Green Banana Curry, Tuna Melt and Cottage Pie

Tuna Melt

This has become a sort of Sunday evening lite supper for us. Until we met, Sally had never even heard of a Tuna Melt! Now it's one of her favorite simple suppers.

1 can Solid White Albacore Tuna – not Chunk, you're buying mostly water!

1 small stick Celery, diced

2"x2” piece Red Bell Pepper, Diced

Spices, if you like – sometimes I do curry powder, other times Cajun blend – to taste

Mayonnaise or Ranch Dressing – Bleu Cheese Dressing is good too

Cheese – we like Sharp White Cheddar

4 nice slices Bread

Butter or good Margarine like Olivio tm

Drain and flake the tuna into a bowl, then add the celery and bell pepper, spice if any, and a couple tablespoons of mayo or dressing. Stir to combine.

Butter both sides of the bread slices. Slice enough cheese 1/8” or thicker, to cover two slices of bread. Lay the cheese out on two slices of bread, then top each with a largish scoop of tuna salad and gently spread it around. Top with the other slice of buttered bread.

Heat a griddle or skillet. Using a turner, transfer the sandwiches to the hot, dry, griddle or skillet. Cook the first side 2-4 minutes until nicely browned. Carefully flip the sandwiches over and cook the second side a further 2-4 minutes. Carefully transfer to plates and serve.

Green Banana and Shrimp Curry

Pretty simple, this one, although you will need access to green bananas. Behind Sally's is another banana 'tree' with a half-ripe stem of bananas, so I 'borrowed' 4 of them. Green bananas are starchy, not sweet, and make a nice change from tofu for vegetarians and vegan who would leave out the shrimp.

2 Tbsp EVOO

1/2ttsp Turmeric

1 tsp Powdered Chile

4 large Green Bananas

1 Onion, diced

4 cloves Garlic, chopped

2 Tomatoes, chopped

Juice of a Lemon

1 can Coconut Milk

12 nice large shrimp, sauteed and peeled

Cut the bananas into wedges, say 1/2” thick rounds, quartered. Saute the banana in the oil, then add the onion, spices, lemon juice and then tomato. When the onion is tender, add the coconut milk and stir to combine well. Lastly add the shrimp and let them warm through before serving with rice.

Cottage Pie

This is a great staple to feed a lot of people. In England it's only Shepherd's pie if you use lamb. This version of meat pie uses a mix of beef and pork. Cottage pie is invariably made crustless, and is topped with a layer of mashed potatoes.

1-1/4 lbs ground Chuck

3/4llb ground Pork

8 oz sliced Crimini mushrooms

1 cup Carrot rounds, par cooked

8 oz frozen Peas

1 cup diced Onion

Spices of your choice, to taste. I used a Czech goulash blend of paprikas and marjoram.        Equally good would be Old Bay, one of the Pride of Szyged spice blends, etc.

4-6 Potatoes for mashing. I used a combination of Russet potatoes and Turnips. 

 The turnips give a nice tang to the mash. You'll need enough mashed potatoes to cover your pie at least an inch thick.

Milk, butter, sour cream... whatever you use to make mashed potatoes

Bisto tm for gravy and thickening

Saute together the meats and onion until the meats are browned and the onion translucent. Add the carrots and peas and spices. Simmer for 15 minutes or so, stirring to combine everything well. Dust the surface with a couple tablespoons of Bisto powder and stir it in. This turns the released liquids into wonderful beef-flavored gray. Remove from the heat, and place in a casserole dish to cool while you boil the potatoes. Preheat your over to 400F.

Drain and mash and add all the goodies to make mashed potatoes. Spoon them into a thick layer on top of the meat and veg filling. Dust the surface with a little paprika for color and flavor.  Bake for 45 minutes or so until the mashed potato crust is starting to brown in spots. Remove from the oven and let the pie rest for few minutes before serving.

Hungarian Fish, Banana Bread, Florida French Toast and Veggie Pizza

Banana Bread

Simple, simple recipe. When you have an entire stalk of bananas ripen at once (as happened on Saturday) this is a great thing to do with some of the 30+ bananas on that stalk.

As bananas grow on the stalk they start out pointing upwards as you see in this photo.

As they ripen, the fruit sag downward until almost all are horizontal. That's when we cut the entire stalk, wrap it in a large trash bag to contain and concentrate the ethylene gas being given off (which causes the fruit to finish ripening and turn yellow). We hang the bag outdoors in semi shade for a week or ten days and everything ripens almost literally over night. – one day green, the next day yellow.

Now you've got between 20 and 50 ripe bananas. What do you do?

2-4 ripe Bananas, peeled and sliced

1/3 cup melted Butter

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

3/4 cup Sugar – white or brown (1/2 cup for less sweet, 1 cup for more sweet)

1 large Egg, beaten

1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

Pinch of Salt

1-1/2 cups of all-purpose Flour

Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter or non-stick-spray a 4x8-inch loaf pan or six large muffin cups.  My silicon cups are free standing, and are completely non-stick.

In a mixing bowl, mash ripe bananas with a fork. I'm not fond of over-ripe fruit; and I like to leave the banana a bit chunky. Some folks like it almost pureed. Stir the melted butter into the mash.

Mix in the baking soda and salt. Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla extract. Last, stir in the flour. When completely combined, pour the batter into prepared loaf pan.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on a rack.

Homemade Veggie Pizza

Pizza was invented in 18^th or early 19^th century in Naples (the one in Italy, not the one 50 miles south of Fort Myers). Many years ago, I shared an office with a Neapolitan named Luciano Furia, a computer geek and photography aficionado who came to the US as a Fulbright Scholar. “Luke” as he was known worked with us at the University of Utah Computer Center. Since then he returned to his hometown and has become an internationally recognized pizza photographer! Check him out on Facebook!!

Homemade pizza is a LOT cheaper, healthier and tastier than store-bought! Of course you can make your own dough from flour, water, eggs, yeast, etc. But that takes time I didn't want to use. So for this one I used pizza-crust-inna-tube from the chill-chest at my local megamart. They also have, in the Bakery, one pound bags of ready-to-roll-out dough. That's a bit much for just two of us. Although we like pizza, a pound of dough would make either a very large or very thick crust.

The crust-inna-tube gave us a decent size pie and cost about half that of a pound of Bakery dough. Plus the bakery dough had too much sugar in it for my taste. I pre-baked the crust according to instructions, and then began building our pie.

For the base I brushed on Alfredo sauce rather than the usual overly sugary marinara sauce.

For toppings, I started with the idea of a Pizza Margherita – tomato, fresh basil, and mozzarella. I used yellow tomatoes because Sally prefers them. To this I added red bell pepper rings, mushrooms and diced green onion. I topped it all with shredded mozarella and took it for a trip in the oven. A few minutes later, dinner was served!

My photo isn't in the same league as Luciano's by any stretch of the imagination.  But the end product was pretty darn tasty!

Hungarian Fish Dinner

Continuing my theme of Eastern European dishes, inspired by Sally and Holly's trip to Croatia and the Czech Republic, here's a Hungarian style fish dinner. I used Flounder, because we got a good deal on a bunch of filets.  In Hungary they use a lot of freshwater fish, notably carp, because it's available and very tasty.  Not the same carp we have in the US at all!

I also used my favorite fish rub spice; the Fish Rub from Pride of Szeged tm which you can find online. For the side vegetable to counterpoint the fish I served some of that great Sweet & Sour Red Cabbage that I gave you the recipe for last week.

I pan poached the fish on lemon slices over a courtbouillion (poaching liquid) of water, white wine and lemon juice.

Sally even likes that cabbage as a topping on her lunch salads, along with a ranch or other creamy dressing.

My Florida French Toast

I just had to show this one off. I use Challah bread cut 1” thick, and leave it out overnight to dry and get “stale”. It soaks up more egg-cream the next morning, a trick I learned from Alton Brown!

I dust the cooking toast with Mace rather than the more common cinnamon. Then I serve it with real Cane Syrup handmade by a good 'ol boy near Clearwater. This time I added a sliced fresh strawberry and a small sliced banana from the giant bunch (see above).

Czech Please! and more...

Bringing home the flavors that Sally and Holly experienced during their Eastern European excursion last month.

Czech Beef Goulash – Cesky Guláš
As a kid growing up we heard about Hungarian Goulash.  Lots of Hungarian folks in Toledo, OH.  But other folks make goulash too.  This recipe comes from the Czech Republic.

This is the simplest of goulashes – beef and onion and spices. No peppers, no tomato. I did it in the crockpot to get the beef falling-apart tender. Simply wonderful – slightly sweet, rich and flavorful

2 lbs Beef, cubed

4 large White Onions, sliced – I used Valdosta sweet onions

3 Tbsp Czech Goulash Spice Mix

Wondra tm to thicken

Put everything in your crockpot and cook for 6-9 hours on Low. In the last hour or so, add a tablespoon or two of Wondra sprinkled on top and stir, to thicken.

Don't have a premade spice blend handy like the one the ladies brought me? Try this combination:

2 Tbsp sweet Paprika (more if desired)

1 Tbsp hot Paprika
2 tsp of ground Caraway seed
1/2 tsp Marjoram

2 cloves Garlic, minced

The resultant flavor is definitely sweet-ish not hot spicy. Simple Czech guláš does not have any added tomato or bell peppers or anything else. It is simply beef, onion and spices. This would be equally fabulous served over mashed potatoes, or even on English muffins. Next time I may try it with pork as well. Chicken would be good this way too, I suspect.

Sweet-and-Sour Red Cabbage – Červene zelī

Some version of this cabbage dish is served all across northern Europe from Western France to Moscow. This recipe is Czech in origin.  Just like the name says, it's sweet and sour -- and a really good thing to do to a head of red cabbage. Goes well with pork or beef.

1-½ pound Thinly Sliced Red Cabbage.  If you have a mandolin slicer, use it!

1 whole Onion, Chopped

1 Tablespoon Shortening

1-½ cup Water

½ cups White or Apple Cider Vinegar

½ cups Sugar

1 teaspoon Salt

¼ teaspoon Pepper

1 teaspoon Caraway Seeds

Wondra tm as needed

Saute onion until golden. Add water, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper, and bring the liquid to a boil.

Place cabbage in the liquid. Slightly crack and grind caraway seeds before sprinkling them over the cabbage. This helps release the maximum flavor.

Simmer for approximately 30 minutes until the cabbage is wilted and soft. Stir occasionally.

Sprinkle with Wondra to thicken the remaining liquid slightly and boil for a few more seconds until desired “doneness” is achieved. Should be wilted and soft, but not mushy.

Bean & Veggie Stoup

It's finally cooled off enough here in SW Florida to making and eating soup worth considering. Sally wanted something 'beany and veggie', and that's what she got. 

 Stoup? Oh yeah... that depends on how much liquid (water or broth) you add. You could end up with a thin soup – or a thicker stew – stoup. You can use any dried white-ish beans you please. Blackeyed Peas would go well here too. I used up a handful here and there from the cupboard.

1/2 cup dry Anasazi beans

1/2 cup dry Great Northern beans

1/2 cup dry Garbanzos

3 sticks Celery

1/2 Red Onion, diced

1 cup Sweet White Onion, diced

3/4 cup Carrot coins

1 can Ro*tel tm Tomatoes, original, no-salt-added

2 small Turnips, peeled and cubed

To taste:

Marjoram

Sage

Thyme

Black Pepper

Smoked Paprika

Old Bay Seasoning

Cook the beans together in a significant amount of water until they are just al dente. Remove to a stock pot, with their cooking liquid.

Add the other ingredients, stirring occasionally to distribute the items. Add additional liquid as you see fit (stoup). To help things along, I also par-cooked the carrots and turnips, which would normally take a long time. Bring your stoup to boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the veg are as 'dead' as you want them. Serve with nice crusty bread to mop up the juices.

Avocado-Chocolate Dessert #2

The Avocado-Chocolate Pudding is back!! This time with lots of caloric (but tasty) additions. If you use one of those LARGE smooth-skinned avocados, this recipe makes about 8 ramekins of dessert.

2-3 ripe Haas or or 1 large smooth-skin Avocado

1 large Banana

1/2 cup unsweetened Coco Powder - the darkest, 'most chocolaty' you can find.

1/2 cup Peanut Butter, creamy or crunchy

1/2 cup sweetener – honey, cane syrup, mild maple syrup, agave

1/4 cup Almond milk, regular milk or half & half

Put everything in a food processor and take for a whirl until smooth and creamy. Too thick. Add a bit more milk. Add more cocoa if the banana or peanut butter flavor is too strong. Add more sweetener. The pudding is best fresh, but it can be stored a couple days in the fridge – place clingfilm on the surface to prevent a skin from forming.

We like ours topped with whipped cream and accompanied by an Italian Wafer Roll cookie.

Czech Grilled Cheese and Guava Bites

Just a couple simple but tasty dishes this week...

Guava Bites

Guava is a wonderful tropical fruit usually eaten fresh. But is also used, as a preserved paste in many Latino pastries. Sweet, but not too sweet, it can be thought of as the tropical equivalent of apricot jam as a filling. The paste is like a brick of fruit leather, easily sliced by a hot, wet, knife.

I made Guava Bites as dessert for a dinner-for-two cooking I did the other night as a charity for the Matlacha Hookers, woman's deepsea fishing club. I donate a dinner-for-two to their annual charity fishing tournament to raise money for the Pine Island elementary school.

This year the winners got Shrimp Stuffed Mushrooms as their appetizer, Brazilian Moqueca as their main dish, and the Guava Bites for the dessert course.

This is a super simple concept that you can keep around in the fridge for a quick dessert or decadent snack. All you need are “biscuits-in-a-tube”, soft cream cheese, and a package or can of guava paste which you can find in the ethnic section of your megamart.

For my bites I chose Crescent Roll dough because it's lighter than ordinary biscuit dough. The neat thing these days is you can find smaller (and cheaper) tubes of dough which only make 4 or 5 biscuits/rolls instead of 8 or 10. Keep a can in your fridge until its Use By date expires. Guava paste, even when opened, has the half life of Plutonium 239!  I've kept an opened block in a zip-top bag in the fridge for well over a year!

Make your Guava Bites just a bit more decadent by laying down a schmear of soft cream cheese before slicing the guava about 1/8” thick and placing on the dough.  

You don't have to stick with the roll-up form, either.  Make freeform shapes, or larger pastries using two entire crescent roll triangles.

Smažený sýr

That's Czech for “grilled cheese” Well, actually fried cheese, but that's OK. This dish is rated one of the five “must try” food from Prague's central square. Sally brought me back a bag of sýr spice blend, so I of course have to at least try the dish out. No calories here folks!

In Prague they either use one of the wonderful local cheeses, or something more generic, like Edam, Swiss, or Jarlsberg – semi-hard cheeses that will stand up to a minute or so of hot oil bath without completely melting down.

The principle is really simple, and I'm surprised we don't hear more about deep-fried cheese as a staple at county and state fairs.

1 “slice” of Edam or similar cheese, about 1/2” thick

Spice for dredging – here in the States a Cajun spice blend might go well

Flour for dredging

1 Egg for dredging

Breadcrumbs for dredging – I used panko because it's what I had on hand, but regular crumbs might work better in this case

Heat 1/2” of vegetable oil in a suitable pot or skillet, to 375F.

Dredge the slice of cheese in the spice blend, then the flour. Follow that with dredging in egg and then breadcrumbs.

Carefully lower the breaded cheese into the hot oil and cook for 20-30 seconds per side. Drain on paper towels and serve.

I let my oil get a bit too hot, but the result was still downright tasty. As an appetizer you could cut the “slice” into 1” squares and remove them from the oil oil with toothpicks for serving. They would need to be kept warm and served immediately, as the delicacy cools pretty quickly.

Arepas, Spaghetti Squash and Basil Chicken with Feta

Arepas

A week or so back, we had a really nice young couple from north of Miami stay at the cabana.    Alessandro and Ana were born in Venezuela, but their parents immigrated here quite some time ago., and they own a boutique hotel up in Hollywood, FL.   Ana likes to cook, and we talked about a signature Venezuelan food – the Arepa. Think of an arepa as a sort of crusty English Muffin made with cornmeal.

Unlike many of the Latin breads, the arepa uses a uniquely different masa flour – one that is pre-cooked. The brand you want to look for is P.A.N., and you want the orange bag version of the flour.

Masa Arepa -- P.A.N. tm  brand

Water

Filling – cheese, scrambled eggs, pulled pork/beef/chicken, you name it.

Mix nearly equal amounts of meal and water – 2 cups of masa arepa to 2-1/2 cups of water (and maybe a bit more – into a soft dough. Let it set for a few minutes. Form the dough into 'cakes' about 3/8” thick and 3-4” in diameter.

Heat some oil on a skillet or on a griddle until it shimmers. Fry the arepas 5 minutes per side until GB&D. Set them on paper towels to drain. When somewhat cool, slice in half with a bread knife, and fill. 

 My first -half- batch came out OK, but just barely. They were tasty enough with a slice of cheese, but the arepas were too thin and too crispy. But filled with a slice of cheese they made a nice appetizer/ snack. I realized I hadn't used enough oil.  Consequently the cakes took very long to brown, and weren't very soft inside.

The second time, I put more than 1/4” of oil in the skillet, and made a full batch of dough with 2 cups of flour and 2-1/2 cups of water, plus a bit.  This gave me eight really nice sized arepas.  You want the dough soft, not stiff, but not sloppy wet either. This time I “pan-deep-fried” things, with the oil coming at least half way up the sides of the cakes. I made sure the oil was really hot (450F in my electric skillet) before adding the cakes.  They came out GB&D cooked 5 minutes per side. Inside they were soft, almost like a steamed bread.

I served mine as a major component of Fiesta Latino dinner Saturday night – fresh hot Venezuelan Arepas filled with Mojo Pulled Pork, and a side of Frijoles Cubano from Bush's Beans Cocina Latinatm series.  That's the photo at the top of the page.

Spaghetti Squash

I learned to make this as “boats” filled with meat sauce.  But Sally likes her squash shredded out of the skin and plated like conventional pasta, so I've taken to doing it "her way". This is more of a technique than a fixed recipe:

1 large Spaghetti Squash

1 batch of “spaghetti sauce” – I generally use a Newman's Owntm jar of sauce doctored with ground beef/chicken/turkey, mushrooms and bell peppers.

Microwave the squash 8-12 minutes until the skin starts to soften. Meanwhile, make your sauce.

When the squash is done, cut it in half lengthwise and remove the seeds.   With a pair of forks, shred the flesh from the inside of the squash onto two plates. There may be leftover squash and sauce for lunch the next day. If there is no leftover squash, ladle leftover sauce onto toasted English Muffins or Arepas!

Ladle the finished sauce on top of the squash shreds, and serve. Can be served with a side of crusty garlic bread if you like.

Chicken with Basil & Feta

This is a take-off on the Baked Shrimp with Feta recipe I reported a couple weeks ago. We had a small Brunch party Sunday, with a couple of old friends we hadn't connected with in awhile, plus Sally's Mum. It was Sally who suggested I try a chicken version of the Baked Shrimp recipe and kick up the basil content. So here's what I did.

6 Chicken Breasts, boneless, skinless

1 large bottle Spicy Italian salad dressing

1 jar of Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce

1 really large Sweet White Onion, cut into short strips

1 packet fresh Basil from the Produce department

1 15 oz bag Frozen Peas

4 cloves garlic, sliced

1 box Fettucini

8 oz Feta cheese.

Thaw the chicken thoroughly, then marinate it overnight in the Italian dressing, using a large zip-top bag and squeezing out as much air as you can.

The next day, fry the chicken in a splash of oil, 5 minutes per side, which will almost completely cook the breasts. Place the meat “beauty side up” in a 9x13 baking dish.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

In the same skillet, saute the sliced onions until soft. Add the garlic and cook a couple minutes more. Pour the pasta sauce over the onions, add half a jar of water, the bag of frozen peas and half of the basil cut julienne. Simmer everything for 10-15 minutes to marry the flavors.

Pour the sauce over the chicken. Sprinkle the rest of the basil (also cut julienne) over the top,  then crumble or small-dice the cheese and scatter it on top of the everything. 

 Bake for 30-45 minutes until the cheese starts to melt a bit, and everything is heated through and bubbly. Serve over the fettucini.

For dessert I made strawberry shortcake. The shortcakes are a basic Bisquicktm sweet biscuit. For 6 shortcakes:

2-1/3 cups Bisquick

2/3 cup milk

3-4 Tbsp sugar

3 Tbsp melted Butter or Margarine

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Combine the ingredients with a fork to form a soft dough. Divide into 6 portions (I used a 1/3 cup measure, and space them out on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes until GB&D. 

Split, top with sweetened berries and shipped cream, and serve.