But! You'll be happy to know that it was a wonderful dinner. Highlights included (but were not limited to) cooking with acid (as in, lime juice), the premier of my elephant mugs, Carrie and Amal figuring out how to make a free clear plastic poncho look hot, and general wonderfulness.
And we promise now that people are trickling back into town for their weekends, we'll be much better at updating.
Without further ado, a four part dinner for your pescatarian friends!
watermelon salad
- before you start the salad, mix a few glugs of balsamic vinegar (basically as much salad dressing as you need) and a big spoonful of honey. if you are fancy, you can reduce this concoction. if you are tired, you can just give it a bit of time to dissolve, stirring occasionally
- take one bag of arugula, and put it in a bowl
- chop about 1/4 of a big seedless watermelon (or half of a small) into bite-sized pieces, and put onto the arugula
- top with feta cheese and your dressing
asparagus
- cut the very bottom of the stems off of a bunch or two of asparagus, and then chop the remaining stems in half (so they fit better and are easier to stir)
- put into a big flat pan with a little (about an 1/8 inch) water on the bottom, and cook on medium heat, stirring occassionally, until all of the asparagi(??) are bright green
- turn off the stove and drain the water
- add a few tabs of butter in the pan with a few spoonfuls of capers and caper juice and the juice of one lemon. to be fancy, serve with lemon slices on top
ceviche
- cut about a pound and a quarter of grey sole fillets (or any other white fish) into bite sized pieces and put into a bowl... not too big or they'll need to "cook" longer
- cover with fresh lime juice (about 10 limes)
- add the following, all diced, and stir: half a red pepper, a jalepeno pepper (or two, if you like spicey), a handful of cilantro, about half a small red onion, 3-4 cloves of garlic
- top off with some salt and pepper, and let sit in the refrigerator covered for at least 3 hours
- when the fish is done being "cooked", it looks just like regular fish! white and opaque... if eating alone, it can be eaten on saltines or tostados, on leftover rice and beans or plain
rice and beans
- for six people, I made about a cup (dry) of rice.... the ration for rice is 1c rice to 2c water
- in a medium pan, sautee 5-6 cloves of garlic, the other half of your red onion, and some chili pepper
- once they transparent, add 2 cans of drained black beans
- toss in 1-2 chopped tomatos and a handful of chopped cilantro and season with salt and pepper, and simmer slowly for as long as possible so all the flavors mix without the beans getting too soupy
- serve on top of the rice!
blueberry cobbler
- in a mixing bowl, cover 2 boxes of blueberries with about 1/2 to 3/4 cups of sugar, 3 tablespoons of flour and some sprinkles of allspice and stir until coated. pour into your pie pan
- mix 1/3 cup of sugar and 1/3 a cup of flour with some more shakes of allspice, then cut in about 6 tablespoons of butter until it looks like chunky bits (not too big, but there shouldn't be dry mix left behind)
- sprinkle onto the blueberries and cook at 400 farenheit for about 30 minutes
- eat! maybe with ice cream?
Enjoy!
