Category Archives: Vegetables

American, Fish, Shrimp, Vegetables

Bouillabaisse

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We were at the Saratoga Farmer’s Market the other day and stopped by at the Mission Fish vendor. They specialize in fish caught fresh in the Monterey Bay and always have a good selection. They’ll even clean and fillet the fish for you for free. The fish heads and bones they package up for sale, and that’s what we came home with.

We took those fish head and bones and put them in a large stock pot, tossed in some shrimp shells, and added the mirepoix – onions, celery, and carrots – a cup of dry white wine, a quarter of a lemon, some whole peppercorns, a bay leaf, and some herbs de Provence, then covered with water. Brought it to a boil, then simmered for 1 hour before straining out the liquid.

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Mexican, Tomatoes, Vegetables

Chopped Salad

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Annie made this great chopped salad based on the “Chopped Mexican Salad with Roasted Peppers, Corn, Tomatoes & Avocado” recipe from Fine Cooking Magazine July 2006, p 57.

First, she roasted some seeded red bell peppers and corn in the oven with olive oil until the peppers were soft, then diced the peppers. She also diced up some tomatoes and avocado. She blanched some broccoli and chopped that up as well (the original recipe calls for diced jicama). All the ingredients were mixed together along with a drained can of black beans and garnished with chopped cilantro.

The dressing was a honey-lime-cumin vinaigrette which included garlic, lime juice, orange juice, shallots, honey, toasted ground cumin, olive oil and fresh ground black pepper. This is a great salad which has a lot of flavor and texture.

Aloha, Nate

American, Egg, Vegetables

Chopped Salad

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Annie made this great chopped salad with blanched broccoli, canned black beans, hard boiled eggs, roasted red bell peppers and corn, chopped cilantro, and green onion. The dressing was Annie’s Naturals brand cilantro-lime dressing.

(Too bad they don’t sell the cilantro-lime dressing anymore – it’s good. At least we can still get the shiitake mushroom-sesame vinaigrette from Trader Joe’s.)

It was a great salad for a warm (85*F) day.

Aloha, Nate

Poultry, Spanish, Vegetables

Paella

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Yonks and yonks ago, back when we were just dating, I cooked a paella dish for Annie. I don’t remember what went in it but it probably had chicken, Portuguese sausage, and jasmine rice (at the time, I didn’t know about arborio). It was successful, and the rest is history.

We hadn’t made it since but an opportunity arose when Fosco issued a “smackdown challenge” over on the alt.binaries.food newsgroup. Annie rose to the challenge and, basing her recipe off of one found on the America’s Test Kitchen website, produced this masterpiece.

Here are the steps:

1. Marinate prawns and chicken thighs in olive oil and garlic

2. Cut red bell pepper into strips and cook; remove from pan

3. Brown chicken pieces; remove from pan. Brown chorizo; remove from pan

4. Cook chopped onion until soft, then toss in chopped garlic. Stir in 1 can diced tomatoes until thickened.

5. Stir in arborio rice until coated. Add chicken broth, wine, saffron, bay leaf, and salt. Return chicken and chorizo, bring got boil then cover and place in oven until rice absorbs water.

6. Add prawns, mussels, bell peppers, and peas and return to oven until the mussels have opened.

Aloha, Nate