What's for Dinner

Fish Tacos

If you're not a fish lover, these are the fish tacos for you! I don't like anything fishy smelling, flaky, or slimy, so when it comes to fish, I'm pretty limited.

I'm using Alaskan Halibut for my tacos, but cod or mahi will work too. A tip my mom taught me is to always dry your fish before you coat it with anything. I let it thaw then wrap in paper towels in the fridge for a few hours, changing the paper towels when they're soaked.

The marinade is made with garlic, lime, and cilantro which takes care of any fishy taste if there ever was one, and they come out really flavorful and these tacos couldn't be any faster! You're looking at twenty minutes cooking and marinating time!

 Alaskan Halibut Fish Tacos

1 lb white ocean fish
1 bunch of cilantro
lime juice from 2 juicy limes
1 clove of garlic
1/3 cup of olive oil
pepper
tbsp. orange juice

white corn tortillas
sliced avocado
cabbage or shredded lettuce
hot sauce or salsa

1) Once your fish is thawed and dried with paper towels, cut the skin off, and an areas that look dark. The white flesh is the least fishy, the red parts will taste more like the skin. Just run your knife along the inside of the skin. Discard anything fishy immediately! Cut fish into pieces about 2 1/2 inches long and about an inch thick. *You have to turn it on your grill pan so make sure the pieces are big enough that you can move them tongs, and you want to see nice grill marks.

2) Make the marinade by combining the bunch of cilantro, lime juice, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, and oj in a blender, food processor, or with an emulsion blender. It's going to look like a salad dressing or runny pesto.

3) Let the fish marinate no longer than 15 minutes. *The lime juice will start to cook the fish, so any longer than 15 minutes can make it tough.

4) Rub a grill pan with veg. oil and turn to medium high. You want your pan nice and hot. Add the marinated fish, cook 3 minutes MAX on the first side, and two on the bottom side.*Basically as soon as the meat of the fish goes from that translucent look to white, it's ready to turn! Watch it carefully, if it's overcooked it's not as good!

5) Wrap your corn tortillas in a damp dish towel, microwave them (in the towel) for 1 minute. You're steaming them, and they turn out nice and soft in a minute.

I like to serve mine on little white corn tortillas, with a light cabbage slaw or shredded butter lettuce, slices of avocado, and Tapatio.

What's For Dinner

3 Alarm Stuffed Bell Peppers

Last night I peered into the fridge around five p.m. still unsure of what I'd be putting on the table for dinner. I dug through the veggie drawer and found four orange and red bell peppers, and thus it was decided, time for stuffed peppers. My dad had yet to decide on his dinner plans either, so I texted him the idea and all of the steps along the way, and even though we were two hours and a hundred miles apart, we made dinner together. From Lincoln to Reno they turned out great. They are quick, easy, and so good!

One crucial step is to cook the bell peppers in the oven first before you stuff them. If you try to cook them fully stuffed the rice will dry out, and they take a lot longer.

Ingredients:
4 bell peppers
1 lb. ground turkey
1 onion
1 cup of rice
1 cup of 3 Alarm Colby Jack Cheese or 1 cup of cheddar cheese
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce 
salt, pepper, granulated garlic
light olive oil or veg. oil

Directions:
1) Start the rice.
2) Cut the tops off of 4 bell peppers, drizzle them with a light oil, salt them, and bake them upside down for about 15 to 20 minutes at 375 degrees. (You want them to start looking a little wrinkled).
3) While rice & peppers are cooking. Saute a chopped onion in oil about five minutes. Add ground turkey, season with W sauce, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic. I also use the left over bell pepper from the tops and add them at this point.
4) Add diced tomatoes to turkey.
5) Once the rice is done, combine rice and turkey mixture. Taste it. Add salt or whatever it needs.
6) Take peppers out of the oven. Stuff them as full as possible, press cheese all over the tops, and bake 15 more minutes.

*I used a 3 alarm spicy Colby Jack cheese for my husband and brother's peppers, and they LOVED it!

Here's a picture from my Dad's kitchen, he only made two, but served the extra filling on the side! Enjoy...

Beef Stewguignon

I dove into the glorious world of beef bourguignon about six years ago, and followed the instructions carefully and attentively about three times. I loved it, but after making beef stew a few times after that I decided it was time for a marriage of the two. So all these years later, it's more likely you'll find a combo of both of these delicious dinners in my kitchen, rather than one or the other.

Bourguignon calls for an entire bottle of red wine, which is one of the main reasons I love the recipe. I will never deny this dish of the wine. However, the recipe for bourguignon is a little too fussy, and calls for bacon. Not that I have anything wrong with bacon, but in this dish I don't think it adds enough flavor to be worth the extra calories. And then there's beef stew, which falls a little flat for me. Mix the two recipes together, and you check all of the boxes.

You want your meat to be fork tender, so make this dish a few hours before dinner time.

Beef Stewguignon

serves 4

1 lb. beef stew meat (mine was actually 1.33 lbs, no big deal)

1 bottle of red wine

1 tbsp. olive oil

6 shallots (peeled and halved) or pearl onions

1 head of garlic (peeled and halved)

2 carrots 

1 large potatoes

1/2 bunch of celery

1 cup of beef stock

fresh thyme
salt
pepper

1) Prep your vegetables, dry your stew meat in paper towels, and season the meat with salt and pepper. You want to make the veggies roughly the same size to ensure similar cooking times.


2) Get the olive oil hot in your pan. Sear the meat on all sides and remove from the pan.

3) Sauté shallots or onions, and garlic *watch garlic closely, it burns if you're not stirring it. 

4) Add carrots, celery, and potatoes to the pan for a few minutes.

5) Then add the seared pieces of stew meat back to the pan, an entire bottle of wine, cup of beef stock, and fresh thyme. 

6) Then cover and cook at 300 degrees in the oven for at least 3 hours. I taste the stew at the end to make sure the flavor is right, I usually add a splash of red wine vinegar, salt and pepper too.

What's for Dinner?

Turkey Chili

I make this recipe all of the time because it's healthy, and really easy! And there are several different ways to achieve the same taste: slow cooker, dutch oven, sauce pot…

I usually serve it with cheddar cheese, scallions, avocado, sour cream, cilantro rice, and quick corn muffins.  

Ingredients
1 onion
1 can chili beans (pintos or pinoquitos)
1 can kidney or black beans (optional)
1 can white corn (optional)
1 lb. ground turkey
1 can stewed tomatoes (Rotel tomatoes with green chilies will make it a little spicier, or tomato sauce) *you can even use tomato sauce if you're out of everything else!
1 pack of Taco Seasoning
1 can of beer

Brown the ground turkey and onions together in a tbsp. of vegetable oil in a dutch oven for about ten minutes with the taco seasoning. Then dump everything in and cook.

I start it in the stove, then let it sit in the oven at a low temp. until I'm ready for dinner usually about two hours at 300 degrees F.

Or if I only have a half hour I make that work too by cooking it on the stove on medium high heat and stirring it. A lot of the flavor comes from browning the onions, turkey, and the Taco Seasoning. Longer is better, but not crucial.

I even alter this recipe to be vegetarian by subbing the meat for sauteed zucchini, squash, and peppers, and it's still very good!

Raspberry Bundt Cake with Candied Lemon Zest Icing

He agreed we can give you our recipe!

I found an awesome recipe in an old library book years ago that called for mixing box cake, fruit, and jello mix; I could never find the exact recipe again, but I remember that it was very simple, and turned out great the few times I made it. One piece of advice I have for following a recipe, especially in baking, is to read the directions FIRST! Then go back and deal with ingredients, and re-follow them. I'm still working on taking my own advice, because it's an all to common occurrence that I'll start a recipe before I've read the entire thing, and it bites me in the ass!

Cheating with store bought cake and jello mix, allows me to spend more time on the lemon glaze with candied lemon zest for the icing. It's my sister-in-law's birthday and she loves lemon, (since I made her lemon meringue pie last year), I wanted to do a cake this year.

*Also, the first cake I made in my new bundt pan stuck to the bottom despite the fact that I greased it with ample amounts of cooking spray. To avoid this tragedy use shortening and flour all over the inside of the pan. Cooking spray is not enough!

*Skip the zest if it's too much work the cake will still be great!

Raspberry Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze & Candied Lemon Zest

Raspberry Bundt Cake

1 box white cake mix
4 eggs
1/4 cup hot water
1 box raspberry jello mix
1/3 cup canola oil or veg oil
1/2 pint of fresh raspberries

Shortening
Flour

1. Mix 4 eggs, hot water, cake mix, oil, and jello on low speed for 30 seconds. Then mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add raspberries and stir.
2. Pour cake into greased bundt pan (greased with shortening and then dusted with flour) and bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out the cake onto a rack.

Ingredients for Lemon Glaze 

2 cups powdered sugar

5 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice

1. Mix sugar and lemon juice until smooth.
2. Ice cake once the cake is cool to the touch. 

Ingredients for Candied Lemon Zest

4  Meyer lemons for their zest

2 cups sugar + 1 tbsp. sugar 

1 cup of cool water

1. Peel cleaned lemons avoiding the pith. Chop lemon peels and pour about 3 cups of boiling water over them, and let them sit for 30 minutes, then drain them.
2. While waiting on the peels, heat cool water and sugar over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. 
3. Drain the lemon zest and add to the sugar and water for about 10 minutes on medium low. 
4. Cover overnight.
5. Drain the lemons from the syrup, sprinkle with tbsp. sugar and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Sprinkle over iced cake.

Spiced Valentine's Brownies

I recently read a recipe in Better Homes & Gardens called Sweet & Spicy Brownie Bites, and liked the sound of it. I wasn't thrilled with a dessert being spicy though, so I've made some tweaks and developed a Brownie that's spiced rather than spicy, has a wonderful depth of flavor with nutmeg, chili powder, and cinnamon, and turns an ordinary brownie into something with a little edge. Perfect for a Valentine's Day treat for your hubby or bf, and they're EASY too!

Steps I don't want you to forget or overlook are: letting eggs & chocolate mix come to room temp. and don't over mix the dry ingredients when adding them to the chocolate and egg mixture.

Spiced Valentine's Brownies 

  

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp. ground Chipotle Chile powder

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

9 oz. semi-sweet mini dark chocolate chips

1 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

5 eggs (room temp)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter sides and bottom of a 13x9 inch baking pan.
2. Sift top 7 ingredients together, then whisk.
3. Put chocolate in a mixing bowl, and place it above a small saucepan with about 2 inches of water over medium-low heat on the stove. (Double boiler). Add the butter chunks. Mix slowly as it heats. Once all butter and chocolate have melted together remove bowl from stove.
4. Add sugar to chocolate. Stir in to combine.
5. Let chocolate and eggs come to room temp before mixing them together. 
6. Add 3 eggs to chocolate. Whisk together. Then whisk in remaining 2 eggs.
7. Slowly sprinkle flour mixture over chocolate and fold together with a silicon spatula. Just until combined. Don't over mix.
8. Pour into buttered baking pan, smooth out the top, and bake for 30 minutes.

*dust with sweet ground cocoa powder or powdered sugar to really make them fancy.

THESE BROWNIES ARE AMAZING!!!! and I'm a tough critic. Better than any box mix, or store bought varieties, and the best brownies I've ever home-made. They're even better when cooled, so making them ahead of time is ideal. 

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Limoncello!

Lemons are in season again, and I've been saving up ideas all year. With lemons from my own tree, and a massive bag of Meyers from a friend, it's lemon time.

If you can, get your paws on some Meyer lemons. Meyers, native to China, are a California staple, and I was lucky enough to learn about their sweet flavor from a friend with a love for lemon drops a few years ago. And to be gifted a large bag from another friend this year!

Don't let your lemons go to waste.  Here's the first of a few fabulous ideas for lemon:

Make Limoncello! Nothing will impress a group of guests more than a frosty bottle of limoncello after a dinner party. What's more, it's so easy. All you need is vodka, lemons, sugar, and a mason jar...

Limoncello

12 Meyer Lemons (only the peel)

1 cup sugar

700 ml of good vodka 

*Good vodka doesn't always mean expensive vodka, try Costco's Kirkland version, it's awesome.

Let's get started:

Peel the cleaned lemons, like you would peel a potato, try not to get the white part. Most recipes will tell you to cut off any white parts left behind, however, cutting it off doesn't work, SCRAPE off the leftover white pith with a serrated paring knife. Gently shave and scrape off the extra bitter pith. Add the peels to the jar. Add sugar on top of lemon peel. Add the vodka. Secure the lid, and shake. Shake the mix once everyday for two weeks, and at the end of the two weeks strain the peels out of the mix. 

Store the Limoncello in the freezer and once it's chilled, ENJOY!