One thing that Kirk and I have learned to enjoy together is cooking good food. This is of great help to me, because though I enjoy cooking, I never really liked doing it when I lived by myself. I had trouble knowing how to cook meat, and I’d get sick of all the leftovers. So, when I was single, I tended to live off of frozen dinners, cheese and crackers, other highly processed food, and also eating out way too much. I was impatient about sitting down to eat, and would tend to do it while working on the computer, thus compounding my bad health habits by not paying attention to how much I ate!
Now, we are getting into a pretty good groove of shopping ahead, and planning diverse, reasonably healthy meals. I say reasonably, because we probably need to make a few tweaks-less meat, more whole grain, increased fruits & veggies. But, we do pretty well, and definitely a lot better than I ever did living alone! And, we can enjoy some fine foods that would otherwise cost a fortune at a restaurant, and save money overall by eating leftovers for lunch the next day. We often end up with too many leftovers in general, but then those go into the dog food. So nothing is wasted.
Here is a favorite of ours, Salmon Moqueca, that we made last weekend. It is apparently derived from Brazilian food flair, though sometimes I take it more in a Thai direction, depending on what spices I happen to grab. I have made this enough now that I don’t often look at the recipe when choosing the spices.
Salmon Moqueca
-Make a batch of brown rice in a rice cooker. Brown rice goes with this recipe much better than white rice, IMO.
Marinate 1 pound salmon fillet, with skin, in:
1/2 tsp ground fenugreek seeds [I don’t have fenugreek, but make do without it…]
2 tbsp red or white wine vinegar
1 tsp ground coriander seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
12/ tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp turmeric
You’re supposed to try to marinate for at least a half hour, sometimes I pull this off, sometimes not. I also don’t measure the spices, I just toss in whatever strikes my fancy, and often prefer to use a lot more vinegar to get a nice deep soak for the salmon. After marinating, pan-fry the salmon in olive oil or butter, peel of the skin, set aside.
Saute together:
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 c chopped green onions
1/4 c chopped tomato
1/4 c chopped bell peppers
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp paprika
Mix in & simmer:
1/2 c. canned coconut milk
1/2 c. sour cream
[I often use more, I mix them together, and add salt, rice wine vinegar to taste; to get the right balance of sweet, tangy and salty.]
Serve salmon on top of rice, topped with vegetable stew sauce and a garnish of chopped cilantro.