Grilled Sea Bass "Ceviche"

Olivia and Steve came over last night. We had already eaten too much food and Steve's Potato Salad is so incredibly good, it's hard not to eat A LOT. But we still decided to grill the big beautiful piece of Sea Bass anyway.

So we had a lot left over this evening.

This is what I did with it.

1. Mince up 1/4 of one of Steve's amazing red onions.
2. "Chop" already grilled Sea Bass into the right size pieces for eating with a chip
3. Thinly slice up some of Steve's fresh basil
4. Zest and squeeze a lime into the mixture
5. Add just enough organic mayo to bind.
6. Salt and Pepper.

We ate it with "Have a Chip" Chips.
Perfect meal after a HOT day.


Note: I tried being a Vegetarian again for a while. I have gone back to eating meat.

Chard Pasta

Again, dinner depends on what is in the fridge and what got brought to the studio.

1. In a non-stick pan, heat a little olive oil and pan toast some pine nuts. Remove and reuse same pan.

2. Thinly slice up some shallots or onions or such
3. Mince up that last carrot or two from Steve's Farm
4. Thinly slice the stalks of home grown Rainbow Chard brought to you by Dennis in yesterday's yoga class.
5. Continue to thinly slice the chard leaves, separating them from the chard stalks.

6. Heat too much olive oil and some butter if you like in that non-stick pan.
7. Add 2 cloves of smooshed garlic and some red pepper flakes. Stir and quickly add the onions, carrots and chard stalks. Stir and eventually add the pasta. Stir and allow pasta to get chewy.

8. Eventually add the chard. Stir in and allow to wilt. Squeeze in some lemon juice. Add some lemon rind, some Parmesan, salt and pepper, stirring.

Fried Pasta with Fat and Salt

Olivia, my dear friend is teasing me about not cooking anymore. Steve, her husband even said the other day, "You used to be such a good cook."

But what about Eric? Does he feel tricked? What if he announced that he did want to take care of the cars anymore? We so easily find ourselves in roles and assume we will do them forever.

Fried Rice has been replaced with Fried Pasta.

Tonight I came home at around 11 famished. My Ayurvedic pal, Jackie would be appalled.

1. Find leftover plain already cooked strangled priest pasta in the fridge
2. Heat too much olive oil in a pan
3. Mash up some garlic.
4. When oil is hot, put in garlic, stir and add pasta. Stir well to coat and mix garlic with pasta.
5. I needed more fat, so I added some butter too.
6. Then I added some chopped up dill, salt and pepper and lots of Parmesan, all as it was still in the pan.
7. I poured it into a bowl and came over to the computer to write about it.

It's already gone.

the magic of yogurt and mixed pickle

Uschi gave me a jar of mixed Indian pickle.
Kelly left an enormous amount of homemade yogurt at my house.

So lately I make up some rice with various vegetables and spices. A big scoop of yogurt, a small scoop of pickle and I am in delight.

Here is how I make my rice:

1. In my favorite Cutco Pan, some ghee and heat
2. Add some mustard seeds, maybe some cumin seed, maybe some coriander seed or maybe some favorite curry powder...you have a lot of freedom here. Lately I always add some turmeric cuz i like the color of the yellow rice.
3. Add your vegetables like fennel, carrot, onion, whatever, OR wait till you add the rice.
4. Add the rice and stir. Saute for a little bit.
5. Pour on less water than you think.
6. Bring to a boil. Place sliced chard or kale or spinach or other such greens on top of the water, cover and turn heat to super low. 10 minutes.

Fried Pasta with Fennel and Spinich

I had some cooked plain pasta in the fridge. (Strangled Priest Noodles)
And I had some other stuff, so this is what I did:

1. Poured too much olive oil in non-stick pan and started to heat it.

2. When hot, added a smooshed clove of garlic and stirred quickly to avoid it burning, then i added the cooked pasta. I was going for a nice browned edge in places, almost a fried quality.

3. Then i felt like I should do a little more than just that, so i looked in the fridge again and found a head of fennel and some spinach from FnC. I sliced up the fennel and tore up the spinach and added then to the frying pasta mixture. Stirring and coating with olive oil.

4. Eventually i added some salt and pepper. (Lemon or a little balsamic might have been nice, but all i could think about was lots of Parmesan cheese).

5. When I removed the pasta I added lots of Parmesan. IT was good.

Note: It is my understanding that Parmesan Cheese is not really vegetarian.
A lot of Parmesan cheese, especially imported Parmesan is made with rennet which is derived from the stomach of slaughtered cows. Definitely not vegetarian. I am not sure about the cheese I just used. I will now know to look.

Coming Back to the Vegetarian Campfire

I pay very close attention to my dreams. Several months ago I had a dream that made it clear to me that drinking was not my path and so I stopped.

Last week I embarked on a process called "Active Imagination." I recommend Robert Johnson's InnerWork for a reference. In my first encounter with a character from one of my dreams, I was told to stop eating meat. And while the character and I spoke about my resistance to being told what to do, I knew that I did not stand a chance.

So today is day 1. The person that will suffer the most will be Eric. He will have to get meat on his own. And ChannelChow will become a vegetarian cooking blog. omg.

Real Cooking

Great blog by Mark Bitman on "Tv Cooking vs. Real Cooking"