Yesterday, being Wednesday, was our weekly dinner date with friends, recently dubbed “WeHangsDay.”  We alternate hosting, and it’s usually a chance for me to troll through all my new favorite blogs (I’ve hinted to John that this hobby thing he’s steered me into is becoming totally addictive) trying to find something new and interesting to cook.

I mean, we are all familiar with the food rut.  Last year (and many prior to that) could be called my “pork tenderloin” phase, as it was my go-to meal for guests.  Always.  It’s difficult to mess up (someone else seasons it, the package has straightforward directions, etc etc) and goes with a lot of side dishes (my favorites were Israeli cous cous, quiche, and asparagus, but not all at the same time!).

I’m one of those cooks who finds the recipe first, and then makes a long list of what I need at the grocery store (because I don’t usually have an abundance of food in the fridge).  I head out with determination, the post-it note clutched in my sweaty palm.  Some time later I return home, laden with many bags that are filled with ingredients I needed, and some other stuff that just ‘looked good.’  Here’s where John comes in.

I’m not the best at ‘scavenger hunt’ cooking.  I can’t just open up our cupboards and magically come up with a stupendous meal based on what we have.  So usually, all that stuff that I brought home because it ‘looked good,’ gets made into a meal of John’s creation. He’s very good at ‘scavenger hunt’ cooking.  For our first year together, that was our culinary balance.  And I was constantly amazed at the meals that we could put together out of the food we already had.

Yesterday, however, we sensed a changing of the tides.  Some of our neighbors (not those of the wiggly fish ~ different ones) gave us a lot of leftover short ribs that we’d shared with them for dinner on Tuesday.  This lifted a huge weight from my shoulders of having to think of WeHangsDay dinner.  I just had to make something to go with the falling-off-the-bone-tender ribs we were now in possession of.  I immediately hopped online and went to one of my favorite sites, Iowa Girl Eats.  I seemed to recall that she’d posted something I really wanted to try ~ a Black Bean, Quinoa & Citrus Salad, perfect for uber-hot days because the cooking elements totalled one.

I read through the directions.  I didn’t have quinoa, but I did have Israeli cous cous.  So … my salad would be a cous cous salad.  John doesn’t like raw onion, so no worries that we didn’t have that.  I nixed it.  I clicked on Eat Live Run (apparently the origin of the salad made by Iowa Girl Eats), and her ingredients were different than the recipe I was reading.  Ah ha! I could just use what I liked, put some other things in there as substitutes, and voila!  Newer version of (frankly) genius salad.

My version:

1 box Israeli cous cous (plus a sliver butter & 1.5 cups water or chicken broth)

2 ears of sweet corn scraped right off the cob (no cooking necessary)

2 cups pink grapefruit segments, cut into cubes

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 ripe avocado, cubed

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 cup shelled, cooked edamame beans

Vinaigrette:

Juice of 2 limes

1/2 cup EVOO

Salt and Pepper

Minced fresh cilantro

Here’s what I did:

1.  Melted a sliver of butter in a saucepan.  Added cous cous and browned it a little.

2.  Added 1 1/2 cups chicken broth to cous cous.  Brought to boil.  Dropped to low heat, put a lid on it, and let the cous cous absorb the broth (about 5 minutes).  Then I took it off the heat, and put it aside to cool.

3.  Meanwhile, I was combining the corn, grapefruit, black beans, dried cranberries, avocado and edamame in a mixing bowl.

4.  Separately, I whisked the lime juice into the EVOO, added the cilantro and mixed a little more, and then seasoned with salt & pepper to taste.

5.  The piece de resistance ~ combining cooled cous cous, all that lovely fruit and produce goodness and then pouring on the lime-cilantro vinaigrette.

It was, in my humble opinion, a success.  One, it tasted good!  Two, I used a lot of stuff that we had in the house (changing of the cooking tides happening!) and three, it was a huge self-confidence boost to make something I’d never made before, and have everyone like it.  So, thank you to the ladies who posted this before me.

(PS.  John took the leftovers to work, which is a very good sign!)

Fresh Trout with Caper Sauce ~

So, I can’t wait to figure out how to upload photos, because I have some great ones of the dinner I made tonight.  (And by “I,” I mean John took some great photos.  Once upon a time, I fancied myself a photographer.  After lunch and a long afternoon at a country cottage in England, my parents found themselves in possession of many rolls of film of mediocre pictures of a flower garden.  You live and you learn, right?)

Here’s how this whole thing went down.  Our neighbors gifted to John and myself some fresh trout.  If there’s something that a green cook such as myself finds intimidating, it’s fresh trout.  Just an FYI.  I mean, the fish was wiggling a little in the bag when John deposited it in the sink (it probably wasn’t, but I’m still convinced the little guy was fighting a lost battle).  I tip-toed over, glancing over the edge, afraid that the little fishy eye would see me, and I would be it’s last searing image before closing forever.

I procrastinated.  I wrung my hands.  I googled ‘gutting fish.’  I realized that this whole fish thing was going to be a bigger undertaking than I felt I was willing to make.  I picked up Delia Smith (she’s very comforting in her no-nonsense style) and paged through.  Did Delia teach a person how to gut a fish?  Cook a trout?

Of course she did.

I picked her caper sauce, because it had the least amount of ingredients, and because John’s mother gave us jars and jars of capers, and I was pretty sure it would take us a long time to use them all.  I diligently went about whisking the olive oil and juice of a lemon (truth be told, I used lemon juice out of a bottle ~ I soothed my ego by reminding myself that all the greats used substitutions at some point … right?).  I conveniently forgot about the minced garlic (we didn’t have it).  I dried and chopped the capers.  I ground the salt and pepper.  And as Delia instructed, I set the whole shebang aside to allow the flavors to develop.

This meant that now, I had to confront the fish in my sink.

Delia, in her comfortingly direct way, let her readers (me) know in no uncertain terms that the fishmonger should at least gut your fish for you.  As I tentatively reached into the plastic bag and withdrew the first of two trout, I was relieved to find the thin slit down its belly.  Imagine my relief at not having to clean out fish guts.  Immense.  My confidence building, I rinsed both fish off, inside and out, and then lay them on the cutting board.  The heads would have to go.

And … I began to procrastinate again.  I imagined the crunching feel of pressing the knife through the delicate bones at the base of the fish’s heads.  I believe that I visibly shuddered.  I checked my caper sauce.  Yup.  Still there.

In the end, John had to decapitate the fish.  And in the end, the fish was a triumph.  I’ll let you in on my secret.  Pick the quickest cooking method, with the least amount of ingredients.  In my experience, simple usually trumps.

What I did:

Ingredients:

2 fresh trout, gutted (and without heads, but with tails and skin still intact)

2 Tbsp butter

Salt & pepper (to taste)

For Delia’s sauce (my style):

4 tbsp capers

4 tbsp olive oil

juice of one lemon (or, a nice dollop of lemon juice out of a bottle)

garlic powder

salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:

1.  Combine olive oil, lemon juice and a sprinkle of garlic powder.  Whisk with a fork until combined.

2.  Pat capers dry.  Coarsely chop them (or pop them in the food processor and swirl them around a bit)

3.  Combine chopped capers with olive oil and lemon.  Add salt &  pepper to taste.

4.  Put aside.

For the fish:

1.  Wash it out.  Pat it dry.

2.  Melt butter in large saucepan on medium to medium-high heat.  Add salt & pepper to taste.

3. Cook fish in butter for approximately 2-4 minutes per side (the flesh will turn white ~ and it happens fast, so make sure you’re paying attention!).

I know.  Amazingly simple.  But a triumph, Mrs. Cratchit!

We had a nice Caprese salad ( I was craving corn, but if you’d seen John’s face at the mention of fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, you’d have made a Caprese, too) and pull-apart bread.  That, my friends, is a recipe for another day.

(I would like to note that the knives are not set properly in this picture and it drives me nuts, but I can’t change it, so, it is what it is.  But technically, their blades should face the other way).

I’ll say this ~ being confronted with a cooking challenge definitely intimidates.  But making something edible feels incredible.  So cheers to our neighbors, who helped me confront cooking fresh fish.  I DID IT!  Is there anything you’ve recently conquered in the kitchen?  Tell me about it!