Fish Soup

I found a recipe in a Mediterranean cookbook I have for fish baked in a tomato-olive sauce that looked really good. Great way to finish off those two last fillets in the freezer. Um. Make that one fillet in the freezer. No problem. I turned the "sauce" into broth and when the fish was cooked, I flaked it into pieces for a fish soup! I loved the combination of flavors! The broth consisted of sauteed onions, tomato paste, pepper paste, and water. After the fish was cooked, I added chopped black olives, fresh cilantro, and salt & pepper to taste. Just writing about it is making me hungry! And now that I've bought more fish . . . could be anytime!

Fish and Mango Burritos

I can never resist a just-ripe mango at a good price. Unfortunately, I often think they're too special to eat right away and end up waiting until a few over-ripe spots appear before taking the plunge. On this occasion, it was with fish. The mango was diced into a fresh salsa of onion, red pepper, lime juice and basil, spooned over cooked tilapia filets, topped with cheese . . .

. . . and rolled into a flour tortilla, drizzled with olive oil, and placed in the toaster oven at 350F for about 30 minutes.

I had some leftover mango salsa, so I stir fried it quick and we ate it over our rice at dinner.

Fish No. 3: Curry

Mmmmm . . . there's just something so satisfying about rustic mashed potatoes and fish! Especially if you put butter and cream cheese in those potatoes! Don't bother peeling them--I love the extra texture and ease. Last night I did the fish curry-style. I don't really have a curry recipe, I just get out the spices I want and start throwing them in like my friend from Bangladesh showed me. Curry powder? What's that? If I had to write it down, though . . .

Anita's Fish Curry
(4 servings)

2 TBSP olive oil
1/2 onion
few cloves garlic
1/4 tsp. (more or less) of:
cumin
coriander
turmeric
ginger
mustard

a smidgen (more or less) of:
cayenne pepper
cardamom
cinnamon
2 cups canned or fresh diced tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste
4 fish fillets
cilantro

Instructions: Heat olive oil. Dice onion and add to oil, sauteing a few minutes. Crush garlic cloves and add to oil. Start throwing on spices. Stir and saute a few more minutes. Dump in tomatoes, crushing if they are whole. Simmer 5 minutes or so and add salt and pepper to taste. Place fish fillets in simmering mixture. Cover and cook until fish are white through and flake easily (I added mine frozen so it took about 15 minutes).

Sweethearts Meal

First of all, thanks for visiting the blog!! Since its inception last May, you've been coming and checking in on the idiosyncrasies of my kitchen life--hopefully finding some inspiration and camaraderie along the way. This evening I noticed that you've tipped the scales to over a thousand site visits! Keep coming back--it feels good to know that I'm not posting to an empty void. =)


So, "Sweethearts Meal". In lieu of Valentine's Day, since we were celebrating sister-in-law's wedding in PA that weekend. I did give my love a bar of chili chocolate on the day of, and he gave me a great back massage, but I didn't get to cook anything for him. And that's one of my primary love languages (if you couldn't tell). When we came home and I heard about some of your great Valentine's celebrations, I was inspired to do something more for my sweet.

Now think of the most romantic food you can imagine . . .



C'mon, try harder.



Got it in mind?

I'd be willing to bet money what you're thinking of isn't this:

Turnip soup.

Yeah.

Maybe not what most foodies would fix for their Valentine, but it was good. A little sweet, a little spicy, just like any good romance. See? You know you want to make it for your sweetheart next year. So, I'm adding this link to the recipe. Just because I'm that kind of person. I probably didn't follow the recipe exactly (I added frozen basil cubes, cayenne pepper, and freshly ground black pepper, for instance), but it was pretty close. And I wasn't kidding when I said it was good. We had it for a first and a last course!

When he came home, the table was set, love songs were playing, and the house was lit with candles. I served dinner course by course, all dolled up in my Hanover Beans apron (turned inside out--it's red) and silver flip-flops.

Creamy Turnip Soup

Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese and Almonds
& Baked Mushrooms

Baked Potato
& Lemon-Rosemary Baked Fish

Creamy Turnip Soup

He had to go to choir practice at 7:30, so we had our grand finale dessert when he got home:

Awwwwww. My own "Perfect" Carrot Cake (a half recipe with 2 cups mashed, cooked carrots) with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon-dust heart stencil. Just because I love him.

Fish No. 2: Tangerine

I'm really enjoying experimenting with fish. It's amazing how quick they cook! I'd like to plan ahead sometime and marinate them to get more flavor in the meat. But this time I was cooking on the fly. A basket of slowly-disappearing tangerines was the inspiration.

Step one: Saute some garlic and onions in olive oil.

Next: add some tangerine slices and the juice from another
tangerine. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Add rosemary.
Shake on some salt and grind pepper into the pot. Add fish.

Step Three: Simmer, covered, until fish are cooked through.

I served mine over a bed of rice with soy sauce and
spinach greens with more balsamic vinegar. Don't waste
the tangerine sauce, but spoon it over the top.
Eat the onions if you like!

Taste-tester says: This is good, but I liked the other one (Fish No. 1: Tomato) better.

Cook's Word: Delicious light sauced fish. Could this be called "Asian fusion"--citrus soy, balsamic vinegar . . . ? I think oranges might give a brighter flavor than tangerines.

Fish No. 1: Antepli

I'm calling this "Fish No. 1" because I intend to start cooking with fish more often, and I can't imagine cooking it the same way every time. Hence, Uncensored Kitchen material. =)

The sauce I put together for this fish was inspired by my time in Turkey. It seemed to me that most of Antepli* ("from Antep" or "Antep-style") cuisine centered around the same five basic ingredients: tomato, hot pepper, lemon, olive oil, and parsley. Any dish I make with these five I consider to be "Antepli" (which is why this entry has a "Turkish Food" label). Okay, enough quotation marks.

Here's the basic recipe for the sauce, which was pronounced "very good" (whoops! there are the quotation marks again!) by the Uncensored Kitchen's taste-tester.

Anita's Antepli Fish (for two pieces of fish)
(all measurements are approximate. sorry!)

1/4 med. onion, diced
A LOT of garlic powder (by mistake) maybe 1 TBSP?!?
2 TBSP tomato paste
2 TBSP hot pepper paste (or 2 more TBSP tomato paste & dried hot pepper)
1 TBSP lemon juice
2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
TBSP or so of minced fresh parsley
salt and pepper

Instructions: combine ingredients in bowl and stir until mixed well. Spoon over fish in baking/cooking dish. Bake/cook until fish is done (3-5 minutes). Well, that was easy!

Cook's Word: While my taste-tester and I both enjoyed the sauce as-is, the onions could be sauteed in the olive oil first if you really don't like slightly crunchy onions. And I think I would add more parsley the next time, too. I wrote "bake/cook" because it really depends on how you want to cook your fish. I couldn't justify heating the oven for two pieces of fish, so I did mine in a clay dish on the stove top. Delicious served with rustic hand-mashed potatoes (with some ground rosemary, butter, and milk added in!), and a simple spinach salad with vinaigrette and goat cheese. Yum!

just because: dinner by candlelight

* "Antep" is a shortened version of Gaziantep, the city in southeastern Turkey where I lived. The suffix "-li" means "with" or "from".