An Easy Fancy Dinner

For NYE, Manatee and I decided to stay in and cook together. We wanted to do something a little fancier than normal but didn't want to spend the day cooking. We decided on peppered tuna steaks with buttered green beans and mushrooms (and salad and sourdough bread). This was a super easy thing to make and it was delicious.

Peppered Tuna Steak with Sweet and Tangy Marinade

2 ahi tuna steaks

Ground Black Pepper

Oil for grill

Oil the grill.

Grind some black pepper and press into tuna steaks. 

Place steaks on heated grill. Brush on marinade (recipe below). 

Grill for 4-6 minutes. 

Marinade:

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup honey

1/4 soy sauce

Whisk ingredients together. Use for basting and pour marinade over steaks when finished grilling.

Butter Green Beans and Mushrooms

6 oz sliced shitake mushrooms (stems removed)

6 oz sliced cremini mushrooms

1 garlic clove minced

2 Tbsp of butter

Salt and Pepper

Blanche green beans by steaming for 4 minutes and then dunking in ice water and placing on towel.

Melt 2 Tbsp butter in pan. 

Add mushrooms and salt and pepper. Saute for approx 8 minutes until mushroom juice evaporates.

Add minced garlic and sautee for 1 minute.

Add green beans and sautee until thoroughly heated.

Serve and enjoy!

The Conquering of a Goal

I kind of cheated and started on my cooking goals on New Year's Eve. Manatee and I made angel food cake from scratch.
It was awesome. You take twelve egg whites and keep beating them and they transform into a huge bowl from lightweight froth, otherwise known as meringue. I may sound naive or a little dim, but seeing the chemical reaction (or whatever it was) was just really, really cool. Matter of fact, I am going to add to my list of goals to make homemade mayonnaise.

I am not going to include the recipe because it is quite involved. We used the one from the Ultimate Cookbook.

Angel food topped with cocoa/cinnamon whipped cream with spicy caramel sauce

The Plan for the First Week of 2011

Sunday:
Pot Roast with Winter Vegetables and Fresh Thyme Popovers

Monday:
Fish Packets with Deconstructed Pesto and Steamed Asparagus

Tuesday:
Santa Fe Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Wednesday:
Leftovers

Thursday:
Ratatouille

Friday:
Baked Eggs with Ratatouille

Goals for 2011

As we move into the new year, I wanted to lay out some cooking goals I have for myself. Most of these involve trying new dishes whether it's new dishes I have never had but associate with being a 'good cook' or just stuff I have been curious about.
You will notice a lot of 'from scratch' in my goal list. One of my major over-arching goals for the year is to continue cutting out processed foods from my diet.

Goals

1. Make fish once a week. Manatee and I love seafood yet we rarely make it. Why? Because it terrifies me. No rationale beyond it. I can handle salmon but everything else just seems foreign and out of reach. Hopefully we can work to take the mystique out.

2. Make Coq au Vin.

3. Make Boeuf Bourguignon a la Julia Child.

4. Make homemade macaroni and cheese. Do I like noodles? Not really. And I'm lactose intolerant so this really makes no sense other than I just have always wanted to do it. So there.

5. Make a real ragut sauce. I have several books on Italian cooking and I need to get cracking on them.

6. Have a formal dinner party.

7. Learn more about wine pairing.

8. Visit a winery.

9. Attend a wine tasting.

10. Make 'real' scalloped potatoes.

11. Cook lamb.

12. Cook/Roast a whole chicken. This is another strange thing that terrifies me. I prefer my chicken skinless and boneless.
13. Make an angel food cake from scratch.
14. Conquer my fears of making bread- no bread machine, just me and active yeast. I need to get over the unleavened bread disaster from this past summer.
15. Make pasta from scratch.
16. Master the art of making a double layer cake from scratch so that I can have an old reliable way of doing it.
17. Try making different rolls and biscuits until I find one that I can claim as a trademark.
18. Continue with 'the plan' or, if you haven't been following, having a plan for every week.
19. Start cooking with dried beans, not canned.
20. Convince Manatee that goat cheese is awesome OR find a cheese that Manatee and I both love. There is no cheese I love more than goat cheese and there is no cheese Manatee hates more. I love it if I could find a way to prepare it that both of us would love or find a cheese we both like and I love as much as goat cheese, it would be a good thing. Suggestions anyone- on recipes for goat cheese or cheeses that would appeal to both palates?

I will monitor my progress on the blog. I am leaving it up to you to hold me accountable.

Cookie Baking Extravaganza 2010

There are a lot of things I make that are low fat. Frosting is not one of them.

Favorite Frosting for the Holidays

8 oz Cream Cheese (You could use reduced fat cream cheese)

8 oz Unsalted Butter

4 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1. Beat with electric mixer: cream cheese and butter.

2. Beat in sugar and vanilla.

3. Add food coloring and yum!

Holidays

I am trying to be nice to myself over the holidays and Manatee is helping me to do that. Menus are based on what we know and the least fuss possible while still serving good food.

Christmas Eve will be appetizers. My mother is bringing meatballs and we are having shrimp cocktail with tarrago aoli (I couldn't be nice enough where I didn't have to do something more than just dump cocktail sauce in a bowl) and the mushroom cheesey bread. We'll also have a salad available.

Saturday we are bringing a big salad as well as fresh veggies with dips- hummus (easy! not homemade) and a carmelized onion dip.

Sunday we are making two cookie pans of homemade pizza following my grandmother's recipe. We will also have a big salad and leftover veggies from Saturday.

Sweet items for the weekend (as my family is notorious for their sweet tooth): Cookies from the Cookie Extravaganza (pics to come!) and gingerbread cupcakes (recipe a la Weight Watchers).

Snackey items: aformentioned dips and veggies, as well as sweet and spicey walnuts, and a cheese and sausage tray that Manatee received as a gift.

We are having overnight guests so we need something for breakfast but nothing too filling since we will be eating big lunches so I am going to make a banana bread with peanut butter sauce (recipe a la Cooking Light).

One thing Manatee and I struggle with over the holidays is that we maintain a fairly healthy lifestyle and most of the foods we enjoy eating are not necessarily enjoyable by the masses. For example, our love of salads, veggies, sugar free jello, etc. We are not too big into snacking but when we have guests, we often find ourselves struggling to provide snacks that they won't turn their noses up to or breakfasts they won't have to choke down (apparently not everyone loves Fiber One and Crunchy Corn Bran with Soy Milk- shocker, I know). We'll see how this weekend goes as we have tried to find that balance between healthy but feels like a treat and while also keeping it low fuss.

Sigh....

Do you know what is REALLY disgusting?

Gluten Free Pizza Bread.

'Nuff said.