Ooo La La - Something French & Fishy

We love tuna steaks at our house. It's probably the hubs favorite fish actually.

Sometimes we'll grill it up asian style with some sesame noodles. Other times I make Tuna Salad Nicoise.

I base our recipe for Nicoise off of a salad I ate probably 5 years ago at Go Fish! in Mystic, CT.

It was a light, delicious salad and I never forgot it. That salad was probably my first foray in to replicating a recipe at home. Hmmm maybe I should have started blogging back then!

If you like a good rare to medium rare tuna steak and a good nicoise, you'll love this salad. You can grill the fish or griddle it or pan fry it, whatever is easiest for you.

Go Fish! Tuna Salad Nicoise At Home

1 tuna steak per salad

mixed greens

9-12 fresh greenbeans per salad

1 hard boiled egg per salad

3-4 small boiled sliced potatoes per salad.

Earlier in the day boil your potatoes and eggs in a pot. About 5-6 minutes before the eggs are done, add your cleaned, trimmed beans - drain the pot and let everything reset.

Place your sald greens in a salad bowl or plate. season with a touch of salt and pepper.

Start your tuna steak and cook to your liking.

Slice your potatoes, eggs and place around the lettuce. Place green beans around the salad. Drizzle all items with olive oil and a touch of either lemon juice or balsamic vinegar. Top your salad with your tuna steak sliced on the diagonal.

ENJOY!

Great Vegetarian Gnocchi

We love Gnocchi... it's hearty, filling and a good comfort food.

I have NO clue how I stumbled upon this recipe or this site for that matter. I swore I was on Lydia's Kitchen site but obviously not as I read the website this recipe came from.

Anywho, either way it was delicious and a great dinner that didn't make you feel miserable about yourself when you were done eating it.

I served it with roasted broccoli - and wow that is a great new side dish addition to our house. Fresh broccoli, some Tastefully Simple Meyer Lemon Oil, roast and enjoy.

Gnocchi & Vegetables

2 tbsp canola or olive oil

¼ cup finely sliced carrots

¼ cup finely chopped celery

½ cup finely sliced onion - we diced it and all of the veggies.

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 14 oz can diced Italian spiced tomatoes

½ tbsp Italian seasoning - I just used some dried basil from the garden.

¼ tsp pepper

1 package prepared gnocchi

Fresh parmesan cheese

Heat oil in frying pan. Saute carrots, celery and onion until onions are clear. Add tomatoes, garlic & seasonings. Heat & stir.

Cook gnocchi according to package directions.
Add gnocchi to sauce, mix & serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

DELICIOUS!!!

How The Hubs Eats...

When the Wife is Away...

I went out of town to visit my mom recently and left the hubs a menu plan, got the things he would need - one night was BLTs.

He was so impressed with his incredible BLT Skills, he took a picture - or 10 - so I would blog about it.

I love this man so much - he's so adorable.

Here you go babe - your BLT Special.

UPDATE: The Hubs comment when I read him this and showed him the picture : "BLOG"

Flavorful Vegetarian!

I've seen recipes all over the place for Pumpkin and Black Bean enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas, tacos, etc.

Now the flavor combo together sounded incredible to me - and I'm sorry it took me almost a year to get around to finally making these.

I didn't use a recipe - I just kind of winged it. But it was so tasty, so easy and so good! Wasn't a huge hit with the non-vegetarian loving hubs, but I adored these and would so make these again.

Stephany's Pumpkin and Black Bean Enchiladas

1 package small flour tortillas
1 can pumpkin

1 can black beans - drained and rinsed

1 package shredded mexican cheese

1 jar mexican seasoning (whatever you have around)

1 bottle green enchilada sauce mix

cilantro

Spread pumpkin on the tortilla and sprinkle with a T of black beans, a sprinkle of seasoning and a tsp or so of cheese and a little sprinkle of fresh cilantro.

Roll up the tortillas and place in a baking dish. Repeat to make enough for your casserole dish. top with enchilada sauce and sprinkle with cheese.

bake at 350 for 30 minutes until warmed inside.

I served this with some sliced tomatoes with cilantro and some fresh fried plantains that I made myself at home. I cut the plantain up, and fried the slices in oil and then drained on paper towel and sprinkled with salt - they really didn't absorb that much oil so don't freak out over frying them. they were such a good treat with the enchiladas!

A little bit of summer heaven

I love cucumber salad - especially creamy ones.

I found this recipe on the Coconut & Lime blog and it looked similar to what I recalled growing up with.

I made it with some burgers on the grill and some leftover potato salad that we had in the fridge from the night before.

This meal was like summer delight on a plate - it was so good.

I will make this salad again, without a doubt.

I did omit the red onion and next time I may omit the lemon juice next time - not due to flavor, but because it made it a little runnier than I'd like once it sat for a bit.




Below is the recipe as I made it.

Creamy Cucumber Salad

1 large cucumber peeled and sliced thin


1 T dried dill from the garden


1 container plain greek yogurt


1 T red wine vinegar (I used white wine)


juice of 1/2 lemon

salt & pepper


Wisk together the dressing ingredients - froom yogurt down and then pour over the cucmber and dill - you can use fresh dill per the recipe and it calls for 3/4 oz fresh dill plus another 1/2 tsp. dried in the dressing.


SO GOOD! A hit all around the dinner table - you know that huge dinner table for 2!

An Excellent Summer Salad

I saw this recipe on 1o1 Cookbooks Blog that I frequent - and if you don't visit her site you should, she's an incredible and unique cook - never have had ANYTHING bad from her site.

She posted this recipe a while back and I thought this would be a great dinner for us.

We made it as the recipe calls for but it was a little strong on some flavors so when we make this next time we'll certainly adapt it a bit.

The recipe, Pan-Fried Chickpea Salad Recipe, is here.

The changes we did make were that we used 2 cans of chick peas that were rinsed. Otherwise we made it as is - next time we will also not use the red onion - it was too strong with the red onion and the leek combined.

A Trip to the Islands for Dinner

I made this recipe a while back and it was really such a good, flavorful dinner. I was a little disappointed that the rice didn't have more coconut flavor, but next time I'll just add more coconut than water - easy fix.

This idea for this dinner came from a recipe from Kill The Gluten Blog - some great recipes, for the gluten free or gluten eaters.

I did make a few adjustments, such as instead of frying the chicken and using rice flour, I baked them and used panko - still crispy and tasty! I'm posting as I made the meal

Coconut Rice.

In the rice cooker, place 1 1/2 cups rice and rinse the rice. Add in 1 1/2 cup water and 1 1/2 cups coconut milk. Cover and let cook. Again, next time I will use probably 2 cups coconut milk instead. Top with green onion.

Pineapple Chicken

coat chicken tenders in panko crumbs and place on a baking pan and bake in the oven until browned and done. I did season the chicken some salt, pepper and ginger powder.

In a saucepan, combine 1 cup water, 1/3 cup honey, 1/3 cup soy sauce, 2 T lime juice and 2 T coconut milk. Let simmer until it reduces by about half and gets a little thick. Plate the chicken and rice and serve with the sauce. Top with pineapple chunks - drained (I forgot this part).

Such a flavorful, easy and tasty dinner. Will certainly make again - next time I may eggwash the chicken strips instead for a bit more crunch.