Friday Night Challenge: Balsamic-Seared Tuna Steaks

After a cool-down period of over a week, I was ready to get the Friday Night Challenge up and running once again. It is summertime, after all and that means grill weather! (The calendar doesn't show it yet, but the temperatures in the 90's do!) 
Here are the ingredients that came my way for this week:
tuna, artichoke, lettuce, strawberries, feta cheese, mushrooms


Here is the finished product:

And here's the recipe:


Take one jar of artichoke hearts, one jar of shiitake mushrooms, 1/2 dozen sliced button mushrooms. Toss all these together and place in a foil packet with some salt, a sprinkle of olive oil, and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Place on the grill on low heat and let cook for around 15 minutes.


Take tuna steaks and slice to about 1/2-3/4" thickness. Add a bit of salt, a sprinkle of olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Drop on the grill--that's it. Watch them until they just start to lose their pinkness. Don't cook any longer or they'll dry out.


For the salad (another very easy to fix item): take lettuce (any kind you prefer). Slice some strawberries thinly.   (Earlier I fixed some strawberries the regular way, i.e. sliced and sugared a bit--needed the syrup for the dressing, and besides--dessert, anyone?) Pull the lettuce into bite-sized pieces, place the strawberry slices on the lettuce bed, sprinkle some crumbled Feta cheese over the salad, and then add the simple dressing of the strawberry syrup, a bit of balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. Yep, that's it!


If you need something quick yet substantial for a meal, this is an easy fix and it tastes great with the addition of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a bit of salt. 


Enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge 7: Asian Goodness

When the ingredients came rolling in this weekend, I could see a pattern emerging with some great Asian features. Shrimp, coconut, green pepper, ginger...yep, Asian. And then the curve came--potatoes. Let the thinking begin. 


After a bit of pondering, I came up with Asian gingered shrimp with green pepper with a side dish of shredded ginger-coconut potato patties.


Chop one large green bell pepper into bite-sized pieces and stir-fry in a bit of vegetable oil. Add 2t. Chinese ginger. While the pepper is cooking, shell and remove the mud vein from raw shrimp. Once the pepper starts to soften, add the shrimp, another teaspoon of ginger, and 1t. salt. Let this simmer for around 10 minutes.


For the side dish: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel and finely shred potatoes; cook until soft, add a pinch of salt. Drain and add in 2t. of ground ginger and 1/2 c. shredded coconut. Combine the ingredients. Spray a baking sheet with Pam and add 1T. of the mixture in flattened dollops to the baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes until the coconut just starts to lightly brown.


This is a fairly economical dish, not difficult to make, and has a nice, light flavor. Give it a try.

Black Bean Stuffed Green Peppers

Today, courtesy of Facebook, I decided to post a challenge to myself. I asked for friends to give me five random ingredients to put together and create a supper. I was given a total of six ingredients. As a result of the good suggestions, we had a supper that was healthy, low calorie, low fat, high fiber, and economical.

The ingredients were green bell peppers, eggs, onions, cheese, black beans, and ancho chili pepper. I decided upon vegetarian stuffed peppers. Here's the process.
(serves 2)
Cut the tops from 2 green bell peppers and clean out the seeds and membrane. Reserve the tops that were removed.
Open a can of black beans. (To lighten the sodium, you can rinse the beans before cooking.) Add some chopped red onion and chop the tops of the bell pepper and cook these in with the beans. Add 1 t. ancho chili powder. Put the bell peppers into hot water and cook until tender, but not to the point of collapsing.
Once the beans start cooking steadily, take an egg and whisk it into the beans. Once it is blended, taste for adjustment of the chili powder.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the bean mixture into the peppers and put the peppers into the oven so the flavors can blend. This takes about 10 minutes. While they are in the oven, grate approximately 1 T.  Parmesan reggiano cheese for each green pepper. When the peppers have been removed from the oven for a couple of minutes, add the grated cheese to the top. Enjoy!

Smoky, Spicy Split Pea Soup

I've been on the search of late for good, warming soups that contain anti-inflammatory ingredients. After perusing several recipes, I concocted the following recipe:
Cook up 1 cup of split peas (they don't need to be soaked ahead of time, but they will remain undercooked if they don't get a head start). Once the peas are partially cooked, add a couple of cans of vegetable broth, 1-3 t. of the adobo sauce that comes with chilies (if you really like spicy, you can cook the soup with a couple of the chilies, too--just remove when the soup is about finished. Also add one sweet potato, a can of diced tomatoes, and garlic powder to taste. To get a bit of richness to the soup, I added a tablespoon of "better than bouillon" chicken seasoning. Once all this is combined, add in one large onion chopped and one stalk of celery chopped that has been sauteed  in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Let everything cook down and then adjust the seasonings to taste. If you want a more "smoky" flavor, add a little smoked paprika.  Enjoy!

Kale and Soy Beans

In keeping with healthy foods that taste great, this recipe fits the bill. The two main items--kale and soy beans--are full of good vitamins. Once you combine all the ingredients for this dish, you also have that valuable rainbow of healthy color...you'll see that in just a minute.
You can make croutons to go on top of the finished plate; I had some rye bread at the handy, so I used it. You can use any type of bread you have. Heat up some olive oil in a skillet (remember that olive oil has a fairly low smoking point, so don't turn the heat up too high) and add to it about 1/2 t. ground thyme. Once the oil is heated, add the cubed bread. Once it is to the crunchy state, Put on a plate and season with salt and pepper.

Back to the skillet--add a bit more olive oil and throw in a bit of crushed red pepper, some more ground thyme (around 1 t. of each), 1/2 t. garlic powder, 1/2 t. onion powder, and, if you have it, a bit of vegetable broth (approx 1/4 c.). I use "better than bouillon" in the vegetable flavor (about 1 t.). Stir all this together. Toss in some shredded kale (around 4 cups) and just enjoy that lovely green color for a bit. Then stir in two or three chopped tomatoes. Once the kale has cooked down somewhat, add a can of soy beans. Turn the heat down to medium low and let everything simmer for about 10 minutes. Ladle out, add the croutons and enjoy!