Pantry "paella"

Although this is far from an authentic paella, it was inspired by a variety of paella recipes (including one in the lovely cookbook that M gave me for my birthday!). All of those recipes looked delicious but I wanted to limit the ingredients to whatever I had on hand. My pantry was fairly well stocked, but it was stocked with such an odd mixture of ingredients (escargots? when did I buy those??). As a result this ended up being quite an eclectic dish, and one that was heavy on the seafood but light on the vegetables. Hmm, why is this suddenly reminding me of Spain?

Prawns with hot tomatillo salsa

It's a bit too warm to cook today, but I wanted to make a quick sauce to accompany some pre-cooked prawns. After perusing a few recipes, and taking into account the limited amount of salsa-esque ingredients in my refrigerator, I came up with this.

Nicoise salad with roasted vegetables

This weekend was pretty much a bust as far as cooking goes (or anything else, actually). But I did manage to briefly escape my prison cell to pick up a few much needed groceries. Although I thought about cooking something to restock my empty freezer, I decided to stick with salads. Partly out of laziness, but I'm also hopeful that summer will return.

You know, once the snow melts :-).

I make a Nicoise-inspired salad quite often in the summer, but I wanted to shake up my usual recipe. My Rebar cookbook had a version that included roasted beets, so I decided to throw a beet in the oven along with some other veggies. And I added the traditional capers and anchovies to my standard dressing in lieu of serving them on top. I have leftover dressing and some different veggies in the fridge so I'll try a few more variations during the week.

Seared pepper-crusted scallops and sautéed fiddleheads with warm lentil salad

I picked up a ton of fresh produce today at the farmer's market. At this time of year there aren't any locally grown items but it still seems more fun than buying it all at Safeway. Plus it made me think of summer, which is a nice thought to hang on to when the forecast for the holiday Monday is 4. And possibly snow.

This dish was inspired by the fiddleheads that I bought at the market (which, come to think of it, could possibly be local). I didn't have any recipe in mind when I bought them so the rest sort of came together based on other ingredients that I had available. OMG. The flavours, the textures, even the colours... all so good. It was absolutely delicious.

No, I'm serious.

Seafood tacos

I had planned to make some fish tacos but decided against frying fish for this -- after all the fried food I ate in Spain I definitely don't need any more right now. The verdict: pretty tasty.

Squid ink tagliatelle with prawns, scallops and chorizo

Although I've made a few prawn/scallop/chorizo dishes lately, this Mario Batali recipe looked like an interesting variation. And if my taste buds fail me altogether at least I'll be able to "sense" the searing jalapeno pesto.

As for why I'm cooking an Italian dish after returning from Spain... well, although I was energetic enough to make a few dishes today (including the meatloaf that I'd made previously -- must.restock.freezer) I didn't quite have enough gumption to scour the net for some interesting Spanish dishes.

Warm chorizo, scallop, bean and tomato salad

With the start of my vacation less than three weeks away I have Spain on the brain. So it isn't surprising that most of my recipe browsing this weekend was focused on Spanish dishes. I found some incredible recipes, and although the pulpo a la gallega did sound tempting I'll wait until I'm in Galicia to try the octopus. Tonight's meal was much less adventurous but it was chock full of pork fat. I like to think of it as acclimatizing.

Paellaya

Although I intended to cook up a storm this weekend, yesterday was a total write off. I came home from the gym after a late afternoon workout and was absolutely ravenous -- that poor meatloaf didn't stand a chance. But today I was determined to cook something interesting (yet easy). Emeril to the rescue.

Spicy seafood soup

I wanted to make something a bit lighter tonight, and while talking with M I decided on a seafood soup. Having such a well-stocked freezer sure makes it easy to pull something like this together! (B, I have learned so much from you...) I didn't have any decent stock, so I just threw together a quick one using the shells (lobster, mussel, and prawn) along with some fennel, leek, parsley stems, and pepper.

Lobster del Diablo

Thanks to B's tip on the lobster tails, I headed to Safeway this morning to snag a few packages. I used some of them in this dish, but I've stashed the rest in the freezer for another time.

This dish was tasty and spicy. I'd make this again, but probably try the sauce with some other seafood or meat (since I rarely have lobster tucked away in my freezer -- except for right now of course :-).

My new favourite curry

While I was out shopping for some coconut milk last week I made the mistake of looking at its calorie content. Sweet madre de dios! I really should've known better, but it was too late -- the damage was done. (Guess I won't be buying that again anytime soon :-) Anyways, since they were out of "light" coconut milk I decided to try a different product in this dish -- instant coconut cream powder, or "faux-conut". This is mighty good stuff, sibs...

Chorizo, scallop, and radicchio pasta

I tried this amazing recipe from bitchincamero tonight, and it was fantastic. I wasn't sure whether it would have enough flavour, but the chorizo totally made it. I followed the recipe pretty much (just varied the quantities a bit), and highly recommend it. I'll make it again, I'm sure.

Mussels with fennel, tomatoes, and Pernod

Last week I was craving some mussels, so I headed over to Superstore to pick up a box of those NZ green lipped babies. Good ol' Superstore, never lets me down -- I can always find a box of those for around $6. Yeah, apparently not so much these days -- there was nary a mussel in the seafood section! Oh well, no problem -- since I was near T&T (which has quite a broad seafood selection), I just picked up a few boxes there instead.

So tonight was mussels night -- partly to satisfy the craving, and partly to make some room in my cramped freezer :-)

Taking advantage of fresh pesto in January

On Monday night I was planning on making a seafood pesto risotto, but came to my senses on the drive home. Risotto? On a work night?? I ended up making this pasta dish instead.

Arctic char with lentil salsa

Like most other Calgarians, I've given in to spring fever this weekend. This incredible chinook is a much needed break from the frigid temperatures that we've had since forEVER. So rather than cook yet another heavy, stew-like dish I wanted to prepare something a little lighter. (Although I'm sure that I'll be back with the heavy and the stewy before too long.)

I took a char out of the freezer and let it start thawing while I scanned some recipes. This was what I selected (although I modified it a bit). The verdict? Well, although I adored the lentil salsa, it just did not go with the char. Like, at all. (No, I'm serious.) It might have been better with a milder, white-fleshed fish like sole, but it did absolutely nothing for the char. (I think it could be brilliant with grilled chicken, though.) Anyways, here's the recipe that I used.

Stir-fried prawns in tomato-coconut sauce

While talking with M today, I was inspired to try something interesting for supper. I had a few constraints, though. I didn't want to make something that would involve a week of leftovers, and since I was too lazy to head out for groceries the list of ingredients would be limited to what I already had on hand. I had giant prawns and some leftover coconut milk, so I immediately thought of Madhur Jaffrey's Stir-Fried Prawns in an Aromatic Tomato-Cream Sauce. I modified her excellent recipe a bit, both to make up for a few missing ingredients and to make use of a few others. Here's what I ended up with.