Make one and stick to it.

This year is about taking my challenges one day at a time. 

People close to me know that at one point in time you would not catch me without some sort of tobacco product in my hand..(hooka, black and milds, or the occasional cig). Well The other day I sat and reflected on my past activities.

I realized that I havent picked up one of those products since November!!!! 

I thought to myself that I should quit but never really cared to. 

I believe my turning point was when a really bad cough developed, it made it difficult to breathe, talk, and even interact with others. 

This day was the last day I craved the habit! 

This is one decision I plan to stick too! 

I have to say so far so good...I hope this post didnt jinks me! lol

xoxo

This evening, I rescued several items from my fridge and counter from certain death and ended up making a pretty impressive menu in the process... Some of my best creations have come about by just working with the stuff that is on its last night of freshness before becoming 'questionable...

The ingredients for this impromptu dinner spread included yams, leftover quinoa, fresh strawberries, sliced mini-cucumbers, some fresh beets that needed roasting, a hunk of roquefort that I thought I'd eat more of. To this, I added a few spices, some frozen raspberries, and a few good guesses. The resulting menu never made items doomed for the trash sound so good:

Chilled Cucumber and Strawberry Salad

Warm Sweet Potatoes and Quinoa with Roasted Beets and Roquefort

Berry and Beet Sorbet. (Damn right I did!)

For the salad, I mixed sliced of cucumber and strawberry with some white wine vinegar, red wine, basil, a dash of chimayo chili, and I think that's it... toss it, throw it in the fridge, and wait until it gets cold. Or as the gourmets say, 'chilled'... Overall, it was OK, but not impressive. I'd prefer to use balsamic vinegar next time, and would consider making a sweeter balsamic reduction as a dressing.

For the main course, I boiled diced sweet potatoes until tender, then threw them in cold water for a minute to stop them from cooking further and mixed with the leftover quinoa, some thyme, and a bit of cinnamon.

Three beets were washed and wrapped together loosely in foil, with a tbsp of water added before sealing. I roasted this for about 30 minutes at 425. When they were done, I peeled them with my hands (wearing latex gloves) and diced. Two were set aside for the main course, the last for dessert. I then spooned out the potatoes, topped with diced beets, and then topped with crumbled roquefort.

This is not a dish that should be mixed together; the beets will make everything turn red and it will not look nearly as appetizing. The contrasting flavors of the beet, roquefort and sweet potato were interesting no matter what combination was on the fork.

For dessert, I cooled the remaining beet, then blended it with frozen raspberries, fresh strawberries, a little lemon juice, and some cilantro. It was a little more 'smoothie consistency' than I wanted so I threw it back in the freezer until dinner was over...  The sorbet was very sweet because of the raspberries, but you can still taste the contrast with the beet. Next time, I'd back off on the raspberry and add more strawberry, and might freeze the beet once it is roasted to add thickness.

The results, starting with the salad...

On to the Main Course...

and finally, dessert...

Several months ago, I bought a 2.5 lb block of frozen, cleaned squid to use as a new ingredient. I opted to go with the whole squids, since precut rings seemed to limit what I could do with the ingredient. I finally decided to defrost the batch and get creative.

After starting the defrosting process in the fridge a day or two before, I started thinking about creative recipes. However, when I decided to finally get cooking, I had not gotten a chance to gather ingredients at a store, so I was limited to what I had in the house.

After we put our son down to sleep, my wife stepped out to run an errand. My challenge: One hour to get the squid cooked, plated, and ready to serve the moment she returned. Also, I had to make three dishes and use the entire 2.5 lb block of squid.

Since I am trying to eat healthy, frying the squid as a traditional calamari appetizer was not an option. I've always been partial to calamari marinara, a tender stewed squid in tomato sauce, anyway, so immediately added that as a dish to the menu. I also wanted to use some of the veggies we recenlty bought to make a bean salad, so I started listing out ingredients for a chilled salad that contained calimari rings. Finally, I decided to reserve two whole squids to be marindated and broiled.

I immediately began boiling two pots of water and began washing and dicing veggies. I think a key to a cooking an improv meal is to get a pot of water going right up front. You'll use it to blanche some vegetables, boil pasta or rice or quinoa, or quick thaw a frozen meat. Plus, if you don't use it, its a pot of water... you can dump it, or if you're environmentally concious, just let it cool and then water some plants with it.

Once the basic prep was done, I got started on the the marinara. I sauteed diced up squid for a few minutes with onions, garlic and basil, added the tomatoes, and let the sauce simmer the entire time I focused on the other dishes.

I then marinated the while squids in a mixture of garlic, soy sauce, balsamic, red wine, worchestershire sauce and hot sauce, and set into the fridge for the next 30 or so minutes. This left me the majority of the rest of the time to focus on the chilled salad.

It was easy to prepare squid for a salad. Squid should either be cooked for a very short or very long period of time. The marinara is a good example of long.... it will simmer for quite some time and will end up being quite tender... however for a salad, a quick boil is the way to go. I dropped sliced up squid into boiling water for no more than about a minute, then threw it into ice water to stop the cooking process. I then combined it with diced veggies, sea salt, quinoa, and chick peas, and marindated in a dressing of EVOO, hot sauce (lots of it), and white wine vinegar. That was then put into the fridge, and while I was in there, I pulled out the marinating whole squid...

I transferred the marinated squid to a pan for broiling, and then took the marinate and began heating in a small sauce pan. I broiled the squid for about two minutes on each side untl the meat was firm but not tough. I continued to bring the marinade to a boil and then reduced to a nice thick syrup that I used as a sauce for the finished, sliced broiled squid.

After plating the broiled squid, the salad had a nice chill to it, and the sauce was done. I had used the remaining pot of boiling water to make some pasta for the calamari sauce. Ideally, I would have premade the quinoa for a cold salad, but since I made it fresh at the top of the hour, it was still warm and thus made the salad a bit more 'room temp' than I would have liked (but it was amazing the next day for lunch!)

The results:

The ingredients (Sorry, no mixing ratios.... choose your own!):

Chilled Calamari and Chick Pea Salad

Celery

Tomato

Shallot

Serrano Chili

Sea Salt

Squid

Chick Peas

White wine vinegar

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Quinoa

Hot Sauce

Broiled Marinated Calamari

Garlic

Soy Sauce*

Balsamic Vinegar*

Red Wine*

Worchestershire sauce

Hot Sauce

Squid

*Roughly equal parts of these ingredients, less of the worchester and hot sauces...

Calimari Marinara

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 28 oz can diced tomatoes

Garlic

1/2 diced onion

Basil

White wine

A few weeks ago, my wife found a vegan recipe for potato leek soup that we really liked a lot. I was surprised that such a creamy soup can be made without any actual cream. When I posted about it, I mentioned that I thought it might make a great base for a no-cream New England Clam Chowder, so I gave it a try. I am going to go ahead and call this one a winner.

I modified the potato leek recipe, mainly by removing the leeks and garlic and upping the potato content. I added extra potatoes because I wanted to keep some in reserve so they can add texture to the soup. The original recipe requires that you blend 100%, in my version, I probably only blended about 50-60%.

I then added some select ingredients common to clam chowder. For example, clams. I also added spices like dill and bay, black pepper and a dash of hot sauce. When all was said and done, I think this was as satisfying a bowl of New England Clam Chowder as I've ever had. I didn't miss the cream at all!

1-2 tbsp olive oil

2 cups onion, chopped

1/2 tsp sea salt

4-5 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2" cubes

4 cups chicken stock (I used the light version w/ 50% less sodium)

3 6.5 oz cans of minced clams, with juice retained

2-3 stalks of celery, whole but trimmed of leaves

1-2 bay leaves

2-3 tsp rosemary leaves

1 tsp dill

black pepper to taste

dash (or three) hot sauce

Heat the oil in a medium pot (large enough to hold all of the above); Sautee the onion and salt about five minutes

Add the potatoes, chicken stock, celery stalks, spices, and the juice from the three cans of clams. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium, cooking potatoes through.

Remove the celery stalks and set aside. Using a blender (or in my case, my Magic Bullet), blend a bit more than half of the potatoes and broth, about one cup at a time until smooth, and collect in a separate, heatproof bowl. Take care not to blend the bay leaves!

Recombine the blended broth with the unblended broth, and add the clams.

Dice the celery stalks and add to the soup.

Add the dash of the hot sauce, and grind in a bit of black pepper.

Heat another five minutes or so, and serve.

Oyster crackers optional. Enjoy!

Another easy to prepare, delicious meal... I love making "tin-foil fish" as my wife calls it, because it is easy to throw together. It is also usually is easy to clean up, provided you keep the tin foil intact on the baking pan... We didn't serve this with a starch b/c we were not that hungry (or maybe it was because I ate a piece of sprouted grain toast afterwards...), but this would pair with anything simple, like a baked potato or some rice or quinoa...

For each foil packet:

A large mound of baby spinach

1-2 pieces of frozen pollack, thawed

2-3 tbsp fresh salsa

Olive oil

2 tsp lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a large piece of foil, make a mound of spinach, and lay on the pollack. Season with salt and pepper, and top with salsa. Finally, drizzle a little olive oil and the lemon juice.

Wrap the foil so that all edges are sealed but there is still space for steam to build up. I usually bring the edges up and then roll them together, then roll the edges in... leaving lots of space for steam.

Bake the packet(s) on a baking sheet, about 20 minutes.

Enjoy!