Recipes of the weekend

[featherynscale]

All of these turned out pretty well. I'm the substitute cook, but I'm thinking that I did okay this time.


Shark Steaks
Mix in plastic bag:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tsp lemon juice
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated.

Add 1 lb shark steaks to baggie and seal. Shake about joyfully. Leave in fridge for an hour or so.
Put on frying pan over medium-high heat. Dump contents of baggie into pan. Cook about 3 minutes, then flip steaks over and cook 3 minutes on the other side.
Makes about two good-sized steaks. This was yummy with cuban-style black beans.


Seafood Au Gratin
1 zucchini, sliced into chunks
8 oz mushrooms, quartered
olive oil
1 pint half-and-half (you can use whole cream if you like, and the result will be thicker. Half-and-half yields something pleasant and chowderish.)
red pepper
black pepper
thyme
basil
garlic powder
1 lb whitefish, cut into chunks
1/2 lb scallops
1 cup grated cheese (I used colby/jack)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Arrange zucchini and mushrooms in the bottom of a 9X9 baking pan and spray with olive oil. Toss some black pepper over the veggies and pop 'em in the oven while you do the next bit.

Pour half & half into a large pot and heat to boiling, stirring occasionally. When it begins to boil, it'll expand pretty meaningfully, so you'll want to keep a close eye on it. Add in your red pepper, black pepper, thyme, basil, and garlic to taste. Let the pot boil for about 5-6 minutes, and it will thicken up a little bit. Then, add the seafood, starting with the thickest pieces. Let these cook until they're cooked through (the fish will take about 4-5 minutes, scallops may run 5-7 minutes). Add in the grated soft cheese, and let it melt.

Take the veggies out of the oven, and pour the seafood mixture on top of them. Kick the oven up to broil. Top off the dish with the parmesan cheese, and stick it under the broiler for another 3-4 minutes, or until the cheese forms a 'crust'.

Makes 6 servings. This is probably good over rice, but we ate it like a chowder.


Eggplant Lasagna-ish
1 large eggplant
1 zucchini, cut into coins
olive oil
1 lb lean ground beef
1 jar tomato sauce (yeah, if I were really serious, I'd make the damned tomato sauce, but I am not kidding anyone: I am the *substitute* cook in the house)
1 package ricotta cheese (I think 8 oz)
2 cups shredded mozzarella
black pepper
smoked paprika
garlic powder
basil
salt

Eggplant is an extremely high-maintenance vegetable. Slice off the top and bottom, and slice the thing into thin sections longways. These should be pretty damned thin, but not paper-thin. These are going to replace the pasta in the lasagna, so about pasta thickness is good. Set the sections out in a tray or on plates, and salt them. This will cause the eggplant to 'sweat' out some of its water and bitter-tasting compounds. Let the slices sweat for 15-20 minutes, then dab off the water with a paper towel, flip the slices, salt the other side, and repeat the process.

Preheat oven to 350F. Brown ground beef and drain. Add pepper, paprika, garlic and basil to beef and set aside.

Lightly coat bottom of a 13x9 baking dish with olive oil. Build your dish -- the first layer should be eggplant slices. The rest of your layers will be made of ricotta cheese, zucchini, ground beef and tomato sauce, eggplant, and mozzarella cheese, and it doesn't make a whole lot of difference how you arrange them, except that the top layer should probably be mozzarella, in keeping with the whole lasagna theme.

Bake for about 45 minutes. Serves approximately eleventy-billion, like unto a pan of lasagna.

EDIT:
Pizza-stuffed shrooms
Portabello mushroom caps, cleaned and stems removed
olive oil (it's a theme)
pesto
cream cheese
turkey pepperoni
shredded cheddar cheese
garlic powder
smoked paprika

Coat caps lightly in olive oil. Dust with paprika and garlic powder. Bake gills-down at 400F for about 15 minutes. Pull 'em out of the oven and flip 'em over. Add a teaspoon of pesto to each cap and spread it around. Top that with a bit of cream cheese, pepperoni, and a bit of cheddar cheese on top. Pop 'em back in the oven until the cheddar gets golden-brown. We also had sun-dried tomatoes on ours, but that was weirdly sweet, so I think if I made them again, I would omit that part. triadruid would have preferred his with sliced black olives, I think.

Comments

[archway.livejournal.com]

Oh, my, yes......!!!!!
~squeees all the way to her recipe file!~

[project-becky.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to try the seafood au grautin. My only change will be using a white cheese, maybe havarti, since Jim doesn't like yellow cheeses.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- if I'd had a queso blanco, that would have been good too. Jack, though, who can be offended by jack?

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

I finally got around to reading this.... looks like a couple of them are rather easily made vegetarian -- who needs ground beef in an eggplant lasagna, or pepperoni in stuffed shrooms. I might have to try making them.... not sure where I'll find the eleventy billion people to eat the lasagna though.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those two are totally veg-adaptable. Also, I think the marinade for the shark would also work as a brush-on experience for roasting potato wedges, eggplant, or mushrooms, although you'd want to cut the soy sauce component in that case, I think.