Tilapia with Tomatoes Caper Sauce

Hi all!
Tonight I decided to do a surf sort of dish rather than a turf sort of dish and came up with Tilapia with tomato caper sauce. I also made some delicious cornbread with cheddar and thyme, which made the house smell fantastic, but also made my oven non-useable for the broiled tilapia dish from Pinterest. What do you do when your oven's out of commission baking cornbread? Sautee it on the stove! So, this recipe required a bit of modification and I made some mistakes, so I'm hoping you can learn from my mistakes.
First mistake was cooking the fish first and making the sauce later. The tilapia filets cooked very well in 1 Tbs of oil for 3 minutes per side. The sauce took about 15 minutes to cook so that means that with prep and cooking time the fish sat in the microwave (to keep warm) for over 10 minutes and cooled off. This didn't bother Matt at all, but the mouth-feel of cold fish made me gag, so I'd say it was not an ideal dinner, but at least one of us was full and happy! I'm not sure what that says about Matt being able to stomach cold fish, but thank God one of us could eat it because I made a lot, hoping it would make a nice lunch tomorrow. The other problem was it was scrumptious! The flavor was spot on and the fish was cooked to flaky moist deliciousness, if only my throat would have cooperated!
So, learn from my mistake and make the sauce, put it on simmer and THEN make the fish!
If this doesn't work for you and you're not making savory cornbread in your oven, you can broil the fish instead which may keep it warmer longer. To do so, follow the original recipe (found in this link):
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/03/broiled-tilapia-with-tomato-caper-sauce.html

If you're willing to try it my way, (I'll fix the order in the recipe below) then read on my lovely readers!

Looks good, huh? Tasted great too!

Ingredients:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
8 (6 oz) tilapia filets
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 shallots, minced
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp capers
1/4 cup white wine
salt and fresh pepper

Season the fish filets with salt and pepper.

Mince the shallots and chop the tomatoes

Sous chef Matt helping out to make this dinner extra special!

Chopped tomatoes

In a medium sauté pan, heat 1 Tbs of olive oil

I used garlic olive oil because I couldn't find regular, woops!

Add garlic and shallots and sauté on medium-low about 4-5 minutes.

Add tomatoes and season with salt and pepper & sauté 7-10 minutes

Gooey tomatoes!!!!

Ummm, they're leaking more!!!

Maybe if I add salt and pepper they'll stop leaking... NOPE!

Add wine and sauté until wine reduces, about 5 more minutes or until its a consistency you like.

WINE! Be sure to taste a glass or two to make sure its fit for cooking...

Holy cats that's a lot of liquid!

Ok this will just have to do, it smells amazing, I'm not cooking it much more!

Add capers and sauté an additional minute.

Meanwhile, heat 1 Tbs of oil in a pan and toss fish in. Cook fish 3 minutes each side.

Again with the garlic olive oil! This is now readily available most places I highly recommend it!

Raw fish! These were pre-frozen filets, that we thawed. They had very little to no fishy smell. If you can smell your seafood it is too old! Don't eat it!!!

Note when I turned the fish it went from translucent to opaque and the pink stripes in the middle turned brown.

I had a hard time getting the fish out in whole filets because it was flaky. It smelled very good!

Place fish on a platter and top with tomato caper sauce.

As you can see this is a very pretty dish as well as a tasty dish and so long as you cook the fish AFTER the sauce is more than 1/2 done you'll be in great shape! I served this with cheddar thyme cornbread, but it would be exceptional over angel hair pasta, rice, or quinoa! And don't you worry, the recipe for Cheddar Thyme Cornbread will be up here soon! And as always...
Happy eating!

Beef Tips in Mushroom Gravy

Hello all!
So sorry about my hiatus from blogging this week, I got silly busy at work and decided to do a bit of leather work because I'm cheap and I figured I could make a "sandwich box" cheaper than if I buy one. For one those things are ridiculously hard to find, and when you do find one, they're usually antique which is AMAZING, but also synonymous with expensive. The one I really liked cost $1500 but it came with a cute silver sandwich box and flask... Ok, let me explain, Matt and I recently got into fox hunting... er... chasing. Here in Maryland we don't hunt foxes any more, but we chase them. Its all about the game of chase, and we have lots of fun doing it on horseback! Now the big issue is I'm also a techie nut and like to have my electronic leash (aka smart phone) with me at all times. I can't do this now because I'm afraid it will fall off while we're riding and I'm not supposed to have a saddlebag, instead you have a sandwich box! Because that's what ladies do when we hunt, we eat sandwiches.
Anyways, in the mean time I've been making some lovely crockpot meals and one of the best ones has been:

Beef Tips in Mushroom Gravy

I know it kind of looks like Alpo, but that's what REALLY tender beef looks like after sitting in a crock pot for 8 hours, YUM!

First thing is first, here is the original link:

http://www.laaloosh.com/2008/06/21/beef-tips-in-mushroom-sauce-crock-pot-recipe/#.UCkTofc5xF5.pinterest

Now for great food you need to start with great ingredients. I started out with 4 lbs of Chuck roast. 2 lbs will be used for this recipe and 2 lbs for Beef Stroganoff later (Now that one REALLY looked like Alpo, but it tasted really good too!)

This cut of meat comes from the front shoulder portion of the cow and usually has pretty good marbling (fat veins through the meat) and cooks up nice and tender.

Mmmmm! Marbling! This is where all the good flavor and juiciness comes from.

You can actually grill this whole thing for a nice juicy piece of meat, you just need to sear it and then cook it on an upper rack over time so it doesn't burn, but still cooks how you like it. Instead of this, I decided to trim the larger pockets of fat and cut it into cubes for beef tips and beef stroganoff.

Approximately 1" chunks

Once you've cut up the meat, you're ready to go!

Ingredients:

2 pounds lean chuck – cut in 1 – 3/4 inch pieces
1 can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
1 pkg. onion soup mix
12 oz beef stock

8 oz Baby bella mushrooms (or any mushrooms you'd like!)

Directions:
Put meat in crock pot.

Add mushrooms and pour onion soup mix over meat.

Add soup, beef stock and stir.

Cook in crock pot all day on low (or high for at least 4 hours).

Serve over rice, egg noodles (what we did), or with potatoes. You can also serve it with green beans as a less starchy alternative.

This recipe was ridiculously easy. Less than 30 minutes of prep, followed by 15 minutes when you're ready to eat boiling the noodles and away you go! I would put this on the "Matt can do this by himself" scale of cooking which means REALLY easy!

This would be fantastic on a cold winter day or a crisp fall evening. It was so nice to come home to this being done and ready to go! I wish I would have had green beans with it because they would have complimented the meal really well, but just as it was it was DELICIOUS! On the other hand the original recipe called for diet sprite instead of beef stock and although that is nice because it contains 0 calories, I just thought it would be a foul addition and therefore went for beef stock instead. I think I made the right choice since Matt called this his favorite recipe of the week.
I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did, and as always:
Happy eating!

Tiramisu with Brandied Custard

Hello all!
Since the last recipe was a bit complicated, I figured I'd stick with that theme and give you one of my favorite alcoholic dessert recipes. This is not for children! There is about a cup of liquor in the whole pan, which won't get you tipsy unless you eat the whole pan and even then you might not get too much of a buzz because of all the other good stuff in there. BUT if you're hell bent on a dessert inspired bender may I recommend mixing 4 oz of coffee, 2 oz of Kahlua, 2 oz of Brandy and 4 oz of Baileys (shake over ice and pour into a highball) and then a large helping of this tira and you might feel pretty good. Or just savor this dessert and all of its alcoholic goodness on its own. You can make this non-alcoholic by only using espresso, sugar and cream to dip the lady fingers in and just make a plain 'ol custard with the mascarpone... But where is the fun in that?
The first time I made this dish was when I was going to meet Matt's extended family for the first time and I wanted to make a good impression. To me this said, alcoholic dessert... and I was right! Since I was not 21 yet I had to ask my mom to buy me brandy and because my mom doesn't drink much (a tumbler of Baileys/year is more her speed, though I think I've gotten her into pina coladas too!) this was a bit tricky and we ended up with "Cask and Cream" instead of of regular brandy. This turned out to be brilliant and an excellent addition, but Maryland is no fun and I couldn't find it here so this time I just went with straight brandy. Moral of the story... If you want to impress your future in-laws bring alcoholic desserts, and Maryland is like prohibition lite.

In terms of time this takes, I'd give yourself an hour to do it mostly because of making the custard, which you have to do over a double boiler. Now as another disclaimer, this is not a true custard because it is made with whole eggs. If you'd prefer a richer TRUE custard, use 9 egg yolks instead of 6 whole eggs. This will also make your custard a more yellow color which some people might not find as attractive, but is so darn delicious! I originally got this recipe from Epicurious and although its a very nice recipe I have made some modifications to increase its alcoholic content and also make it extra tasty!
BUT just in case, here is the original link: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Tiramisu-with-Brandy-Custard-103162

Tiramisu with Brandied Custard

Ingredients:

6 large eggs

1 1/3 c. sugar

5 Tbs brandy 

3- 8oz containers of mascarpone cheese
1 1/4 c. strong coffee/espresso
3/4 c. Kahlua
3/4 c. whipping cream
2 packages of lady finger cookies (~44 cookies)


1/4 c. unsweetened coco powder

Whisk eggs and 1/3 cup sugar in medium metal bowl set over saucepan of simmering water.

Aha! Hello make shift double boiler!

Whisk constantly until thermometer registers 160°F, about 10 minutes.

Note the probe sticking out of the bowl. It is my handy dandy wired meat thermometer. You can also use a candy thermometer for this, I just found it cumbersome and it got in the way.

Set custard over bowl of ice water and whisk until cool.

Whisk mascarpone in another large bowl to loosen. Run custard through a sieve to ensure no lumps get into the custard.  Whip the custard and brandy into the mascarpone until smooth.

In a large bowl or mixing cup, add 1 cup sugar to strong coffee and Kahlua; whisk until sugar dissolves. Mix in cream.

Ummm Didn't have Kahlua, but I did have "espresso liquor" which was Kahlua knock-off. It worked great!

Mmmmmmm Whipping cream!

 Submerge  cookies in coffee-cream mixture until soaked (but not too long or else they'll disintegrate).

Place cookies on bottom of 13x9x2-inch baking dish. Working in batches, repeat with enough remaining cookies to just cover bottom of dish.

 Spread half of mascarpone mixture over cookies.

Repeat soaking process with remaining cookies, placing them in single layer atop mascarpone mixture. Spread remaining mascarpone mixture over cookies.

Sprinkle unsweetened coco powder over the tiramisu

Refrigerate until set, at least 2 hours.

 Ok, if you want to impress your future in-laws and they're OK with alcohol this is totally the way to go! Its also great for work, casual dining with friends or just one of those nights when you're sad/angry/frustrated, but don't feel like downing a pint of Hagan daas... This really is an amazingly delicious dish that is really not too hard (the custard is the hardest part, but YOU CAN DO IT!) to make and its so worth it to try. The only other inhibitory factor is cost. If you have to buy all the ingredients from from start to finish it can be expensive (mostly because of the liquor, but mascarpone can be pricy too at $4-5/tub) but if you happen to have brandy, cognac, or even Baileys, any of those are pretty good in the custard and that's half the financial battle. I will also be blogging how to make "homemade Kahlua" (or as Matt calls it Kahula) so that could be a good part of this dish as well. Every where I've ever brought this dish it has been a hit!

Happy eating!