Spicy Thai Basil Fish

Thai Basil meals are one of my favorites, they can be done with many proteins, or just with the veggies. Tonight I give you my Thai Basil Fish. Start with your chili/garlic paste. Cut up few dried chili peppers, I like it spicy, so I used 6. For medium, make it 3. I don’t focus on saving all the seeds. Smash up some garlic, 4 would be fine, I did 6. Smash these together using a mortar and pestle. In a pan over medium/high heat (I used a cast iron pan, I need to get a wok) up some olive oil. Add the chili/garlic paste and cook for 30 seconds or so. Add a tablespoon or two of red curry paste. Drop the heat and stir till fragrant. Add a cup of water and a tablespoon of fish or oyster sauce. Stir till well mixed. Add a pound or so of bite-size chopped fish. I...

Balsamic Vinegar Fig Chicken

A friend dropped off a bag of figs from her back yard yesterday. So that is my Tuesday Night Challenge. Thus…Pan Seared Chicken Breasts with Fig Jam. I’ve never made Fig Jam before, but I kinda winged it after looking at a handful of recipes. Most had a LOT of sugar, so I went light here. I boiled 1/2 cup of water with 1 tbsp of sugar to create my ‘simple syrup’. To this I added 6 cut up figs, the zest of one lemon and the juice of said lemon. I did this in a large pot so I would have a lot of surface space to cook it down. This part of the recipe takes the longest. Everything else is quick, so you can do this whenever you want. After about half an hour I put this into a small food processor and made it into the jam-like consistency and...

Faux Lobster Roll 2.0

Faux Lobster Roll 2.0 It was pointed out to me by someone who wants me on this planet for a bit longer, that my last faux lobster roll that was based on faux crab legs which is highly processed food and the base was mayonnaise. Mayo is great. But not great for you. Given that, and with some serious YouTube research, I came up with a new fake lobster replacement (for the record, I didn’t see anyone doing a lobster roll with this). And to replace the mayo, I used yogurt. I loved the result. It absolutely had a great Lobster Roll bite, without the heavy mayo part. In a pot of boiling water, add 1/3 cup of sugar, and the juice of a big lemon. Throw in the drained lemon husk. Add some large cut pieces off cod. Shoot for about 1 inch pieces. Just add them, do not...

Veggie Enchilada

On Friday night I was challenged to work up something from the haul of a local produce run…and a pack of low carb tortillas, with the strong suggestion of a vegetarian dinner, and an allowance of ‘a little’ cheese. Thus, a meat-free tasty enchilada was born. I had a pint of mushrooms in the fridge, so I decided this would be my meat substitute. Well before dinner, I diced these up and began cooking them down with avocado oil on a medium low heat. To this I added some Worcestershire sauce and liquid coconut aminos. Soy aminos would be fine, but I find it to be too salty. This mixture was seasoned with a little garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, chili powder and black pepper and cooked down till almost dry and then set aside for a while....

Don’s Gyro Burgers

Hands down, my favorite Summer Dinner Sandwich is my Gyro Burger. I call it that because it has the hint of a gyro sandwich, but with chicken…and is a burger kinda thing. Tonight I added something new, since I had a pile of basil in the garden. So in addition to the spinach, I added a handful of basil. And it was a GREAT addition! We served this with a quick cucumber pickle. Perfect for a hot day. And the quick pickle worked great in the yogurt sauce. Ingredients Olive oilHalf a sweet onion, dicedBag of baby spinachOregano to taste1/4 lb of crumbled feta cheese1 package of ground chicken1/3 cucumber, slicedGreek yogurtHandful of Kalamata olivesBunsSliced roasted bell peppers. We use jarred bell peppers. Instructions Wilt the spinach and the basil. Remove...