Raw Ahi Tuna in Coconut Milk

This is a delicious, boyfriend/girlfriend-pleasing mixture of raw Ahi Tuna, coconut milk, and spices. I had just enjoyed yet another Ahi Poke from Aloha Island Grill and was looking up recipes for Fijian Kokoda when I knew I had to make this.

YOU WILL NEED:
1/2 pound raw Ahi Tuna, preferably sushi grade
1 "mini" can coconut milk or half of a normal-size can.
2 green onions, chopped
1 carrot, grated
1/8 cup crushed Macadamia nuts
1 Tbsp. curry powder
Sea Salt
Sriracha Sauce
1 cup Jasmine Rice

On a clean, smooth surface and with the sharpest knife you can possibly find, cut the tuna into small cubes. Mix with the coconut milk, curry powder, green onions and salt. Cover and refrigerate the mixture for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the rice. When it's done, serve the tuna on top of the rice topped with carrot, macadamia, and Sriracha.

I found this tip for cooking with Ahi Tuna on someone's blog. I wish I remembered the name so I could credit this person. "Serve with the receipt from the Tuna."

Plantain Soup

I tore this recipe out of a copy of Latina magazine at the doctor's office about 2 years ago and have just now tried making it. I was so overcome with grief over my entire life spent without this soup that I could barely eat it! Hopefully you're better about keeping the floodgates closed because really, it's delicious!
The article outlined three ways to make it: Traditional, healthy, and fast. I combined healthy and fast (traditional calls for frying the plantains instead of baking them, and fast just means buying pre-packaged soup base veggies and using a food processor instead of a mortar and pestle.

2 large ripe Plantains
1 tsp. vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 medium rib celery, finely chopped
(again, you can speed up the process if you buy pre-chopped "soup base" veggies. It includes all three of these)
Nonstick cooking spray
6 cups chicken or veggie broth
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 lime cut into wedges

Peel and thinly slice plantains. Place slices in a large bowl of cold, salted water for 30 minutes, then drain and pat dry.
warm vegetable oil and saute the veggies until the onion wilts, about 3 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350, spray a baking sheet and bake plantains about 20 minutes, turning them once halfway through. Mash them into a thick paste with a food processor or mortar and pestle.
In a large pot, heat broth over medium heat. Add the sauteed veggies, then stir in plantain paste gradually. Add salt and pepper and simmer until smooth and creamy.
Serve with a lime wedge and some salsa or hot sauce. The recipe doesn't say this, but I like to warm some flour tortillas for dipping.

Popovers!

If you don't think you've ever had popovers, you're probably wrong.

Now that we've gotten that initial harshness of reality out of the way, I'll let you know you've probably had popovers except they were called Yorkshire Pudding. It's seriously exactly the same thing except popovers are more commonly associated with breakfast, at least for me. MAKE SURE ALL THE INGREDIENTS ARE ROOM TEMPERATURE BEFORE BLENDING!

Preheat oven to 400. You will need:

6 eggs
2 cups milk
3/4 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. butter
2 cups flour

beat eggs and milk until blended.
combine flour and salt, cut in butter.
add flour to egg mixture and gradually blend.
fill well-greased custard cups or popover pan (looks like a really deep muffin tin) a little more than halfway full.
Bake for 1 hour. serve with strawberry jam or whatever you want because once again they're your creation! MUHAHAHHA!

TIP: Place cups or popover pan on top of a baking sheet before putting it in the oven to protect against the inevitable spillage.

how to make infused olive oils

I read something about spruce tip-infused olive oil and thought I would try it since there are a lot of evergreens in santa cruz. I found a "christmas" tree on my bike ride home one day and harvested a couple handfulls of the bright green new baby tips. The oil turned out amazing! you can make this with just about anything fragrant that you want your oil to smell/taste like. I've been going through a homemade pizza phase lately and I must say this spruce-flavored olive oil tastes just right sprinkled on top of a pizza! I'm also excited to try it on salmon some day.

You will need:
1 bottle extra virgin olive oil
enough spruce/evergreen tips (or whatever herb you want your oil to taste like) to fill the bottle about 1/3 full. if the spruce tips have any papery brown skin stuck to them, remove it.

pour all the olive oil into a pot and heat slowly.
meanwhile, rinse pine tips/herbs and dry thoroughly. stuff it down the neck of the bottle.
Once the oil reaches about 130-140 degrees, pour it into a glass/pyrex measuring cup with a pouring tip.
Pour the oil into the bottle until it's full again. Screw the cap on and refrigerate for 2 weeks, shaking the bottle gently every couple days or whenever you think of it. Use it in salad dressings, marinades, or whatever you feel like using it in because it's YOUR CREATION!

The most amazing thing I've ever done

OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.....nom.

Fried Plantains with Cinnamon-Sugar Cream Cheese Topping

So this morning I was frying up some plantains for a snack and watching Paula's Home Cooking on the Food Network, mostly just for background noise. I was just going to eat them with some cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top, but then my selective hearing caught Paula saying two words: "cream cheese". After switching off the light bulb that had just appeared over my head, I went to the fridge for the cream cheese I knew was lurking somewhere near the back of the cluttered college house black hole of food storage. I had never tried mixing cream cheese with anything before today, but it turned out quite well which is why I'm choosing to share it!

1 Plantain (aka "cooking banana"). Let plantains get a little riper than you would bananas, about half brown and half yellow.
3 Tbsp. olive oil for frying
1/8 Cup Cream Cheese
Cinnamon/Sugar mixture. Buy it in a pre-mixed shaker or make your own!

Peel the plantain and slice it at an angle so the slices are longer. Heat the oil and fry the plantain pieces on medium-high heat, about 4-5 minutes per side or until golden brown. Meanwhile, heat cream cheese in the microwave for about 6 seconds. No really, only 6 seconds. We want it soft but not melted, so the cinnamon and sugar will mix in evenly. Add a tablespoon to the softened cream cheese and blend with a spoon, then taste it to decide whether or not to add more. Spoon the topping over fried plantains and sprinkle more cinnamon and sugar on top. IT'S SO GOOD!

Yam Gnocchi with Zang! Sauce

I thought I was the first one ever to think of making orange yam gnocchi, until a quick google image search proved me wrong. But oh well, I was so excited to have thought of it on my own that I couldn't wait to try it! Zang! sauce is made from a few of my most favoritest things (dried cranberries, olive oil, and of course macadamia nuts) and the clever name was conceived by my friend and housemate Aliyah Cline. I made this recipe using guidelines from a regular gnocchi recipe, but even with regular potatoes I found it needs a lot more flour than the recipe says because it always ends up too sticky and hard to deal with. So make sure you have a lot of flour lying around =]

FOR THE GNOCCHI:
2 pounds garnet yams
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups flour (at least)

FOR THE ZANG! SAUCE:
Another 2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1/2 Cup dried cranberries
1/3 Cup macadamia nuts
2 cloves garlic, chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 400. Pierce yam skins and bake for about 45 minutes, depending on size. If you can stick a knife all the way through with no "crunchy" feeling, then they're done. Let them cool completely, then peel the skins off with your hands (they'll come off easily).
Mash together the cooked and peeled yams, salt and olive oil. Add the flour in small amounts and mix it in. This is where it starts to get messy, so I like to take the whole project outside at this point. Once you're able to touch it without it sticking to your hands too much (add flour to your hands periodically to help with this), transfer the dough ball to a cutting board. Hopefully you'll be outside, so keep adding flour until it feels like bread dough.

Chop the dough ball into three equal parts. Roll each section into a 1/2 in. thick rope. `Cut each rope into pieces about 1/2 in. long.

Boil a large pot of water. Roll dough pieces into balls and drop them into the boiling water in batches small enough so that they don't pile on top of each other. Wait for the gnocchi to rise to the top, then let them cook about a minute longer. Remove with a slotted spoon.
Meanwhile, cook the garlic, dice the macadamias, and mix with the rest of the Zang! ingredients. When the gnocchi are done, toss in a bowl with the sauce and serve. Yum!