The long-awaited reappearance of trout

Tonight's Menu

• sauteed trout fillets
  
• ricotta-stuffed mushrooms
  
• green salad "bar"
  

It's been forever since I made fish for dinner and I'm not really sure why. We were eating a lot of tilapia for a while there, and I guess I kind of got sick of it. Anyway, my supermarket had some really nice rainbow trout fillets today, so I bought a couple and just seasoned them with a bit of salt and pepper before sauteing them in EVOO on the stovetop. I always start them skin-side down but I have no idea if that even matters. They were delicious and the boy had seconds and made a point of telling me how good they were. Remind me to start cooking fish more often!

I had a bunch of cheese filling leftover from when I made ravioli the other day and was looking for a way to use it up. I figured I could either make more ravioli (um, no), make lasagne (maybe, but that would involve the making of a meat sauce, which takes a while) or stuff mushrooms with it (bingo!). I modified the cheese filling slightly by mincing the mushroom stems and a couple of cloves of garlic and cooking those together in a skillet with some EVOO until soft. Then I cooled them and mixed them with the leftover ravioli filling, stuffing the mushrooms from whence came the stems and baking them in a foil-lined pan for about 30 minutes at 375 degrees F. I thought they were absolutely delicious, but DH is not a huge fan of ricotta and prefers the cream cheese-based mushroom stuffing. WHATEVER. More mushrooms for me!

The salad bar tonight was chopped romaine, sliced cucumbers and the last of the carrots from my garden (sliced). Time to make way for the spring veggies!

Pasta & 'shrooms

Tonight's Menu

• spaghetti w/mushroom-herb sauce
  
• green salad "bar"
  

I am in such a rut with pasta that I usually don't even bother to tell you when I make it. I tend to do one of three things with it: spaghetti with my quickie tomato sauce, some sort of pasta shapes (penne, usually) with Knorr Parma Rosa sauce (a packet of powder to which you add milk and butter), or any sort of pasta with just butter and shredded cheese mixed in.

I know, right? BORING.

So tonight I decided to experiment. I know what you're thinking -- that NEVER ends well, at least for me -- but this time it came out pretty darn tasty! As usual I didn't measure anything, but here's essentially what I did.

First I sliced some crimini mushrooms (these are sometimes called baby bellas) and minced some fresh garlic. I melted some butter over medium heat in a skillet, tossing in the mushrooms and garlic and letting them sweat out fairly slowly without picking up any color. Then I added some fresh thyme, some minced fresh rosemary, salt and pepper and just tossed it around a bit (this smelled AMAZING) before adding in some heavy cream (left over from the pork and gnocchi the other night). I let that simmer over low heat until the cream had thickened just a bit. Then I drained the spaghetti (which had been cooking all this time) and dumped it right into the skillet with the mushroom sauce. Toss, throw on some chopped fresh parsley, and serve! This was really pretty darn tasty and a nice change from our usual boring pasta dinners!

The salad was still boring, though -- just green leaf lettuce and sliced carrots from the garden. We ate up the last of the CSA greenhouse tomatoes last night when I made hamburgers so this salad was even more bare than usual!

Steak and potatoes

Tonight's Menu

• NY strip steaks on the grill pan
• roasted assorted mushrooms
  
• tiny red potatoes, parboiled then chuffed up in a hot pan with butter
  
• the last of the leftover big-ass salad
  

Tonight's dinner was freakin' AWESOME. If I do say so myself.

Okay, first the steaks: I minced a garlic clove and bashed it up (actually the boy child did; he's been helping me make dinner for the past week) with some EVOO in the mortar & pestle, then set it aside to steep while the steaks came to room temperature. I rubbed the steaks with the garlicky oil goodness, sprinkled with kosher salt & freshly ground pepper, and seared them off in a screaming hot grill pan for maybe 3-4 minutes per side (these were approximately 1.5-inch steaks, not the super-thin ones I usually get). I put them on a warmed plate and covered them with foil for maybe 5 minutes to make sure they weren't too bloody for DH. They were a perfect medium rare with a nice crust -- DELICIOUS!

For the mushrooms, they had this nice assortment of various fresh 'shrooms (shiitakes, oysters, chanterelles, etc.) for stir fry at the store. I just cleaned them up a bit, tossed them in a baking pan with some EVOO, salt & pepper and roasted them at 450 degrees F for maybe 20 to 25 minutes, stirring every now and then. They had a nice earthy flavor that really complimented the meat.

I made the potatoes the same way as always, and we ate up the last of the salad. I washed it all down with a couple of glasses of pinot.

SO yummy, y'all.