Sea Scallops with Pineapple Cucumber Salsa

You know you're getting old when you're Target browsing habits change. It used to be all about cloths, cosmetics and ridiculous women's magazines. Now, you give me 15 minutes to fill a prescription and I'm all over the cooking section.

I picked up these scallops at Target on just such an occasion. They appear to be high quality, though my knowledge of real seafood is surely lacking. At least the freezer pack they came in is releasable.

Ingredients:

7-10 sea scallops, bought frozen but later thawed

Oil for searing

1 medium-sized cucumber, coarsely chopped

1/2 medium-sized red onion, coarsely chopped

1 8oz. can of crushed pineapple

1-3 green chillies, diced

A few dashes of tabasco

1/2 teaspoon vinegar (optional), I used apple cider vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

First, you wanna make that salsa. Assemble your veggies, pineapple and spices. Then mix well. Sear the scallops in a frying pan over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes on each side. Top scallops with salsa an serve.

Corn and Mystery Vegtable Pie

The mystery is because this was kind of a freezer cleaning recipe. I actually expected it to be bland and kind of weird. But as soon as I took my first bite, it reminded me of something awesome. That's right, I used the last of my pie crust dough!

That part was way delicious, and much less messy than I expected when I rolled it out. The vegetable puree was the weird part. No one remembers this but me, but I made some vegetable stock a few month ago. The veggies I used for that were strained, blended, frozen, thawed and used in this pie.

Ingredients:
3 large leeks (just the greens), coarsely chopped
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
1 small potato, quartered
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
Salt and pepper to taste
Enough pie dough to cover the bottom of a pie pan+ enough flower to roll it out
3 pieces of corn
1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon honey
Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Roll out your pie dough and press it into a pie pan. Poke holes with a fork, and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Soak the corn in the water for 10 minutes and remove kernels from cob.

Boil leek greens, potatoes, carrots and spices until soft (30 minutes at a low heat). Add a little salt. Strain well and puree in a blender or food processor. Reserve liquid for vegetable stock. Place pureed veggies into pie cross, spreading as thinly as possible across the bottom.

Mix cheese, corn, milk, salt and pepper. Add Tabasco and honey to taste. Add this to the top of the pie, and top it all with the bread crumbs. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-45 minutes. Just make sure the eggs are done...

Chilled Lettuce Soup with Homemade Croutons

Ok, so the croutons aren't totally homemade. I bought some rye bread, and as usual it sat around for a long time before I realized I wouldn't be able to eat the whole thing. So I decided to make croutons! My own seasoning and everything...

The soup is legitimately very healthy though. I found ways to add flavor, and it really does taste much better when well chilled. My recipe is very different from, but still adapted from, this one my Mark Bittman.

Chilled Lettuce Soup
2 head of romaine lettuce, thinly sliced
1/2 large red onion, sliced
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
3 cups chicken stock, low sodium or homemade
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup tahini
1 1/2 cup ice water
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions and seeds for about 5 minutes in olive oil. Do not burn. Add your stock and lettuce. Cover and cook at a medium heat until lettuce is wilted. Add tahini, salt, pepper and ice water. Somehow, manage to get it all into a blender. Blend until you've reached a nice consistency.

The tahini gave this light soup a creamy flavor similar to this one. Serve with these croutons.
Croutons
3 cups of stale bread, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil cooking spray

In a large baking sheet, spray bread with cooking spray. Add spices, salt and pepper. Toss so that croutons will be evenly coated, but make sure they all lay flat on the pan. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees, taking them out to toss once.

Just watch these carefully, so you don't scorch them. In my opinion, rye bread tastes pretty good as slightly burnt croutons.

Fourth of July Foods

In case you haven't guessed, I'm not really much of a grill master. I blame the fact that I don't own a grill (no balcony in my apartment) and my tendency to use more vegetables and less meat. So if you don't think there's enough meat in this post about foods on the 4th, then I'm sorry. Believe me, there was still plenty of grilled chicken to go around...

Besides, those are pineapple chunks wrapped in bacon up there. I got this idea from Mark Bittman, who suggested pineapple wrapped in prosciutto as part of his "101 Fast Grilling Recipes." Nea did all the cooking. Here she is getting excited.
I did make a side dish that was great for garnishing grilled meats. This pickled onions recipe yielded a tasty, vinegary side.
Finally, it's a Fourth of July tradition at my house for my Grandmother to prepare a dessert trifle. She's always kind enough to pretend I helped in some way, though she's the master. Anyway, it's delicious with yogurt, angel food cake, berries and jello.

Sugar Cookie Bars

I've never made plain old sugar cookies before, but seeing a recipe for sugar cookie bars set of a craving. While cooking for more than one over this holiday weekend, the craving was satisfied. The results were definitely reminiscent of gooey cookies, but the frosting made it more like cake than bars.

I'm not going to bother copying the recipe I used, but go here to take a look. It was easy enough, and yielded great results. My only addition was a little water to the cookie dough, which was very sticky. At least I tried to get patriotic with the sprinkles...

Egg White Frittata with Fingerling Potatoes

Often times with eggs and potatoes, I feel the need to cover them in ketchup. Not with this frittata. The fresh little potatoes and a perfect amount of spice made this a very tasty meal without extra condiments, not even Tabasco.

Also, seeing as I'm terrified of cholesterol, I used mainly egg whites for this frittata. I kept one yolk in just for the texture. Either way it was mostly vegetable and totally delicious.

Ingredients:
1 cup fingerling potatoes, quartered
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 cup broccoli, broken into very small pieces
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon crushed red chillies
1 teaspoon ground coriander
Salt and Pepper to taste
4-5 egg whites
1/4 cup skim milk

Thinly coat an oven-proof, non-stick frying pan in olive oil. Add your potatoes and sautee for about 5 minutes at a medium-high heat. Add your onions and continue cooking until potatoes are almost done. Add your broccoli and garlic, and keep the pan sizzling for another 5 minutes. Sprinkle on your turmeric, coriander and chillies while it cooks. If the pan looks dry, add a bit more oil.

Lower the flame just a little on your stove. In a separate container, whisk eggs and milk together well. Add the egg mixture to the pan so that it spreads out evenly. Now, put your spatula down and don't touch the eggs anymore. You don't want to scramble them. Keep the pan on the stove top until the eggs are cooked on the bottom, but looks about like this on top:

At this point, you can do two things. I put my oven-safe pan into the oven at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes. You could also cover the pan with a lid and continue cooking this on your stove top at a lower heat.

Kohlrabi Curry / Noolkol Kalan

This recipe was new to me. Unlike many Indian curries, I had never heard of this before cooking it. I googled kohlrabi recipes, and from there I got excited about some curry. Not only did I learn about a new kind of curry, but I also learned how to spell kohlrabi (challenging!).

This particular kind of curry calls for yogurt while cooking. The recipe, which I adapted, explains why/how in a bit more detail. All I know is I love plain yogurt...

Finally, a third lesson: purple kohlrabi are only purple on the outside. I was really hoping this cauliflower-like vegetable would yield a pinkish curry, but no such luck. Once you peal them, green and purple kohlrabi are essentially the same.

Ingredients:
3 kohlrabi, peeled and cubed
2 cups water
6-7 green chillies
2 cups plain yogurt
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 cup coconut (fresh or dry, unsweetened)
1/2 cup cashews
2 tablespoons olive/vegetable oil
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
6-7 curry leaves
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
4-5 dry red chillies, purchased whole but split in half before cooking

Boil kohlrabi in water until soft but not mushy. Ideally, most of your water will have evaporated too. Add turmeric, chili powder, salt and pepper. Mash together green chillies, cumin seeds, cashews and coconut. It should resemble a paste. Add this paste to the kohlrabi and then mix in the yogurt. You can cook the yogurt a little but be very careful not to boil or burn it.
Make some tarka by frying mustard seeds, curry leaves and red chilies in oil. Once its nice and cool, add it to the curry. Serve this dish with rice. I used a mixture of brown rice and lentils.