Innie or Outie

Another new creation using more unexpected combinations of ingredients, Asian-Flavored Seafood Mini Pizza Dinner:

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For the pizza, defrost frozen seafood (shrimp, clam, and squid) medley; premix a paste of 1/2 sodium red miso paste, cracked toasted sesame seeds, minced garlic paste, powdered red chili peppers, and fresh shikwasa juice. Set aside.

Meanwhile, dice yellow bell pepper and onion; saute in sesame oil until onion slightly translucent; place in bowl and let cool. Sauté seafood medley in olive oil until shrimp turn light pink, remove from heat and set aside.

Next, prepare the salad – julienne red cabbage, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, carrot, and iceberg lettuce; toss with fresh arugula and salad greens; refrigerate until ready to serve.

Start the mini pizzas Рspread tortilla with premixed miso paste; top with saut̩ed bell pepper, onions, and seafood; add cherry tomato slices and crumbled baby cheese; microwave for 1.5 minutes; remove and fry in olive oil until bottom lightly browned; remove and top with katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) and julienned nori (dried seaweed); slice and plate.

Add the premade salad topped with a somen tsuyu sauce, minced ginger paste, soy sauce, white pepper, sesame oil and white wine vinaigrette. Serve.

One of my favorite aspects of home cooking is taking whatever can be found in the pantry and creating a dinner with the items. This is one such meal, Grilled Mini-Meatball Kabob Dinner:

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What I found readily available in the pantry to use for this meal was:

2 medium potatoes
1 slice bacon (diced)
1 slice large onion (thinly diced)
1 small carrot (sliced)
1 teaspoon-size chunk baby cheese (diced)
1/2 cup heavy cream
7 medium frozen shrimp without shells (coarsely chopped)
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon powdered nutmeg
1 teaspoon powdered paprika
1 package 10 frozen cocktail mini-meatballs in sauce (defrosted)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 small bell pepper (chunk-style diced)
1/8 large onion (chunk-style diced)
5 small cherry tomatoes
5 bamboo skewers (soaked in water to prevent charring – something I forgot to do, ugh…)

When I first envisioned this meal, I wanted a version of twice-baked stuffed potatoes. Unfortunately, the pantry potatoes were the wrong type. Instead, I created Baked Creamy Shrimp-Potatoes:

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Microwave potatoes until tender (about 8 minutes); remove skin; coarsely mash with baby cheese, cream, shrimp, parsley, white pepper, and nutmeg; put mixture into a baking dish and sprinkle with paprika; place in preheated oven at 200 Centigrade for 15 – 20 minutes (until lightly browned).

To accompany the potatoes, a side dish with a twist, Baked Glazed Carrots:

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While potatoes are in the microwave, sauté bacon and thinly-diced onion until browned; place bacon mixture with fat on top of carrot slices and, after the potatoes are finished microwaving, microwave for 3 minutes; place microwaved carrot mixture in an aluminum foil packet and top with cocktail sauce gently scraped from defrosted mini-meatballs; seal and bake in oven at the same time as the potatoes.

For the entré, something a little different, Grilled Mini-Meatball Kabobs:

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As the potatoes and carrots bake in the oven, sauté bell pepper and chunky-diced onions in sesame oil until onions are slightly translucent; alternate sautéed bell pepper and onion, cherry tomatoes, and meatballs on skewers (use a salad fork’s prongs to slide the bell pepper and onion into place if too hot to handle); grill until lightly charred (about 5 minutes each side on low heat in a gas pair-broiler).

The kabobs, potatoes, and carrots should be done at about the same time. Simply plate and serve.

(NOTE: Although this meal sounds difficult, it really was quite uncomplicated because of the timing and rhythm of the preparation and cooking of the individual dishes.)

Hubby’s still in the mood for Chinese-style dishes, Papa’s Spicy Bok Choy-Shrimp on Sesame Rice:

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For the meal Hubby created a mixture of shrimp, diced white onion, bok choy, red wine vinegar, scallion, dried garlic slivers, white pepper, chicken broth granules, and toubanjyan sauce served on rice topped with cracked toasted sesame seeds.

So, here I am still trying to come up with dishes that will help us use up a little more of that enormous gift of twenty-five 70 gram servings of somen. This is the latest creation, Sausage-Pepper Medley on Bleu Cheese-Basil Somen:

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To make this very simple dish simply use the desired amount of hot somen tossed with chunks of room-temperature bleu cheese and chopped fresh basil, topped with julienned onion sautéed in olive oil and minced garlic paste stir-fried with julienned spicy sausage, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, chives, and kamaboko. To complete the meal, I decided to go with a cool refreshing fruit instead of greens, Spiced Pear Salad:

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Peel and grate pear, then toss with chopped fresh mint leaves. Chill in refrigerator until almost ready to serve. About five minutes prior to serving, line bowl with iceberg lettuce, top with pear mixture, and sprinkle with desired amount of powdered all spice, nutmeg, or cinnamon. (If desired, you can make mini lettuce wraps instead of a salad with this recipe.)

Here’s a seafood meal Hubby made, Papa’s Tuna Pabuca Dinner:

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For the tuna pabucas he used onion sautéed in olive oil, tuna, panko, fresh rosemary, and egg. He formed the pabucas, sautéed them in olive oil, then smothered the pabucas with a cream, butter, cheddar, fresh rosemary, basil, scallion, Worchester, and white pepper sauce. The greens were frozen spinach sautéed in sesame oil with dried garlic chips. The rice was sprinkled with dried parsley flakes. To complete the meal hubby added a small salad of iceberg lettuce, arugula, cherry tomato, chive, and herbed croutons topped with a creamy sesame dressing.

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Another fried rice recipe from hubby making use of Obon leftovers, Papa’s Everything But the Kitchen Sink Fried Rice:

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For the dish, hubby sautéed diced white onion in sesame oil, and stirred in diced precooked boiled pork roast, steamed shrimp, diced kamaboko, chopped leek, white pepper, precooked rice and soy sauce. After plating, the mixture was topped with cracked toasted sesame seeds and julienned pickled ginger.

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As an accompaniment to the dish, hubby chose a canned “oriental-style” (similar to egg drop) soup.

Another method of preparing somen, which is usually used for cold noodles, Papa’s Tuna Yakisomen:

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For this meal, hubby combined 2 julienned yellow bell peppers sautéed in sesame oil, 1 can tuna (drained), 1 teaspoon white pepper, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 4 cups cooked somen, 1/4 cup tsuyu sauce, and 1 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes. After plating, he added 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives, 1 tablespoon pickled ginger, and 1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked toasted sesame seeds to each serving and gently tossed.

Since various produce in our yard are starting to ripen, I came up with new dishes to make good use of some of the crop, Spicy Tuna-Basil Pasta:

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For the dish, I used diced onion and minced red chili peppers (from the yard) sautéed in olive oil, minced garlic paste, canned tuna flakes, soy sauce, white pepper, chopped fresh basil (from our herb garden), dried oregano flakes, tossed with hot cooked pasta then sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese.

To balance the spiciness of the pasta, I used the the citrus (shikwasa) from our yard in creating a side dish, Tangy Miso-Carrot Lettuce Wrap:

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For the wraps, sauté thickly julienned carrot and onion slices with fresh rosemary leaves (from our herb garden) in sesame oil. Remove pan from heat and add red miso paste and citrus juice. Let the mixture cool, then wrap in iceberg lettuce leaves.

Hubby came up with this tasty meal for a hot summer’s day, Fish Sandwich:

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The sandwich consisted of red snapper sautéed in olive oil and iceberg lettuce on whole grain bread with horseradish, mayonnaise, and dill weed. Accompanying the sandwich were dill pickle sticks and a side salad of arugula, spring onions, cherry tomatoes, and bacon bits topped with a creamy cheese dressing.

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This is an easy way to have a cool meal during the hot summer days, Summer Salad:

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This tasty salad consisted of iceberg lettuce, arugula, Hubby’s salad greens, tuna, scampi, avocado, cherry tomatoes, bacon chunks, basil, parsley, oregano, lemon juice, white pepper, ared bell pepper topped with a creamy French dressing. To accompany the salad, we had assorted cheese wraps.