to pick up limes at Costco. Can I just say, there are A LOT of limes in a bag of limes from Costco. I probably had twenty to thirty limes. Never one to be beaten by an ingredient, I have taken an old saying and modified it to fit my predicament. While making limeaid did put a dent into my limes, this is part one of a three part installment to the lime conundrum. Yes, making a hundred margaritas did cross my mind, but I chose a more original, and sober, path.


Ginger Limeaid

8 or 10  limes, about 1 c. lime juice, with at least 1/2 lime left over to garnish
1 c. sugar
1 2 inch strip of ginger
1 c. water
1 bottle sparkling water

Combine the sugar, water and ginger in a small saucepan. Heat until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and let cool.

While the gingered simple syrup is cooling, juice the limes to make a cup of fresh lime juice. Add the sparkling water to the pitcher. Remove the strip of ginger from the simple syrup and add in the simple syrup to the pitcher. Fill the rest of the pitcher with water. Taste and adjust sugar if necessary. We like a tarter limeaid, so if you know you like sweeter, add in more sugar. Garnish with 1/2 lime sliced thinly in the pitcher.

Salmon Cakes

 

I have not posted a recipe in months! I had knee surgery, and it is very difficult to cook while on crutches, let alone take photos of what you are cooking. Plus, I blog with my laptop laid across my lap, balanced by bent knees. Until very recently, thank you physical therapy, I haven't been able to bend my knee enough to hold the computer. The good news, though, I was out of the kitchen for so long, that I am very fired up to do loads of cooking! So lots of summer recipes are already in the planning stages.

Today, I had originally planned to go to the grocery store. But I decided to wait, because there will be good sales for Memorial Day weekend if I just waited a day. So I opened my fridge and played Chopped with what I had rolling around in the fridge. Salmon cakes were what I came up with. I prepped them a little differently than in past preparations and they turned out better than any salmon cake I have made. Here is the recipe.

Salmon Cakes

1 large steelhead trout salmon filet, skin on
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 ribs celery , chopped
1 ear of corn, roasted and cut away from the cob
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
zest of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp. capers, chopped
1 egg, beaten
1/4 c. mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
2/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
1/2 cup canola oil

Let me begin by stating that I cooked the corn and salmon on our grill because we live in Texas and it is hot. I try to turn on the oven in the house very little during the summer months. We have a gas grill and it is easy to light. Plus it heats up faster than the oven. Feel free to use your oven for the roasting.

Heat grill on high, 10 minutes. Cut off the very end tip of silk on your corn. Then, yes this really works, stick it on the top shelf of your grill husk, silk and all. Grill the corn 15-20 minutes, turning occasionally.

While the corn is roasting, you can cook the salmon. When the grill is hot, turn down the side burners and leave the center burner on high. Salt and pepper your salmon and brush on 1 tsp. of canola oil. Place the salmon, skin side down, on the grill where your burners are turned to low.

Close the cover on you grill and let the salmon cook for about 10 minutes. The grill acts like an oven. The center burner keeps the heat up, while cooking on the low burners keeps the salmon from charring into a lump of coal.

When the salmon and corn are ready, pull them off of the grill and let them cool. In a sauté pan over medium-high heat, sauté the onion, celery and pepper.

Salt and pepper them to taste, but don't go crazy with seasoning. The Old Bay that you add later is pretty salty, so you don't want to overdo it. Sauté until soft and translucent, but don't brown, about 6-7 minutes.  Put cooked celery, pepper and onion into large mixing bowl. Flake cooled salmon into mixing bowl with two forks. peel husk off of cooled corn, most of the silk will come off with it, and rub off any remaining silk. Cut the corn off of the cob into the mixing bowl. Add the capers, Old Bay, panko breadcrumbs, lemon zest,  beaten egg, mustard and mayo. Combine ingredients well.

Place flour into a large bowl, or plate with sides. Scoop about 1/2 cup of the salon mixtures into the palm of you hand and form into a patty. Coat the formed patty with the flour, then transfer to a plate. The flour coating helps keep the cake from falling apart when you cook them as well as making a lovely crust. The flour did kind of cake up on my hands, though, making it hard to form the next patty. I solved this problem by making two patties, then coating them with flour, then rinsing the excess flour off under running water. I assembled them close to the sink.

Refrigerate the patties for at least 30 minutes, or until you are ready too them. I made everything until this point in the morning. I covered the patties with plastic wrap and refrigerated them until dinnertime.

Heat 1/2 c. canola oil in a large nonstick pan on medium high heat. Fry patties, in batches, until golden brown on each side, about 3 -5 minutes. Drain excess grease on paper towels.

Garnish with lemon slices and serve immediately.