RECIPES: Heather's Roasted Creamer Potatoes

I was craving a traditional Sunday dinner meal the other day. You know-- the kind that includes mashed potatoes and maybe some roasted veggies and gravy? I came across some creamer potatoes at the farmer's market, and I decided they would do...

Heather's Roasted Creamer Potatoes

Creamer potatoes (or small red new potatoes)
Onions, slivered
Olive oil
Coarse sea salt
Fresh ground pepper

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 
• Put creamer potatoes in a roasting pan with onions. Cut up larger potatoes into bite-size chunks. Drizzle with EVO. Sprinkle liberally with sea salt and ground pepper.
• Roast until done (I don't remember how long it took.)

Very easy, and very good! And very good with caramelized onion salmon.

RECIPE: Heather's Citrus Orange Roughy

I recently needed to use up a piece of orange roughy that I had in the freezer, and I debated on what to do with it. I intended to do a Lemon-Orange Roughy I saw on the web (made with lemon and orange juices and lemon pepper), but I didn't have OJ or lemon pepper and only bottled lemon juice. So I had to make due. It went something like this:

Heather's Citrus Orange Roughy

1 orange roughy filet
Seasoned pepper
Bottled lemon juice
Bottled lime juice
Dried orange peel
Olive oil

Heat olive oil in pan. Sprinkle roughy liberally with seasoned pepper on both sides and place in pan. Saute for a minute. Squirt lemon and lime juices over fish. Sprinkle with a pinch of orange peel. Saute for about 5 minutes on each side.

Very simple way to prepare this fish, and a nice light flavor. It turned out quite well!

RECIPE: Heather's Mexican Rice

I needed a Mexican-type side dish the other day, and I came up with this.

Heather's Mexican Rice

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic
3 scallions, sliced
1 cup long-grain rice
2 cups water or vegetable broth
1/2 chopped tomato
1/2 small can tomato sauce
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
Cilantro

1. Saute pepper in EVO for a few minutes. 
2. Add scallions and garlic and saute a minute. 
3. Add rice and toast until turning brown.
4. Add water/broth and tomato. Cover and simmer 20 minutes.
5. Stir in tomato sauce and season with chili powder, salt and cumin.
6. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro and serve.

Actually you should do the tomato sauce to suit you. I think I'll go a little easier on the sauce next time, as it was a little too tomato-ey for me. Otherwise it was a nice little dish.

RECIPE: Heather's Breakfast Burrito

I made the best breakfast burrito yesterday, and it was so easy to make! Here's what I did:

Breakfast Burrito
Makes 2 small burritos

1 tbs butter
1/4 cup onion, chopped small
1/4 cup roasted red pepper, chopped small
1/8 cup tomato, chopped small
2 eggs
Almond milk
Salt and Pepper
Cheese
2 flour tortillas

1. Melt butter in pan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until it begins to caramelize.
2. Add in pepper and tomato and saute a couple of minutes until heated through.
3. Meanwhile combine eggs and a little milk (I use almond milk) in a small bowl and beat to combine well. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Add eggs to veggies. Scramble eggs until done. Top with cheese to melt. (I used a Swiss slice this time, torn into pieces).
5. Remove egg mixture from pan (reserve in a small bowl), and warm tortillas in saute pan. Assemble egg mixture in tortilla and roll up to serve.

RECIPE: Mushroom Soup

This is an old favorite of mine. I got this recipe out of a book of Native American cooking. They say that it makes 6-8 servings, but I would say that would only be possible if they were small side servings to an entree. I'd say this will make more like four decent-sized servings.

Mushroom Soup
serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1 medium shallot, minced
1 lb button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup flour
4 cups beef broth (I now use vegetable broth)
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp dried marjoram
Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1.  In 3-quart saucepan, melt butter over medium-heat. Add shallot and cook until transparent.

 2.  Raise heat and add mushrooms. Allow shrooms to render slightly.

3.  Reduce the heat and stir in flour. Cook for about 2 minutes, and gradually pour in broth, stirring constantly to prevent lumps from forming.

4.  Remove from heat and gradually stir in sour cream. Season.

Always easy and delicious! I serve it with garlic toast, and maybe a side salad.

NOTE: You can add rice before the sour cream, if desired. Add a box of wild rice (without the seasoning packet). Increase the broth by 1 - 1 1/2 cups. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Reduce to a simmer and cover. Simmer 20 minutes. Then go to step 4 above.

RECIPE: Fish Tacos with White Sauce

I decided to try my hand at homemade fish tacos. I bought a book the other day called Power Foods, and it had a good recipe in it that I felt was a good candidate.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9265477-power-foods

However I wanted my fish tacos with a sauce. So I did a little research and found another recipe that had a white sauce that people raved about. So I adapted the white sauce from one recipe to go with my fish tacos from another recipe.

Grilled Fish Tacos
adapted from Power Foods
(original recipe was for a dozen tacos. This recipe makes about 4 tacos.)

Ingredients:

1/3 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp chili powder
Coarse salt
4 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 tsp finely chopped cilantro
Red snapper fillet
1 cup shredded green cabbage
4 corn tortillas
Lime wedges, avocado, sour cream, hot sauce, tomatoes, or any other fillings desired

Directions:

• Stir together cumin, oregano, chili powder, and 3/4 tsp coarse salt. Mix in olive oil and cilantro.

 

• Use sharp knife to make shallow slits about 1 1/2 inches apart into the fish skin; transfer to a large dish and rub both sides with spice mixture (I put it in a ziploc bag instead). Refrigerate, covered, for 30 minutes to 2 hours.

 

• Toss together cabbage and 1/2 tsp salt in a small bowl. Let sit 30 minutes.

 

• The recipe called for grilling the fish (on an outside grill), but I just cooked it in a saute pan. Saute about 4-5 minutes on each side.

 

• Transfer fish to a platter and cool slightly. Squeeze half of a lime over the top, and then shred into bite-size pieces. Garnish platter with lime wedges and cilantro sprigs. Serve warm or at room temperature (within 1 hour).

 

• Heat tortillas one at a time in saute pan.
• Have guests assemble their own tacos with white sauce (below) and other desired fillings like tomato, cabbage and avocado.

 

White sauce:

1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup mayo
Lime juice
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp dill
1/4 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cayenne

Mix together. Put in enough lime juice to thin to a sauce consistency, and do to taste.Can include some minced jalapeno. This makes substantially more sauce than needed for 4 tacos.


I made four tacos, and even though they are small, it was too much. I made these again tonight, but this time I only made two tacos, so I can have two more tomorrow night.

Very good! Tangy from the lime juice and cilantro, a little mild heat (more heat if you decide to add jalapeno to the white sauce), juicy, tender fish. Very tasty! I obviously loved them, since I made them again for dinner tonight!

RECIPE: Shrimp Santorini

I recently had dinner at a local Greek restaurant, and they have this dish on the menu. I decided to give it a try, and it had great potential, but I was essentially unimpressed. It was like they took big chunks of peppers and onions and mixed them in with some spaghetti sauce and shrimp. I decided that I could find a way to make it better.

I checked online for some recipes, and I found a video made by executive chef Milos Estiatorio of Boca Raton showing how he makes this dish. I decided to give it a go. He didn't really give amounts, so I had to sort of wing it.

Shrimp Santorini
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 red pepper, chopped small
1 green pepper, chopped small
1 onion, chopped small
Olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic, minced
2 scallions, sliced (about 2 tbs)
1 tsp fresh rosemary, minced
1 basil leaf, minced
Few sprigs of parsley, minced
3 medium tomatoes, chopped and mashed
1/2 tsp fresh oregano, minced
1/2 cp white wine
1-2 handfuls of crumbled feta


Directions:

Clean, devein, de-shell shrimp and pat dry. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Saute onion and peppers in oil for a few minutes.

Add garlic and scallions, rosemary and basil.

Cook for a few minutes, then add parsley.

Chop the tomatoes and mash them with a potato masher to make them "juicy".

Add the tomatoes to the mixture, and season with salt and pepper and oregano. At this point, you have a sort of sofrito.

Add the shrimp and the white wine. Let it reduce some.

Stir in the feta.


That's it! Ready to serve!

Well, my Shrimp Santorini turned out better than the dish I ate at the authentic Greek restaurant in town! It is quite tasty. Just serve over rice, and maybe add a small salad, and you're good to go!