Third post of Crisco love -- Curry Red Snapper

With each week comes another bag of CSA goodness, but today I decided to add some fish to the mix. I'd purchased some frozen Red Snapper on sale a few weeks ago, and thought it was time to cook it. Below are CSA tomatoes, green and banana peppers. I had the vidalia onions from a prior shopping trip.

For this, I used the light tasting olive oil.

Vegetables sauteeing with Blue Mountain Curry and some additional cayenne pepper.

After the vegetables softened, I slowly added a cup of water, then the diced snapper steaks.

Simmer, but not for very long...

Served over a really excellent wild rice mix I found in the Whole Foods bulk aisle. I balked when the cost was almost $6 at the register, but wow, that is some tasty rice! We'll see how long it stretches.

Below is the final product. Fantastic! I do make curry quite frequently, but my favorites usually are heavy in seafood and peppers, with some tomato. I just like that combination.


Thank you to Crisco and the Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program!

More Crisco love -- Asian Noodles with Tofu and Poached Egg

Here is another olive oil recipe where I normally would use peanut or vegetable oil. I cooked up some rice noodles, then sauteed vegetables (carrots, green onions, edamame, water chestnuts) and tofu in this:

After the tofu was crisp, I added the noodles and a bit of "Asian" flavor--in this case, it was rice vinegar, brown sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil. I didn't measure, just added to taste.

With dishes such as pad thai, one would fry an egg to add on top. Today, though, I still was in a poaching mood so I poached a couple eggs. I enjoyed the way the yolk mingled with the sauce and noodles.


It did not have an "olive oil" taste at all and nothing stuck to the pan! Thank you Crisco and the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program.

Thank you crisco! Poached eggs with smoked salmon over foccacia

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, we recently received the new line of Crisco olive oils to try out. There were three different types of oil, but for this recipe I primarily used the Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Letter and goodies from foodbuzz below:


I put some dough in the oven for foccacia, drizzling it with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and goat cheese. Meanwhile, I started a pot of water boiling, and poached 4 eggs.

I layered the salmon on top of the foccacia, then placed the eggs, then more salmon. I drizzled more olive oil over the top, along with some oregano.

Pretty good! Next time, I think regular toast or an english muffin may be better, but for what we had on hand, it worked pretty well.
Thank you again FoodBuzz and Crisco!

A trick for less watery squash lasagna

For some reason, we were in Michigan all weekend, and this is the only picture I have. (I guess that's how you know you are having a good vacation!)

We ate a lot of sandwiches.


And saw this extremely large praying mantis when walking home from the train station.



I picked up all the vegetables from the CSA, and decided to use 30 or so small tomatoes for my red sauce. Here they are, peeled (yeah, that took forever) and ready to cook!



So, last week, my squash lasagna was pretty watery. I read a tip to throw rice in the bottom of the casserole dish, and I have to say it worked perfectly! This is brown rice, and as I cook the casserole for more than an hour (I use raw squash) it cooks up well. I suppose I could have put more in, but I still wanted the focus to be on the squash, not on the rice.


Layers of patty pan, eggplant, and crookneck, along with red sauce and a variety of cheeses...


Look at the pretty layers! So colorful :)


Cooked and delicious! Pretty low fat, too. This is a fairly simple dish to make, it would be even easier if you just used a can of crushed tomatoes instead of making the red sauce from scratch.

Beyond lasagna, we have also been eating lots of tacos. Here is a gratuitous "Hot Husband" photo of Gustavo eating tacos <3

Squash Lasagna and yes, more pickles

Are you ready for some non-photogenic food? Here is a half eaten vegetable lasagna, made with pattypan squash in place of noodles. The sauce is made from our CSA tomatoes, and although this looks hideously ugly, its actually quite tasty. If you choose to make this, I would suggest salting the squash first, as you can see it gets a bit watery.

More cukes? More pickles. Shockingly enough, we keep eating all of them :)


Dill Refrigerator:

3 cups warm water
3-5 T. white vinegar
3-4 sprigs fresh dill weed (in each jar)
2-4 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons coarse salt
1 tablespoon pickling spice (I use kroger brand, but you can google to make your own to taste)
1 1/2 teaspoons dill seed
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
cucumbers - chips, spears, whatever shape you like

Combine salt, vinegar and warm water, stir until salt is dissolved. Pack jars with cukes, spices and dill, then fill with brine. Ready to eat next day, will get stronger in taste with time.

In other news, Gustavo has been busy! See below--our new screen door :)

And, after 6 years of living dangerously, we put in a railing on the porch. Great job, babe! It looks fantastic.

Our first okra came in!!

I could eat roasted okra every day. Barbeque sauce optional.

Hard at work ;)

Thank you Sabra

As part of the Foodbuzz tastemaker program, Sabra gave us a coupon for a free container of hummus--you know I went for the jalapeno! Delicious--thank you!