Pan-Fried Tilapia Fillets with Salad, Mushrooms, and Pasta

Our refrigerator is filled with condiments, dressings, and the like. The cupboards are stocked with stuff ranging from spices (star anise, cloves, galangal, etc.), to dried packages of rice noodles, to cans of coconut milk, and to a variety of dried tea leaves. Did I mention that our freezers are packed full of seafood and undistinguishable cuts of meat? It’s quite tough to scavenge for food in our kitchen.

We (Lucy, Jimmy, Richard, Andrew and I) were looking for an easy dinner on afternoon. So naturally, we came up with some lazy ideas: McD’s, pizza, pho, or Greek food. While some of us were busy in brainstorming for take-out places, Richard suggested that we take a stroll in our nearby grocery store and just cook up a dinner instead. And so we took a stroll…

We brought back some tilapia fillets, packaged pasta and pre-made sauces, and Portobello mushrooms.

The plan of attack was to pan-fry the basa fillets simply with some salt and pepper. We’d make a salad with the cherry tomatoes and baby spinach, the mushrooms would get sautéed and simmered with some bacon, and we’d make the pasta.

The fish was seasoned with sea salt and black pepper. Someone was a bit too heavy handed with the sea salt. Despite efforts of rinsing off the salt, the cooked tilapia fillets tasted like they were in the process of curing.

A package of bacon was cooked and some of it was used for the salad. All of the bacon fat was used to make the Portobello mushrooms. It was a huge hit and will definitely make more appearances in the future.

How about a little appetizer of cherry tomato, Portobello mushroom and a piece of bacon?

The pan used to make the mushrooms was deglazed with a bit of wine. Some cherry tomatoes and one of the sauces was heated up together in the pan too. The other sauce was added to the cooked tortellini.

Most of the pieces of fish were too salty to eat, but the salad and mushrooms picked up the slack. They were both the stars of the dinner.

(Almost) Crazy for Homemade Chili - October 20, 2009

I can't believe how remarkably easy it is to make chili from (almost) scratch. From start to finish, this took me about 45 minutes, although I was moving quite sluggishly. You see, I woke up SUPER early (i.e. 6:00 AM) to start cooking chili for Jimmy's lunch. Between the vacant stares at a pile of onions and absentmindedly stirring the pot, this chili could have easily been made in half an hour or less.



For Jimmy's lunch, I packed about a cup and a half of chili, half a cup of steamed corn, and two fluffy Greek pitas, sliced into wedges. I should have given him more vegetables (to sneakily force him into The Diet), since this dish is (almost) all meat, but it was early and I wasn't thinking straight.

~ * ~

Homemade Chili
Makes 5-6 cups of chili (almost a full, regular-sized pot)

3 ½ cups ground beef
1-2 tsp salt
Pinch of pepper
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 ½ cups diced onion
1 tbsp minced garlic (about 4 cloves)
1-2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 jar/can of tomato sauce
1 can red kidney beans, rinsed
Sriracha sauce (to taste)

First, brown the beef on high heat, and break it up into little bits as it cooks. Toss in the salt and pepper. Once all of the water has evaporated, drain the meat in a strainer and rinse it to get rid of the oil. Leave the beef in the strainer.

Return the pot to the stove, heat on high, and add the vegetable oil. Toss in the onion and garlic, and fry until fragrant. Add chili powder and cumin. When onions are translucent, turn down the heat.

Add the tomato sauce, and scrape the bottom of the pot for any browned bits from the beef and onions. Continue to stir until the sauce bubbles. Add the drained beef.

Taste for flavour and spiciness. You may have to add more chili powder, salt, or Sriracha. When you are satisfied with the flavour, add the rinsed kidney beans.

Simmer on low for as long as you can wait to eat it! Serve piping hot with bread on the side and a sprinkle of shredded cheese.

~ * ~

I didn’t actually garnish this bowl, except for the crackers. It ended up too salty to eat with the crackers, but that was because I was eating salted crackers (duh!). When I ate it with thick pita bread, it was more balanced, and all was good in the world.

Notes for Next Time!

This batch turned out okay, considering the fact that I made it while half asleep. I ran out of chili powder in the end, so I felt it was a little lacking. For the copious amounts of beef, I really should have added more spice. I ended up adding more cumin to help it along. I think if I had used twice the amount of onions, it would have tasted much better, too. Oh well. I could added some vegetables into the chili to bring it within The Diet, but the pot was already full of chili. There simply wasn't any space!



I ate this for lunch and dinner yesterday with my favourite spoon. I bought a set of Korean chopsticks and spoon from T&T this past summer completely on impulse. Just look at that cute turtle! I imagine they’re meant for children, but I couldn’t resist. Eager to show this off, I tried a bunch of weird angles, but there was too much glare from the window. This was the best picture. Oh, and the colour is a bit off, though I tried tweaking it in Photoshop Elements for about 20 minutes.

Now that I’m back in Kingston, I’ll start focusing more of the posts on cooking and my kitchen stuff. The summer posts can sit and wait until they magically inspire words to fill the screen.

Fin.

Lucy's Favourite Mugs

Though this post isn’t ABOUT food, it’s related. I love collecting mugs. I’ve been obsessed with large, oversized coffee mugs since I was a little girl, and now that I have money to spend, I’ve been collecting them for a few years.

Today, I added two more mugs to the collection, so I thought I would share.





This is cute, special edition mug from Starbucks. Jimmy bought this for me for our anniversary a few years ago.





A friend gave this milk mug to Jimmy as a souvenir from Belgium. Because milk is opaque, the cow is hidden until you begin to empty the cup. It was creepy at first, but it has since grown on me. I think it’s the cutest thing!





I bought this mug when I was back in first-year. I was Christmas shopping with my floormates, and I fell in love with the simple snowflakes. This was actually my first oversized mug!





This is one of two mugs I bought from Minotaur today. Since I love literature and I’m pretty mean-hearted, I impulsively bought this mug.



I bought this math mug for Jimmy because he loves math and will be teaching it in high school after teacher’s college (we hope!). It’s so nerdy, it’s cute!



And here are the boxes for the newest additions to my collection.

I should stop collecting these mugs because they take up sooooooo much space. My cupboards are almost full, but I can’t help myself when I see fun mugs. I almost bought a pumpkin mug from Starbucks today, but resisted, only to buy these two mugs from Minotaur. Conscience fail.