rutabaga

Rutabaga.

There was this large round 'soccer ball-sized' vegetable in the produce section of my local supermarket. i had no idea how to prepare it, but I was tired of buying my usual vegetables and since rutabaga is really not expensive, i just bought it.

Back home I searched the net and it turned out that preparing Rutabaga is really like preparing potatoes. simple. you just peel the vegetable, cut it in small pieces and boil it for about 20 minutes. done. then you can add salt, butter, smash it, add baked potatoes if wanted. add onions.. whatever you are up for. it tastes very good, a bit on the sweet side.

so my dinner was> pork tenderloin with rosemary, white onion sauteed with carrots and smashed rutabaga. my friend Meta might really enjoy this dish! bon appetite!

Salmon was the fish of the day at my supermarket so i decided to buy salmon. but then what? how would i come up with a recipe for salmon, right here and there between the isles of this large store?

luckily my supermarket has a display shelve next to the fish counter, where you can pick little recipe cards. i found one for a salmon dish. it called for green beans and a marinate for the fish. 

the recipes are very simple and basic but they really help to kick start ideas of how to prepare a certain fish or meat.

the dinner of the day turned out to be soja sauce marinated salmon with green beans and rice. all you need to do is to marinate the fish for about 10 minutes in a mixture of light soja sauce - which i prefer over regular soja sauce - coarsed ginger and garlic and a spoon of sesame oil. steam the beans, saute them in butter with white onions and serve the fish over the bed of rice and greens. bon appetite

when it's cold outside - and it is freezing cold here on the east coast - i am more drawn to  sturdy warm dishes such as stews and soups, just everything that warms the body from the inside out. But once in a while I add a mixed green salad to my main course. I love salads, they are my all time favorites, especially during the summer months.. (you will see). So, naturally I do miss them, so there are evenings when i dress up a simple dish with a salad on the side. like this one. green lettuce ( romaine ) cucumber, radish, chives and carrots. olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. ready to eat. yummy.  this salad was served with marinated steak and a side of mushrooms with rice. it reminds me of a meal grilled outdoors on a summer evening. - food can inspire hope. in this case, the hope is for warmer weather. bon appetite!

Haddock filet with rice and squash

the fish section in the supermarket had haddock filet on sale. so i bought two filets. dinner for two. i always start with my main ingredient to come up with the supper recipe.

today it was fish. the next step is to imagine what would go with it. rice? potatoes? pasta? i'm not trying to get fancy and think of all other possible carbohydrates that might match with white fish. just rice, potatoes or pasta. this way, decision making in the supermarket becomes so much easier. obviously i chose rice. i mostly choose rice with fish, because i like the combination of the two. 

so now i know it will be  white fish filet and rice. last ingredients to come up with now are the vegetables. i walk over to the fresh produce section of the supermarket and just look around for what i might like. i try to imagine the taste of those vegetables, the consistency of them. and i choose green and yellow squash.

this is my typical three step shopping guide whenever i have no idea what to prepare for dinner. 

cooking >

cut squash into small pieces, add onion and garlic, saute, add a bit of heavy cream. salt and pepper the fish filets. add curry. grill in pan. cook rice. serve fish over rice bed. arrange vegetables around rice bed. sprinkle with chive. bon appetite.