Stir Fry Sauce

Here is a quick and easy recipe for a stir fry sauce. I used what I had on hand for a beef stir fry with bell peppers and onions. You can use any vegetables or meat you want with this great sauce.

1/2 Cup Low Sodium Soy Sauce
3 Tbs. Rice Wine Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Sesame Seeds
1 Tsp. Powdered Ginger (you can use fresh ginger if you want, maybe 1/2 tsp)

Mix this all together and set aside. Cook your stir fry and add the sauce at the end. Cook for 1 min. and serve over rice.

The Long Awaited Garlic Aioli Recipe

Yeah, probably not but I said I'd post it and I am now. It's ridiculously easy, but tastes so good you'll want to have it with everything- especially freshly steamed asparagus. Mmmmmmm

3-4 Garlic Cloves finely diced
1/4 C. Mayonnaise

Add the garlic to the mayo, cover and let it sit in the fridge for 10 min. or more. Keeps for a few days, the flavor is better the longer you wait! Goes great with tuna steaks, asparagus, artichokes or anything else you can think of except maybe ice cream.

Summer Pasta

This is one of my favorite warm-weather recipes. It's perfect on a hot day because the only cooking required is boiling water for pasta.
4-5 ripe red tomatoes (big ones, like the vine ripened kind)
1/2 Sweet onion- it's important to get a sweet onion since it will not be cooked
1 small tub of mozzarella bocconcini *There are two kinds, perlini and regular. You can use either one but I find it easier to use perlini since you don't have to slice them.

2 tbs. olive oil

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper
Fresh Basil
Pasta

First do all the chopping. Dice the tomatoes and onion and put them in a medium bowl. Rinse and dice your bocconcini (if you are using perlini, just rinse them and add them to the tomatoes and onion). Add the olive oil, salt, pepper and stir thorougly but carefully. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter and fester while you cook the pasta. Once your pasta is done, serve up the pasta, top with the tomato mixture and then sprinkle fresh cut basil on top. That's it! It keeps for up to 3 days in the fridge and gets better each day.

One Dish Fish

I don't remember what this was called in the latest issue of Real Simple (May 08 I think) but it was really good and dish rhymes with fish so that's what I'm sticking with.

The only things I bought for this were the sugar snap peas and ginger, 2 things which I don't normally have on hand. I also didn't use long grain white rice, I only had short grain so I just used 2 cups of rice and the same amount of water.
A note about grated ginger. Fresh ginger does not grate well. I peeled it with a vegetable peeler and then got out my cheese grater and spent about 2 minutes making ginger slime which was useless. I then tried using my zester but that was a lost cause as well. I finally cut off thin slices and then diced them into little tiny squares. That worked just fine, it still tasted great.
I had it for leftovers at lunch this week and it didn't make the microwave or kitchen at the office smell like fish so go ahead and bring it to work with you, I already used my coworkers as guinea pigs on this one.
Here's the recipe http://food.realsimple.com/realsimple/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1736081

Fake "Fried" Chicken

This recipe is an adaptation of the Fiery "Fried" Chicken from Real Simple magazine. I'm not into spicy, and never have pineapple juice on hand so if that sounds like you, try this. It's a great way to jazz up some boring chicken breasts and it's pretty easy.

Preheat oven to 450

1 tbs. Chili Powder
2 tbs. Olive Oil
2-3 Cloves of Garlic, diced *see note below*
3 tbs. Orange Juice (pulp or no pulp, doesn't matter)
1-1.5 C. Bread Crumbs or Panko
1 tsp. Salt
2-4 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts

Mix the chili powder, garlic and 1 tbs. of olive oil in a bowl. Whisk in the orange juice. This is what you will dip the chicken in for breading, so try to use a wide, shallow bowl if possible.
Mix the bread crumbs with the remaining tbs. of oil and salt, it works best to use a fork.
Wash and dry the chicken, and take one piece at a time, dip in chili/garlic mix and then dip in bread crumbs to coat. It can be difficult to get the garlic chunks to stick, so just scoop some up and paste them to the chicken with the bread crumbs. Put coated chicken on cookie sheet, I line mine with aluminum foil.
Bake at 450 for 15-20 min, depends on the thickness of your chicken. I'd post a picture, but we ate it too fast :)
** Update- the other day I made this but had no fresh garlic. I put 1 tsp. of poultry seasoning into the chili/oil mix and it was fantastic! And you don't have to worry about the garlic falling off.

Wasabi Crusted Tuna

This is a simple, easy way to spice up a good tuna steak. You only need 3 ingredients! I used this on a .5 lb tuna steak, so just add more of everything if you are doing more steaks.
2 Tbs. prepared wasabi (I use the powdered kind in the little can)
1 C. of Panko (Japanese Bread Crumbs)

Tuna Steak(s)

Mix wasabi according to instructions on can, or just squeeze out 2 tbs. into a small bowl. Add bread crumbs and mix together thoroughly. Heat pan over med-high heat with some olive oil (oops, that's the 4th ingredient).

Pat the wasabi-panko mixture onto 1 side of your tuna steak so that it's about 1/4" thick. Cook fish breaded side down first for 3-4 min. then flip (carefully) and cook the other side for 3-4 min. Cooking time depends on the thickness of your steak and how rare you like it, this one is pretty rare so use your judgement.

This goes great with garlic aioli, I'll post that recipe as well.

Beet Salad w/ Orange Vinaigrette

I went to a restaurant a few weeks ago and had a fantastic beet salad. I figured it would be pretty easy to make at home so I gave it a shot. I found instructions for roasting beets, they said to roast first, then peel. I don't know if it's easier to use a vegetable peeler or a knife because either way, your hands and everything around you will be bright pink (if you use red beets). And always wait until they are cool before you peel.
Beets, I used 4 golf ball sized red beets. You can use whatever color/size you want:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Trim both ends of each beet, toss in olive oil in glass baking dish.
3. Cover with foil, bake for about an hour until soft.
Vinaigrette:
1/2 C. Orange Juice
1 Tbs. diced green onions (not leeks, not chives)
2 Tbs. Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tbs. Dijon Mustard
1/4-1/2 C. Olive Oil
Salt/Pepper
1. Heat orange juice on med-high heat until it boils. Simmer for 8-10 min. until you have about 2 Tbs. of liquid left. Keep an eye on it, it happens fast!
2. Put orange juice into a bowl, when cool whisk in green onions, vinegar and mustard.
3. Whisk in olive oil. 1/4 for stronger tasting dressing, 1/2 cup if you want a less tangy vinaigrette
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper
5. Put some baby greens in a bowl, top with beets and dressing. You can add in other veggies too, I used white mushrooms with mine.