Better than it looks. Promise.

The first time I saw tempeh in the store I thought that whoever first made it must have been very hungry. It doesn’t look too appetizing.

The first time I ate tempeh I thought that whoever first made it was a freakin’ genius.

I think it’s one of the most under-rated foods around. Trust me. It’s not just for vegetarians and health nuts. It’s for anyone who likes really good food that easy to make.

Tempeh has more flavor and texture than tofu and is about ten times easier to make.

In fact, one of my favorite tacos to this day is my crispy tempeh tacos. This is actually kind of a riff on that dish made as a breakfast instead of a dinner. I ate this breakfast two days in a row which is pretty rare for me. It was just that good.

The Tempeh Scramble

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

4-6 ounces tempeh, crumbled
1/2 red or orange pepper, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
2 scallions, diced
2 tablespoons salsa
4 large eggs, scrambled
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
3 ounces pepper jack cheese, grated
1 avocado, sliced
Cilantro
Flour tortillas
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Cast Iron Skillet

Directions:

1) Crumble tempeh and dice all your veggies. Mix the veggies in a bowl with salsa.

2) Add the small amount of vegetable oil to a cast iron skillet and get it hot over medium-high heat.

3) Add the tempeh and cook until it's well browned, about 5-6 minutes.

4) Stir in veggies and salsa and season with salt and pepper. Cook for a minute or two until veggies are soft.

5) Scramble eggs and add eggs to skillet. Stir vigorously so eggs mix with other ingredients. Cook until eggs are almost all cooked, probably just a minute or two.

6) Add on grated cheese and stick the pan in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for about a minute just to melt the cheese.

7) Serve scramble with warm tortillas, cilantro, and avocado!

Tempeh Tempeh

I’ve already raved in this post about my love for tempeh, but the reality is that it might be kind of hard for you to find. I only know of one health food store in my town that sells it.

Most grocery stores don’t carry it unfortunately. Maybe the demand isn’t quite there yet. But call around to a few places and you should be able to find it somewhere.

If you’re curious what tempeh is, it’s basically just fermented whole soy beans that have been mixed with other flavors like flax seeds or, in this case, random vegetables.

The nice thing about tempeh is that you can prepare it a million different ways. You can slice it thinly or just crumble it up. I thought for a scramble like this, it would be better to just crumble it.

Super easy to use.

The Veggies

While I listed specific vegetables in the recipe, I’d just encourage you to use what you have in your fridge. Some kind of pepper is good and something like an onion or scallion is a good idea.

It’s pretty flexible though… kind of like an omelet.

A few chopped veggies.

Whatever veggies you are using, dice them up and then stir them together with some salsa. This will give the dish a nice Tex-Mex feel.

Adding a tex-mex element.

Cooking the Scramble

I used my cast iron skillet for this dish, but you could use any large skillet really. I do recommend using one that is oven-safe so you can transfer the pan to the oven at the end and melt the cheese quickly.

The first step is to brown the tempeh. Add a small drizzle of oil to the pan and then add all the tempeh. Over medium-high heat, it’ll take 5-6 minutes to brown nicely. It’s pretty hard to burn this stuff. It’s very sturdy.

Way easier than tofu!

Once the tempeh is browned, add in the veggies and salsa and cook for another minute or two until the veggies are soft.

Then pour in your scrambled eggs!

Already smells good.

Everything will cook pretty fast at this point.

Just stir it all together and let it cook until the eggs are almost completely cooked.

This is about perfect. It looks like a hot mess, but it’ll smell great.

Not sure how many style points I get here...

Top the whole scramble with some cheese and stick it in a hot oven for a minute or two just to melt the cheese.

Can't forget the cheese.

You could just eat this as-is or serve it as a side. If you want to make a really good meal out of it though, serve it with some flour tortillas, avocado, and maybe some fresh cilantro.

Delicious breakfast.

There’s a lot of nice things about this meal. For one, I guarantee you that you won’t miss the meat. The tempeh is very flavorful, filling, and has a great texture.

The other nice thing is that this whole thing takes less than 30 minutes to make. You could also easily double or triple it and feed a crowd.

This is a great introduction to tempeh if you’ve never tried it before so hunt some down and give it a go!

Better than it looks!

“I’m going to have to email your Mom…”

My wife, Betsy, replied, “Yep.”

I had just made the best roasted turkey of my life and the planned Thanksgiving menu was going to have to come to a screeching halt to accommodate it.

Betsy and I normally spend Thanksgivings with her side of the family and over the years they’ve slowly relinquished control of most of the meal to me. There are, of course, exceptions. Betsy’s mom is always in charge of mashed potatoes and gravy because I can’t imagine that I could improve them in any way from her versions.

So, I’m normally in charge of the bird, stuffing, rolls, one or two sides, and maybe a pie or two if I’m feeling frisky. Normally, I just use Alton’s fantastic turkey brine recipe that makes a very solid bird.

Unfortunately though, I’m not sure I can ever go back to that recipe after trying the brine in this post. Hands down, best roasted turkey I’ve ever had.

I just did a turkey breast for this version, but you could easily cook an entire turkey with the same brine mixture. I intend to do just that in about 10 days.

Apple Cider Brined Turkey Breast

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours + overnight brine

Ingredients:

Note: If you want to do a whole turkey, just double this recipe.

1 whole turkey breast (5-6 pounds)
1 quart apple cider
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns
4 whole star anise pods
3 garlic cloves
3 scallions, sliced
3 inches fresh ginger, sliced thick
3 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 cinnamon stick
A few sprigs of cilantro
10 cups cold water

For cooking:
1 green apples
1 lemon

Helpful Equipment:
Digital Probe Thermometer

Directions:

1) Mix the cider, salt, soy sauce, and sugar in a medium pot and bring it to a simmer to dissolve the salt and sugar.

2) Add all the other brine ingredients except the turkey and the cold water. Let the brine simmer for about 5 minutes. Then kill the heat and let the brine slowly cool to room temperature.

3) Mix cold water in with brine and submerge turkey breast in brine. If you don't have enough brine to cover the whole turkey breast, just make sure the actual breast meat is submerged in the brine.

4) Stick this in the fridge overnight to brine.

5) When ready to cook, preheat oven to 475 degrees. Rinse off turkey breasts with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Discard brine.

6) Slice apples into 1/4 inch slices. Add two slices of apple and the lemon (cut into eighths) into the cavity of the turkey.

7) Set turkey, breast side up, in a roasting pan on a bed of the sliced apples.

8) Cook turkey breast at 475 for 30 minutes. Then remove and insert digital thermometer.

9) Turn oven heat down to 350 degrees and cook turkey until it registered 165 degrees in the thickest part of the breast, probably about another 75-90 minutes. If you don't have a probe thermometer, I would check the temperature after 60 minutes and go from there.

10) Once the turkey is done, wrap it in foil and let it rest for 30 minutes.

11) Slice off each breast and slice them across the grain into 1/8-1/4 inch slices.

Adapted from November 2011 Bon Appetit.

Preparing the Brine

I’m not going to get into the science of why brining is good, but basically it results in a cooked turkey that’s much more moist than its unbrined brother due to the way that salt reacts with the proteins in the meat. Just trust me. It’s good and worth the time.

I’ll admit, there are a lot of ingredients in this brine. They all serve a purpose, but if you can’t find them all, don’t feel like you can’t make this brine. At the end of the day, I’d say 80% of the flavor comes from the apple cider. As long as you have that, you can make this happen.

The base of the brine and really all you need to make this if you’re in a pinch.

The basics of a brine.

Of course, if possible, any of these spices will just up the flavor complexity of the brine. Use as many of them as you can, but don’t freak out if you’re missing one.

Bring the cider, brown sugar, soy sauce, and salt to a simmer in a medium or large pot. Then add in all your spices and herbs. The only prep I did to my spices was chop my garlic cloves and scallions in half and slice my ginger into coins. Then just toss everything in the pot.

This will smell good.

Let this simmer for about 5 minutes, then kill the heat and let it slowly cool to room temperature. This will give plenty of time for the flavors to infuse into the brine.

Once the brine is room temperature, add the cold water and you’re ready to brine.

Brining the Bird

If you’re doing a full bird, make sure you have a large bucket or pot that can fit your entire bird. Most years, I use a small cooler for this honestly. It works great.

I was just doing a turkey breast though so I just used a large bowl and make sure that my breasts were submerged in the brine. When I do it with a full bird, I’ll make sure the whole bird is submerged.

That's a big bowl FYI.

Whatever device you use, cover it well and place it in a refrigerated place overnight. Depending on the temperature, sometimes I’ll just stash my turkey cooler setup outside somewhere or in a cool garage for the night. Just make sure your temperature outside is around or under 40 degrees and make sure rodents can’t get to it.

Cooking the Bird

When it’s time to cook, take your bird out of the brine and discard your brine. There’s no reason to keep it. It’s done all it can do to help us out.

Then rinse off your turkey really well with cold water. The brine is very salty and you don’t want it coating the bird. There’s plenty of flavor soaked into the bird. Trust me.

So rinse off the bird and then pat it dry with some paper towels.

At this point I’d recommend adding some lemons and apple slices to the cavity of the bird. This will just give it a bit more flavor and moisture as it cooks.

Stuffed with flavor.

The next step is very far from necessary in my mind, but Bon Appetit recommended it so I tried it out. I’m not entirely sure what it accomplished. Basically you just set the turkey on a bed of apple slices in the roasting pan.

It did make it a bit easier to take the bird out of the roaster after cooking because it wasn’t stuck to the pan at all.

I would call it an element of flare. It’s not necessary though by any stretch.

A bed of apples...

Lately I’ve used Alton’s technique when it comes to cooking turkey and it works really well.

Basically, you start the turkey in a super-hot, 475 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then pull the turkey out and insert your probe thermometer if you have one. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees and continue to cook it until it reaches 165 degrees internally (thickest part of the breast in my case here, or thickest part of the thigh if you’re cooking a full bird).

This was my breast after 30 minutes cooking in the super-hot oven.

NOTE: If you’re using a probe thermometer you can’t have it in for this part of the cooking. It could melt.

After the high heat bake.

Total cooking time for your bird at this point will depend on a huge number of factors so I’m not even going to try. I’ll tell you that my 5-6 pound turkey breast here took about 70 minutes to finish cooking at 350 degrees.

If you’re doing a whole turkey, obviously this will be much longer, but in the past, my turkeys have finished in about 3 hours. The quick, hot cooking period at the beginning really speeds up the overall time. I can’t even imagine cooking a turkey without some sort of thermometer so just rely on yours to tell you when the bird is done.

If you are cooking a whole bird though, I high recommend watching Alton’s videos (sound!) to learn how to use a foil triangle to keep your breast meat from drying out. It cooks a lot faster than the dark meat so by covering it in foil, you can make sure the breast meat and dark meat are perfectly done at the same time. It’s a crucial technique and easy to do.

Resting and Slicing

Once your bird hits its temperature, pull it out, cover it in foil and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. This is maybe the most important part of the whole process. If you slice right into it, all the juices will run out and you’ll have a much dryer bird.

For my breasts, after they had rested I just sliced them off the breast bone so I could slice them up nicely.

These breasts are around 2 pounds each.

Then I slice them across the grain into thick coins. This is how I carve a full turkey also. It’s makes sure everyone gets some of the crispy skin and just makes it a lot easier to serve.

Very juicy.

I know you can’t smell this, but I’ll hold it up really close anyway.

It has a really faint apple cider and spice taste and smell that’s just out of this world.

Delicious piece of turkey.

Well, this has been a long post, but it’s an important one.

You still have over a week to make this happen for Thanksgiving. I highly, highly, recommend you give it a shot.

Have you brined a turkey? Have you apple cider brined a turkey? Leave a comment!

Some of my favorite flavors.

Sometimes I get desperately sick of normal pasta sauce. Betsy and I eat pasta at least a few times a week and at some point in the week I’ll exclaim, “I’ll put anything in the world on that pasta except tomatoes.”

It’s not that I don’t love tomatoes. I definitely do. But a dude can only eat so much ragu.

The sauce I worked up on this particular night has a sesame base and has a delicious, rich flavor. At the same time though, it’s pretty light. You can’t really even see it on the pasta, but you can smell and taste it.

I wasn’t sure if Betsy would like my sesame sauce so I just served it with her favorite pasta, angel hair. I figured that would probably win her over. Luckily, the sauce turned out to be so good that I could’ve served it on a plate of kitchen twine.

Sesame Angel Hair Pasta

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound angel hair pasta
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup safflower oil
1 clove garlic
2 inches fresh ginger, grated
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce
1/2 pound edamame, steamed
1 red pepper, diced
Sesame seeds (garnish)
Chopped scallions (garnish)
Sriracha sauce (garnish)

Directions:

1) Mince garlic and peel and grate ginger.

2) Whisk garlic and ginger with soy sauce, safflower, sesame oil, sugar, and chili garlic sauce to make a dressing. Set aside.

3) Steam edamame in the microwave or in steamer until soft. Toss with chopped red pepper.

4) Cook pasta according to package and toss with dressing and vegetables. You might not need all the dressing so add it slowly.

5) Serve warm or cold.

The Sesame Sauce

If you have even a decent Asian pantry, you’ll probably have some of the ingredients for this dressing. At a bare minimum, most people have soy sauce. And most people should have rice wine vinegar and chili garlic sauce because those go great in a lot of dishes.

Basic sauce stuff.

The ingredient that gives this sauce it’s kick though is the sesame oil. This stuff is flavor-packed and a little goes a long way.

Just a few tablespoons will be more than enough to flavor a whole pound of pasta.

This stuff rocks.

Add all your sauce ingredients to a medium bowl and whisk them well to combine them. I knew this was going to be a winning recipe when I tried out the sauce on its own.

It’s slightly spicy, but its main characteristic is a deep savory flavor.

Really flavorful dressing!

The Add-ins

You could just toss some pasta in this sauce and call it good, but I thought it’d be nice to give the dish some color with some fresh vegetables. I just diced up a red pepper and steamed some frozen edamame.

If you can’t find edamame, any pea would work great.

Great colors.

The pasta

Like I said, I used angel hair because I know it’s Betsy’s favorite and I rarely use it. You could use almost any noodle pasta for this dish though. Rice noodles or even spaghetti would work equally well.

Betsy's favorite pasta.

Finishing the Dish

Whatever pasta you decide to use, just cook it according to its cooking instructions. As soon as you drain the pasta, add it to a bowl and pour in about half of your sauce.

Check out this action shot!

Action shot!

You might not need all the sauce for your pasta so start with half of it, toss the pasta a bit to combine everything. Taste it and add more sauce if you think it needs it. I used almost all of my sauce.

As soon as the sauce hits the hot pasta, an intense sesame flavor will smack you in the nostrils.

Then just stir in your edamame and red peppers and you’re ready to go!

All mixed up.

I served this garnished with chopped scallions, sesame seeds, and Sriracha sauce.

Garnishes are fun.

The really nice thing about this dish is that it keeps really well and is awesome cold. So it works great for lunches!

In fact, I think I liked this dish better as a cold noodle salad on day two.

If you’re feeling the tomato twinge and need a change, try this guy out!

Awesome lunch.

If you’ve been a long time Macheesmo reader you’ll know that Betsy and I are on a crazy hunt to find original and fun lunches to eat during the week. There’s always a few qualifications for these lunches.

1) You need to be able to make them in bulk.

2) They need to be fairly economical and also keep really well for at least five days.

3) They need to be somewhat healthy.

This hunt has led us to some awesome lunches like this pesto quinoa salad. In general though, it keeps us both out of the fast food lines and generally saves us a few bucks a week also.

I do think I’m starting to get fairly good at the weekday lunch because Betsy’s co-workers have actually offered to pay me to bring them lunch during the week. I haven’t actually taken them up on it, but I happily direct them to this here website where they can find almost every lunch I’ve made for us.

The latest iteration of this hunt took the form of a classic Middle Eastern meal: Falafel and Tabbouleh.

A Middle Eastern Lunch

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

Tabbouleh:
1 cup quick cooking bulgar
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/3 cup fresh mint, chopped
3 scallions, minced
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes (drained)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt

Falafel:
2 16 ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 large egg
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup fresh parsley, minced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, minced
1/2 white onion, diced
2 Teaspoons baking soda
1 Teaspoon cumin seeds
1 Teaspoon paprika
1/4 Cup Sesame seeds
Pinch of salt and pepper

Mini Pitas
1 quart oil for frying
Greek Yogurt

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor
Deep Fry Thermometer

Directions:

For Tabbouleh:
1) Cook bulgar according to package. This will most likely mean letting it steep in hot water for about 20 minutes.
2) Chop other ingredients.
3) Once bulgar is soaked, mix with veggies and add in olive oil and lemon juice.
4) Season with salt and store for up to a week.

For Falafels:
1) Pulse onion, garlic, and sesame seeds in food processor.
2) Add chickpeas and pulse until combined.
3) Remove from processor and stir in breadcrumbs, egg, herbs and spices.
4) Heat frying station up to 350 degrees.
5) Make about Tablespoon-sized balls from the chickpea mixture.
6) Fry balls in oil for about 3-4 minutes until they are a deep golden brown.
7) Let drain and serve with pita and greek yogurt.

Getting Bulgar

Tabbouleh, if you aren’t familiar with it, is an awesome side dish that just a mixture of bulgar wheat and lots of fresh vegetables and herbs.

You can find bulgar in most supermarkets and grocery stores these days. Look out for the quick cooking variety. It works great.

Love this stuff.

Besides the bulgar, you just need a lot of veggies. I like crunchy stuff like scallions and cucumbers in mine along with lots of fresh herbs like parsley and mint. I also drained a small can of diced tomatoes and added those to the mix just for good measure!

Lots of good flavors here.

Preparing the bulgar is really straightforward. You should read the instructions that come with your bulgar but basically it will involve soaking the bulgar in hot water for about 20 minutes.

Then it will turn nice and fluffy!

After a soak.

Mix all this stuff together and season it with some lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and you’ll be all set.

As with most stuff like this, tabbouleh gets even better if you let it sit in the fridge for a day or two. All the flavors start to mingle and it’s really very delicious, not to mention healthy.

It gets better on day two.

The Falafels

It’s pretty hard to make a meal out of just tabbouleh so I decided to make a big batch of falafels that would go well with it.

Honestly, this was my first time ever making falafels and I was pretty impressed at how easy they were to make.

I started out by pulsing my onions, garlic, and spices in my food processor until they were minced finely. Just a few pulses will do the trick.

A food processor is your friend.

Then add your drained chickpeas to the food processor and pulse them a few more times. You should end up with a rough paste. Remove that from your food processor and add in all your other ingredients!

My mixture was already smelling really good so I knew I was onto something here!

It's like a batter-dough thing.

Frying the Falafels

Once you have your falafel batter ready, just set up your fry station as you normally would. As always, I highly recommend using a deep-fry thermometer to make sure you don’t overheat your oil.

Once your oil is at 350 degrees, just start adding your falafel batter in large tablespoon sized balls. They should only take 3-4 minutes to fry up and turn really nice and brown.

Nice color on these guys.

These were really flavorful. Perfectly crispy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside.

Chomp!

I was worried about the falafels keeping okay. After all, fried food tends to be best right out of the fryer.

It’s true that the falafels were best right away, but they kept fine also. You could microwave them or I thought they were fine cold.

A few falafel balls plus a cup or so of tabbouleh and some greek yogurt and pita made for a great lunch.

All packed up!

If you can find a way to cycle in some semi-healthy foods for lunch during the week, I think you’ll be shocked at how much more energy you have in the afternoon. If I eat something like this, I find I have way more juice than if I chow down on a huge cheeseburger or something.

While it is a bit of work to make these two things, if you can find time to do it on a lazy sunday, you’ll be all set for lunches for the entire week!

About as healthy as it gets!

After a week of vacation eating mainly seafood and butter, Betsy and I were in the mood for some healthy stuff when we got home.

I wondered through the produce section and picked out a few things that looked particularly good (green beans/corn). To make a meal out of them, I tossed them with some spicy sesame soba noodles.

Turned out to be really flavorful and one of my favorite healthy dishes in a while.

Summer Soba

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

1 9.5 ounce package of soba, cooked according to package
1-2 Cups green beans
2 ears corn
1 red pepper, diced
1/2 Cup carrots, shredded
2 scallions, only greens
1-2 Tablespoons sesame oil (or chili sesame oil), for soba
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil (for cooking)
Fresh basil (garnish)
Chopped peanuts (garnish)

Sauce:
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon mirin
- 1 Serrano pepper, diced with seeds
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 inches fresh ginger, grated

Directions:

1) Prep all veggies and set them aside.

2) Cook soba according to package then drain and toss with sesame oil.

3) Mix sauce ingredients being sure to mince ginger/garlic/pepper well.

4) In a large skillet, add oil and then all the veggies except carrots and scallions.

5) Cook veggies on high heat for a few minutes until hot, but still a bit crunchy.

6) Add sauce to pan and cook for another minute or two until sauce is fragrant.

7) Add soba to pan and stir together well. Then stir in carrots and scallions.

8) Serve with chopped basil and peanuts.

Prepping the Ingredients

The veggies that I used for this are by no means the only ones you could use. Almost any fresh summer veggie would be great tossed in with this dish, so don’t feel limited by what I included.

Good summer stuff.

Assuming you do use some of the veggies I used though, prepping them is pretty straightforward. Dice up the red pepper, snap off the ends of the green beans and chop them in half. Cut the corn off the cob.

Pretty easy prep.

In essence, this is a stir-fry recipe, so I mixed up a very quick and simple sauce for it. Nothing too heavy, but just to give the dish some flavor.

Not pictured: Serrano pepper

Mince up the garlic, pepper, and ginger really finely and then stir it together with the soy sauce and mirin.

Seriously awesome sauce.

Cooking the Soba

If you aren’t familiar with soba, don’t fret. It’s basically pasta except made with buckwheat. This gives it a really unique flavor (almost nutty). It also takes no time to cook. Most soba cooks in just a few minutes.

Pretty things.

The thing about soba is that it’s a really sticky pasta. After you cook it and drain it, you’ll want to toss it with some oil or you’ll end up with one big block of pasta that will be pretty hard to work with.

But if you pour over a few tablespoons of sesame oil then it will flavor the pasta and also keep it from sticking. If you want to add some heat do the dish, you can use sesame chili oil!

Oil is key.

Finishing the Dish

Once your veggies are prepped and your pasta is cooked, this is a pretty straightforward dish to make.

Add a few tablespoons of oil to a large skillet and toss in all your veggies (except carrots and scallions) over high heat. Cook these for just a few minutes. You want to make sure that they still have a bit of crunch to them.

Don't over-cook this!

Then stir in the sauce and let it heat up and get fragrant for a minute or two.

Finally, add in all the soba and stir the whole thing together. As a final step, stir in the carrots and scallions and you’re all set!

Yum.

Serve the soba immediately with fresh basil and peanuts on top.

Very colorful and healthy dish.

Health in a bowl.

One of my favorite things about soba is that unlike some other pastas, it maybe tastes even better cold. So leftovers are perfect for a weekday lunch or something.

Summer soba was a total hit at my house. It’s a perfect use for some of the delicious veggies available these days.

Healthy!

One of the things I knowingly sacrificed when we moved to Colorado was easy access to fresh seafood. Sure there is some good seafood here if you catch it yourself (trout, etc.), but it’s not like there’s a huge seafood market where I can just take my pick.

Luckily, I befriended a shop owner around here though that flies in fresh seafood occasionally. It’s definitely pricey, but you can tell that it’s super-fresh and sometimes it’s worth the price.

A few weeks ago she called me about some really fresh wild caught salmon that they got in. After seeing it (and smelling it), I couldn’t pass it up.

I wanted to do something pretty light with it and so I came up with a really simple citrus glaze that totally rocked. It ended up being one of the healthier meals I’ve made recently. And totally delicious.

Citrus Glazed Salmon

Yield: Serves 2-4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1-2 pounds fresh salmon fillet (I like about 5 ounces per person)
1 Cup orange juice (glaze)
1 lime, juice only (glaze)
1 lemon, juice only (glaze)
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar (glaze)
1/4 Cup brown sugar (glaze)
2 scallions, chopped (glaze)
2 inches fresh ginger (glaze)
2 cloves garlic (glaze)

Quick avocado Salad:
2 avocados
1/4 red onion, minced
1 jalapeno, diced
Handful of cilantro, minced
1 lime, juice only
Pinch of salt

Directions:

1) For the glaze, add ingredients to a small pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Stir continuously until sugar is dissolved.

2) Simmer on low for 20-30 minutes until glaze is reduced to 1/3. Strain sauce. It should be a light syrupy consistency.

3) For salad, finely dice all ingredients except avocados and mix with lime juice. Set aside.

4) Grill salmon, skin side up, over high heat, for about 3-4 minutes. Flip.

5) Once flipped, start brushing on glaze. Continue to brush on glaze until salmon is finished - about another 3 minutes.

6) Serve salmon with rice and avocado salad.

Preparing the Glaze

With really good seafood, you don’t want to overpower it with anything too heavy. This glaze is nice and light but the flavor is really fresh. It’s perfect for summer.

Not pictured: scallions.

Add all the ingredients to a small pot and get this simmering over medium heat. You don’t need to worry about dicing up the ingredients really small.

Just toss everything into the pot and strain out the big stuff at the end.

Smells amazing!

Make sure to stir this regularly so the sugar doesn’t burn on the bottom. Eventually it will dissolve though. You’ll want to simmer this for about 20 minutes probably so it reduces to about 1/3 of it’s original volume.

Then you can strain out the ginger/scallions/garlic and you’ll be left with a really flavorful but light syrup which you can glaze the salmon with. It looks kind of brownish, but trust me, it smells really fresh and citrusy. You’ll love it.

Like a thin syrup...

The Salad

I decided to serve the salmon with a light avocado salad and some rice. The avocado salad was basically just my standard guacamole recipe, deconstructed. So I mixed up some red onions, cilantro, jalapeno, and lime juice and used that as a topping for fresh avocados.

Guacamole: deconstructed.

The Salmon

The fish that I had was awesome. I almost wanted to just eat it raw it was so fresh. The color was out of this world. I haven’t had salmon this good in a while.

Beautiful thing.

I cut the salmon up into three pieces (about 5-6 ounces each), and grilled them.

The key with cooking salmon this fresh is to not overcook it, whatever you do.

I cooked mine for about 3-4 minutes per side on a really hot grill. Start the fish skin-side up. Then once you turn it, start adding your glaze on the top of the salmon. Keep brushing the fish with the glaze every minute or so until it’s done cooking.

It should develop a nice light coat of the citrus glaze on top as it cooks.

Don't overcook this!

About 6-8 minutes of total cooking time is all you need for these. In the wider sections of my fillets they were a bit medium rare in the center but that didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I liked them to be a bit raw.

The only other thing I served these with was some good brown rice.

If you want to get fancy, after your rice is cooked, add about a teaspoon of melted butter to a coffee cup and swirl it around. Then pack in some rice into the coffee cup.

The old rice trick...

When you flip these over on the plate you’ll have these perfect little towers of buttered rice.

This was my final plate with the salmon, avocado salad, and rice.

Fantastic meal.

Delicious.

The glaze was really light on the fish. You can barely see a shimmer on it. Nothing too heavy. You could definitely taste it though. It was a bit sweet and had a great citrus flavor that goes really well with fish.

If you don’t have a grill, you could pan sear your salmon for the same result. Again though – just don’t overcook the fish!

If you’re lucky enough to have access to fresh salmon, give this a shot!

This has a kick to it!

After what is normally considered one of the greatest meat weekends of the year, I figured it would be a good time to post an awesome vegetarian recipe that I’ve been sitting on for a while.

It involves that ingredient that makes a lot of people make an icky face: tofu.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Most people who don’t like tofu have probably never had it prepared correctly. When prepared and seasoned right, it’s actually really tasty. Not to mention that it’s also very healthy.

So eat your tofu people.

If you refuse though, you could put the sauce in this post on the spare tire for your car and eat that without too much worry. You could also put it on chicken I guess.

Spicy Maple Tofu

Yield: Serves 3-4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound extra firm tofu, pressed and cubed
2 Tablespoons oil
1/4 Cup soy sauce
1/3 Cup real maple syrup
1-2 Tablespoons chili garlic sauce
2 inches fresh ginger, grated
2 scallions, minced

Rice or wheat berries for serving

Directions:

1) Cut tofu in half so you have two thinner sheets. Press the tofu between paper towels with a weight on top for 15-20 minutes to press out as much water as possible. Cube tofu and set aside.

2) Grate ginger and chop scallions. Combine with other sauce ingredients in a bowl.

3) Add a few tablespoons of oil to a large nonstick pan or wok. Heat over medium-high heat and add tofu.

4) Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally until tofu is nicely browned.

5) Remove tofu and pour in sauce. Turn heat down to medium low.

6) Stir for 5 minutes until sauce starts to thicken. Then add tofu back in and continue to simmer.

7) When sauce is thick and sticking to tofu, remove from heat.

8) Serve over wheat berries or rice!

The Tofu

The thing that most people don’t realize about tofu is how much water is in it. Even the extra-firm kind is basically a big fat soy sponge. There’s tons of water in it and if you just chop it up and throw it in a hot pan, you’re going to end up with pretty bad results.

The tofu will steam rather than get nice and crispy.

So it’s important to get out as much of that liquid as possible before cooking the tofu. I do this by setting out a few paper towels, cutting the tofu in half so I have two thin sheets, adding a few more paper towels on top and then set something flat and heavy on top.

Very important.

Let it sit for about 20 minutes with something heavy on it and when you come back you’re paper towels will be completely soaked with liquid.

Now you can cube up your tofu and set it aside until you need it!

The Sweet Heat

One of my favorite flavor profiles in the world is sweet heat. More specifically in this case, sweet/salty/heat. The ingredients are pretty simple for the sauce, but they really get the job done.

Use good syrup people.

The key thing to remember about this recipe is to use real maple syrup. Yes. It’s expensive. I know. But if you’re going to use the sugar stuff you might as well just use brown sugar (which you can do).

But the subtle maple flavor and sweetness that the real syrup gives is pretty hard to beat in my opinion. Just mix up all your ingredients in a large bowl and stir it together.

Added some ginger...

Set this aside until needed.

Cooking the tofu

When you’re ready to cook up that soy stuff, add a few tablespoons of oil to a large nonstick pan or a wok. Get it nice and hot over medium-high heat and then add all your tofu.

I usually let my tofu cook for about 8-10 minutes, tossing it occasionally to try to get each side slightly crispy.

This was my tofu this time around. Not every side is browned, but that’s okay. The texture will be there.

Lightly fried.

To finish the dish, take your tofu out of the pan and immediately pour in all your maple sauce. Turn the heat down to medium-low and stir this until it starts to thicken, about 5 minutes.

Then toss your tofu back in and continue to let it simmer down until the sauce is sticking really nicely to the tofu.

This is almost ready.

Sticky and spicy!

I served this stuff with some leftover wheat berries I had, but rice would be the standard thing I think.

Rice is standard, but wheat berries work also.

Betsy and I loved this dish. The flavors are intense, but not over-powering at all.

And spicy maple is my new baby. You’ll be seeing more spicy maple stuff in the future.

Grillin' is good.

Ever since I discovered my deep love for homemade mayo, I’ve been on a mad hunt to shove it in as many dishes as possible.

Besides the quickest application (spoon –> mouth), I thought immediately of potato salad.

Potato salad can be a bit too creamy sometimes for me. I don’t like it gloopy. I like my potato salad to have tons of flavor and lots of good crunchy textures in it with just enough dressing to hold it all together. I figured it could only be improved with homemade mayo.

Oh. And grilling the potatoes to make them crispy. That kind of takes this salad to the next level.

Grilled Potato Salad

Yield: Serves 4 as a side.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and halved
2 stalks celery, diced
3 scallions, minced
1 dill pickle, minced
Handful of parsley, minced
1/2 Cup mayo, homemade is best
1/4 Cup Greek yogurt
2 Tablespoons olive oil (for potatoes)
Salt and pepper
Pinch of cayenne (optional)

Directions:

1) Peel potatoes and cut in half. Toss with olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.

2) Grill potatoes over medium heat for 25-30 minutes until they are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Turn them occasionally.

3) Chop other ingredients and add to a large bowl.

4) Let potatoes cool slightly and chop as well. Add to the bowl.

5) Stir in mayo and yogurt and taste for salt and pepper.

6) Serve immediately or chill. Will keep for up to a week in the fridge.

Cooking the Potatoes

I wasn’t entirely sure how this would work. I normally grill potatoes in foil with butter and garlic, but for this salad I wanted them to be really crispy.

I kind of just winged this, but it worked out great. I peeled my potatoes and cut them in half, then tossed them with some olive oil and salt and pepper.

Basic potatoes.

Next I heated my grill up to a medium heat and then added my potatoes straight to it!

Wasn't sure about this...

It’s important to keep the lid closed while these are cooking so they get some good general heat.

After about 7-8 minutes you can start turning the potatoes. I kind of just flipped them around every few minutes to make sure they weren’t burning on any one part.

Mine took about 25-30 minutes to get nice and crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside.

Lookin' good!

The Other Stuff

Have I mentioned how much I love homemade mayo?

I mixed up another batch for this salad. I did it by hand, but as a number of people pointed out in my post on Monday, you can do this in a blender also and save yourself the forearm workout.

Don't forget the mayo!

Next I added some pretty standard potato salad ingredients. Really fresh, crunchy veggies are very important in my opinion.

Good textures!

Dice up all this stuff pretty finely and add it to a large bowl.

Diced and minced.

When your potatoes come off the grill, let them cool a bit and then dice them up also.

These tasted awesome. I knew I was onto something when I tried these guys.

Perfect.

Add the potatoes to the veggies along with the homemade mayo (you won’t need all of it if you make a full batch) and some Greek yogurt or sour cream.

Taste it for salt and pepper and you’re all set!

Perfect summer side!

This has a way different texture than a standard potato salad. It’s not too creamy but the mayo that’s there is really flavorful.

The salad will easily keep for a week in the fridge and gets better on day two and three. Mine didn’t last longer than that though…

Frankly, it might be my new favorite potato salad recipe!

Good crust.

Someone once told me:

“If it can be made on a grill, it’s probably better on a grill.”

That was a very wise person who I can’t remember at the moment. I swear I’m not making it up though. Even if I am, it’s true. So whatever.

Grilled pizza won the poll by a long shot last week and I was happy to see that because I figured pizza is probably better on the grill, like most things. I’ve only grilled pizza once before and I was excited to try it again.

Grilled pizza is kind of a dish that requires a bit of faith. It doesn’t make sense at all that you should be able to toss dough on a grill and have it hold up. So there’s this moment where it’s kind of a leap of faith. I mean… not Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade leap of faith, but still.

But even though it seems a bit strange, it isn’t actually that hard. In fact, it might be a bit easier than oven pizza.

Grilled Veggie Pizza

Yield: 4 pizzas

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes + dough time

Ingredients:

Dough: (From American Pie)
5 Cups (22 1/2 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 Teaspoon instant yeast (or active dry yeast, dissolved)
3 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 3/4 Cups room temperature water

Toppings: (Enough for 4 pies)
2 pounds mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 large bell pepper, chopped
1 large red pepper, chopped
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
2 Cups sweet corn
4 scallions, diced
Fresh oregano or basil

Simple sauce:
2-3 Cups tomato sauce (depending on how saucy you like your pies)
1-2 Teaspoons red pepper flakes
2 Teaspoons garlic powder
2 Teaspoons onion powder
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
Big pinch of salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
A grill (of course you can get one on Amazon)

Directions:

1) To make dough, combine water, oil, sugar, salt, and yeast in a mixing bowl. Stir together and let sit for 5 minutes to make sure yeast is active. It should bubble.

2) Stir in flour until it's well-incorporated and forms a ball. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Then mix either with your hands or with a stand mixer. If using hands, repeatedly dip one hand in water and work the dough vigorously until it's smooth, about 8 minutes. If using a mixer, mix with dough hook until smooth, about 6 minutes. If at any point, the dough is very sticky, mix in more flour.

3) Cut dough into 4 even pieces, coat with olive oil and add to a large plastic bag. Let rest for 20-30 minutes.

4) Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but ideally overnight.

5) Remove from fridge at least an hour before making pizza.

6) Prepare other ingredients. If you're using any meat or large veggies, pre-cook them.

7) Mix sauce and shred cheese.

8) Heat grill to high and clean it well. Rub the grates with some oil.

9) Roll out two pizzas and lay them directly on the grates. Most grills should be able to fit too pizzas at once.

10) Cook dough for about 2 minutes or until bubbles start to form on the surface of the dough.

11) Remove from heat and flip pizzas over on a baking sheet that's been lightly oiled.

12) Top pizzas with sauce, cheese, and toppings.

13) Slice pizzas back onto grill. Turn heat down to medium-high. Close lid.

14) Cook pizzas for 8-10 minutes, turning pizza 90 degrees half way through. The crust should be a deep brown and very crispy.

15) Remove from grill and cool for a minute before serving!

Making the Dough

This is a pretty standard pizza dough and is very similar to some other pizza doughs that I’ve used. At the end of the day, I’m pretty sure that most doughs would work fine on a grill. I think it’s more technique than recipe honestly.

But, this one works for sure!

Start by combining all your liquid ingredients, yeast, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl. Let those sit for a few minutes until your yeast starts bubbling. Then either mix in your flour with a dough hook attachment on a stand mixer, or with a big wooden spoon.

Once the flour is incorporated well, let the dough sit for a few minutes to relax, then continue mixing until you end up with a smooth ball of dough. If you’re using your hands, dip one hand in water and use it to vigorously work the dough.

By hand it’ll take probably 8 minutes of kneading. By dough hook, it should only take around 6. If your dough is particularly sticky (like sticking to the bottom of the bowl) add more flour.

Eventually you should end up with a nice smooth ball.

Hands or mixer... don't matter to the dough.

Cut this into quarters and coat them all with some olive oil. Add them to a large plastic bag and let them sit at room temperature for 20-30 minutes, then move them to the fridge.

Ideally, you could let them sit overnight, but I was super-rushed on this day so I pulled them out of the fridge after just two hours. The dough worked fine, but the flavor will be better if you can give it overnight in the fridge.

Same day...

You’re ready to grill some pizza after these guys come back to room temperature, probably an hour at minimum.

Other Stuff

The key to this recipe is to make sure you have all your ingredients ready before you cook. You don’t want to be chopping while your dough is on the grill!

I mixed up a quick sauce with some tomato sauce and dried spices. Feel free to customize it to your liking.

As simple as sauce gets...

I also chopped up a bunch of veggies to throw on the pizza. I did a meatless version but you could 100% add pepperoni or anything else that you would add to a pizza to a grilled pizza.

Various goodies.

NOTE: If you’re using big pieces of veggies like this, it’s a good idea to pre-cook them a bit (on the grill maybe) before adding them to the pizza. You’ll see why soon.

Not pictured here is a pound of shredded mozzarella.

The Technique

On a normal grill, you can probably do two pizzas at a time. Roll out your dough into a large circle, or if you’re me, into a random shape of the day.

Then heat your grill to high. It needs to be hot. Clean it off well and rub it down with some oil. I used olive oil, but you could use whatever you have available.

Then the moment of truth. Toss on the dough! Just try to get it evenly on the grates.

You don’t want to top the pizza at this point, just pre-cook it a bit. If your grill is hot, two minutes should do the trick.

If you see bubbles forming on the top of your dough, it’s done.

Bubbles means done.

Use a big metal spatula or pizza peel to pull the pizza off the grill. Lightly oil a sheet pan and invert the dough on the sheet pan. The oil just makes it easier to get the pizza off when we put it back on the grill.

This is the side you add your toppings too!

Ready to top!

Now, if you’re incredibly confident in your abilities, feel free to just flip the pizza on the grill and top it quickly. I like to take my time with pizza toppings so I took my off.

When your pizza is topped like you want it, you should be able to slide the pizzas back onto the grill. Again, a pizza peel or big spatula is pretty key.

This time when the pizza is on the grill, turn the heat on the grill down to medium-high and close the lid so it can heat evenly.

It’s a pretty thing though!

Pretty things.

The Snag

Sometimes, when cooking something new, a little improvisation might be necessary to avert disaster.

So, if you’re grill is really hot, like mine was, your crust will be done after about 8-10 minutes once you’ve topped it and put it back on the grill.

But if you don’t pre-cook your veggies, they won’t be. I was shocked to find my veggies almost raw after 10 minutes even though my crust was done.

The problem, of course, is that a grill isn’t as insulated as an oven so even though the grill itself is very hot, the area around the grill isn’t as hot as my 500 degree oven. Especially because I kept opening it to take photos!

So you have two options:

1) Pre-cook your toppings a bit. You could grill them for just a minute and then chop them up and that would do the trick. Obviously, the bigger the veggies the more important this is. I should’ve pre-cooked my peppers and ‘shrooms for sure.

2) OR you could do what I did and rig a small raised area in your grill. I set a baking tray on the grill, supported by a small tray. This kept my pizza off the direct heat so I could close the lid and cook them for another 5 minutes or so until my veggies were finished cooking.

Option 1 is easier obviously.

Improvise!

The Finished Product

The best thing about improvising is when it works. And my method definitely worked.

I’m telling you, grilled pizza makes some of the best crust I’ve had. Very crispy and delicious. Just look at this crust!

SO crispy!

It’s very hard to get that kind of crust in an oven honestly.

So, if you’re a pizza fan, take a leap a faith and hit up the grill next time you’re in the mood for your favorite pie.

Peri Peri Good.

Peruvian chicken is all the rage these days with places like Nando’s popping up all over the map. There’s a very serious reason for this:

Peruvian chicken is the bomb.

I was very happy to see this win the poll last week (narrowly) because I had just eaten some great Peruvian chicken while I was visiting DC for work last week. I was very excited to try to reproduce it at home.

I’m not really sure that I got it 100% correct because I kind of just winged it, but it was close enough to name it the same thing. It should go without saying that it was also delicious.

Peri Peri Chicken

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 20 minutes + marinade time

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, butterflied or cut into pieces

Peri Peri Sauce:
10-20 red chilis, traditionally you would use piri piri (bird) chilis, but I used red jalapenos
6-8 sweet peppers
4 cloves garlic
A small handful of fresh oregano
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
1 Cup white wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons paprika
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
Pinch of salt

Simple Coleslaw:
1/2 large cabbage, shredded
3-4 carrots, shredded
3 scallions, diced
1/2 Cup mayonnaise
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Pinch of salt
2 Teaspoons dried mustard (optional)

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor
Kitchen Shears

Directions:

1) To prepare sauce, roughly chop peppers and garlic. Leave the seeds in the peppers.

2) Heat oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add peppers and garlic and cook for a few minutes until fragrant and soft.

3) Add vinegar, spices, herbs, and salt. Stir to combine. Simmer for a few minutes.

4) Remove from heat and let cool, then blend or process until smooth.

5) Butterfly chicken by cutting out backbone and pressing it flat. Use half of sauce to marinate chicken overnight. Reserve other half of sauce for serving.

6) For coleslaw, shred veggies and combine with other ingredients. Keep refrigerated until you serve it.

7) To grill chicken, heat grill and add chicken breast side up. Cook chicken for 30-40 minutes with lid closed. Turn chicken every 8-10 minutes. Chicken should register 160 degrees Fahrenheit in the thighs.

8) Remove chicken and let rest for 5-10 minutes. Then serve with slaw and extra sauce.

Preparing the Sauce

Traditionally this sauce is made with piri piri peppers, also known as bird chilis. These are small guys and they pack a punch. Depending on the heat level you want in your sauce, I’d use between 10 and 20 of them if you can find them.

I wasn’t able to find any so I just subbed in red jalapenos. They worked just fine but are way larger. So I used about 8 of them.

Lots of peppers...

Chop up all the peppers really roughly. Cut off the stems, but leave all the seeds.

Add the oil to a medium pot over medium heat. Once it’s hot add all the peppers and garlic and cook for a few minutes until the veggies are soft. Then add in the spices, vinegar, and salt and stir everything together.

Let this simmer for a few minutes and then remove it from the heat. This stuff will make your eyes water!

A quick cook.

Once this is reasonably cool, give it a whirl in the blender or food processor. You want it to be pretty smooth, but it’s fine if there are some chunks of peppers.

Then use half of it to marinate the chicken and save the other half as a sauce for the finished chicken.

Cool It Down Coleslaw

This is a pretty spicy sauce and dish and so it helps to have some cooling sides to help out with the heat. Coleslaw is the perfect choice.

Basics.

I highly recommend using a food processor to shred up the carrots and cabbage because it’ll only take a minute instead of the 10 minutes it would take with a box grater.

Whatever works for you though.

Then just mix the shredded veggies with the other ingredients. Feel free to adjust the ingredients to your tastes. You might like your creamier or saltier or with more mustard than I added to mine.

Go crazy. Make it your own.

All mixed up!

Preparing the Chicken

Ideally, you can marinate your chicken overnight in half of your Peri Peri sauce. A gallon sized plastic bag works great for this.

Also, because I was grilling my chicken, I butterflied it. If you were roasting it in the oven, you could just keep it whole or you could use whatever chicken pieces you like.

Butterflying a chicken is really only a two step process, but it’s one of those things that’s much easier to explain via video. I recommend this video from Bon Appetit (sound) that shows the process. It’s not hard necessarily, but you’ll need some good kitchen shears. CPR training doesn’t hurt.

If you do butterfly it and marinate it, you’ll end up with something like this.

Tricky maneuver.

When you’re ready to grill, get the grill hot and throw your chicken on breast side up. Depending on the size of the chicken, it’ll need to cook for 30-40 minutes total.

Good grillin'

Turn it a few times as it cooks and feel free to baste it with more marinade as it cooks.

I recommend using a meat thermometer to know when it’s done. You’re shooting for about 160 degrees Fahrenheit in the thighs.

My grill was a bit hot when I turned my bird and it got a bit scorched on one side. It looks worse than it was though.

Consider it flavor right?

Grill was a bit hot!

When the bird comes off the grill, cover it with foil and let it rest for five or ten minutes before cutting it up and serving it.

You’re going to want to serve this with lots of extra sauce because the sauce is pretty killer.

Lots of sauce is a good thing.

If the whole butterflying thing is intimidating, you could use any cut of chicken that you want. Just marinate them and toss them on the grill.

It’s guaranteed to be good. Especially if you slather it in sauce!