Pacific salmon, green beans

ARTS !

The mushrooms were sautéed in olive oil and butter in the same pan before the salmon. Green beans added after the mushrooms began to caramelize. The vegetables were removed to bowl, covered and reserved. 

The salmon was fried then plated and covered while a sauce was prepared in the same pan. 

The sauce is diced onion sweated in butter and olive oil then doused with white wine and the juice of one whole lemon. A full tablespoon of capers with its liquid brine was added to heat through. Additional butter to finish. Some cooks insist on rinsing capers of its harsh salty liquid so that the more gentle flavor of the capers can come through, but in this case I wanted the salty liquid to contribute to the sauce, so no additional salt was added. Pepper, of course. 

Savory and tart with the taste of salt, somewhat unctuous. Nothing sweet, nor capsaicin hot, nothing bitter, nothing particularly spicy and no herbs. 

The place smells of fried fish. The windows are open, the air purifiers are on full blast. 

Previous salmons: 

Salmon stir fry

Foamy eggs (with salmon)

Salmon

Wild Pacific salmon, black-eye peas, white rice

Fish cakes (salmon from a tin)

Steamed seafood breakfast with vegetables

Salmon fillets

Salmon, imitation crab, fusilli

Salmon fish sticks

Diced salmon in miso

Raw salmon on sourdough

Cubed salmon in coconut vinaigrette 

Salmon with honey and ginger sauce

Ceviche with vegetable and fruit salad

Salmon frittata

Pacific salmon

Salmon soufflé with spinach

Seafood salad

Salmon salad with whole wheat fusilli

Salmon with orange dressing

Smoked salmon lox on sourdough

Salmon breakfast

Salmon salad

Pacific salmon orange sauce w/pineapple

Salmon tempura

Steamed lox soufflé

Pacific salmon and pasta salad

Chicken broth miso soup (with salmon)

Smoked salmon salad

Smoked catfish (where salmon is smoked)

Salmon (salad)

Salmon (with rice)

Salmon hushpuppies

Salmon macaroni salad

Solomon, smartest of all fish

green beans, prosciutto

Haricots vertes by another name when you're being charged 3X as much. Whatev. Here with prosciutto, but not authentic prosciutto otherwise that too would be 3X as expensive. Bacon is as good on any day. There was a couple there at the counter with me at the same time. When I ordered the prosciutto the male made a remark to the female about the availability there of prosciutto. This created an opening for my endless propensity to engage. I said I doubted it was the real deal, although it did have an Italian flag on the label. "Well, that seals it then." Which they found hysterically funny for some reason still unknown to me. It's a mystery.

Green beans steamed in a basket for a few minutes. Dunked in ice water to arrest the chlorophyl at its greeniest green, + crimini mushrooms fried, + a single scallion sliced on a severe diagonal and heated with the mushrooms along with the prosciutto. Combined with a one roughly diced red tomato. Drizzled with olive oil, topped with butter, dotted with aged balsamic. In short, lovingly, carefully, tenderly prepared as if for someone I love, which is me, which I do.

Now that olive oil/butter/aged balsamic sinks to the plate eventually and I swear it is the most irresistible dressing ever conceived by mankind. It was sopped up breadlessly  to the every last streak with the cold leftover flatiron pieces, which are still very good these three days after cooking. A small amount remains wrapped up in plastic in the fridge that will most likely be nibbled by swooping passes in bits and bites until finally the last molecule is consumed right down to the ultimate atom.  Which is the way God intended.

green beans and pecans

This started out being a big pile of green beans with a few bits of tomatoes and even fewer spaghetti noodles but then the spaghetti swelled up more than I thought or maybe I used more than originally intended.

With miso for added oomph.
* green beans (bought fresh then frozen)
* canned tomato
* onion
* fresh garlic
* 1/2 ounce spaghetti

pork chop breakfast, green beans, applesauce

Strange look'n breakfast, in'nit? New American Breakfast, sixth in a series, extolling the virtue of vegetables and avoiding an over reliance on grain.

Pork loins fried and pressure cooked to tenderness earlier, like probably even a week ago, and held in the refrigerator.

Green beans steamed.

Applesauce -- one large Granny Smith (not recommended by applesauce makers -- too tart) peeled, chipped into pot, cooked on low until tender, with butter, cinnamon, processed with Grand Marnier because it was just sitting there and I thought, "Eh, what the heck."

I have a whole bag of limes on the counter, sort of in the way actually, but for some strange reason, and I do not understand this so I cannot explain the utterly contemptible laziness, but I was completely resistant to simply cutting one and squeezing it over the beans. Then the whole time I was eating it I was sitting there thinking, "This would be a lot better with lime," while they were still there available for cutting and squeezing. I guess I subconsciously figured the Granny Smith was tart enough.

Water instead of coffee because my abject laziness extended even to making coffee, although it sounds pretty good right now.

eggs and oysters

Part of the New American Breakfast series that seeks to eliminate the over reliance on fast-carbohydrate grains that readily turn to sugars and then get stored as body fat if not immediately burned and that characterize the traditional American breakfast.

Where breakfast is served at 1:00 PM.

Odd, I know. But hardly new. My understanding is oysters were actually rather a common item on breakfast menus in the golden days of yore when I'm imagining everybody was thin and active and most likely not consuming so much sugar and refined flour … along with corn, masa, white rice, pre-packaged quick breakfast oats with dehydrated little marshmallows, gigantic sticky buns sufficient to feed an entire Vietnamese village, Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms, packages of doughnuts that are devoured before the shopping bags are unpacked, hash browns, grits, and toast made of white bread. And then blamed their obesity on butter. Before all that.

But this is not a premier New American Breakfast due to the flour and masa used to coat the oysters. An extravagance!

I bought approximately 430 pounds of these haricots, or possibly it was 2 pounds exactly, but it seemed like an awful lot. I divide them in half and used a food saver air-sucking food storage device, marvelous little machine, that cuts a bag from a roll of special channelized plastic then seals the ends. Then stuck that half of the beans in the freezer. The other half was divided in half again and and one half of that was bagged the same way -- with the air sucked out in an effort to extend its storage life in the refrigerator, and the remaining half of that, the final fourth, divided in half ha ha ha ha ha, and cooked. So we're going to be seeing a lot of these beans.

Incidentally, all those so-called vacuum devices, Foodsaver, Seal-a-Meal, Black and Decker, all get deplorable reviews online. Complaints are consistent across the board. Apparently their service department is the worst. So far, mine has been brilliant, if a bit loud. Plus it's fun.

Compound butter with lime juice dressing.

Oysters were drenched in milk dredged in seasoned flour and masa, starting with dusting in the dry mixture, then wet, then back to dry to keep the coating on the oysters, then deep fried in vegetable oil at 350℉ / 175℃

green beans

Shitaki mushrooms pan fried in butter/olive oil with white onion and sliced fennel root. Removed to a bowl. New red potatoes steamed (in the same pot) with trimmed green beans cut on the diagonal. Into the bowl. Red hothouse tomato cut irregularly. Into the bowl. Drizzled with olive oil and lemon. S/P, bits of fennel frond to garnish.

green beans

Snack.

* trimmed green beans
* red onion
↑ steamed
* red tomato
* olive oil / aged balsamic / sea salt

Heirloom tomatoes, green beans

If you see the odd heirloom tomatoes, don't hesitate to buy them. They're usually a little bit misshapen and possibly ugly but they make a fine salad all by themselves. No oil, no acid, nothing but sea salt.

You really must have fat in hamburgers or the patties fry up to tasteless chunks of something synthetic. If you buy that low fat stuff , or whatever over 85% that is presently so popular, you can add olive oil before forming patties. I suggest adding water as well.

That's right, water.

I made a mistake. I intended to mix 85% fat grass-fed ground beef with bison along with top quality chorizo in equal parts, but I was chatting it up with the butcher about the meat cutters competition segments on Letterman where the deli guys slice meat and estimate as closely as they can to a pound. The butcher I was talking to said he saw those segments too and agreed they're awesome. He said sometimes he can get pretty close too, but not always. He was making adjustments when I brought up the subject. All that unfocused nonsense caused me to forget to order the bison so, alas, my hamburgers are just ground beef and chorizo, which caused them to be ... delicious! I added crushed garlic, Lea and Perrins, habanero flakes, cumin, S/P, in conservative amounts. To my surprise there was no extra fat left in the pan after frying one which means I consumed it all.

Green beans steamed for as long as it took me to mess with that other stuff -- slicing the tomato, shaving the Parmigiano, digging out the olives, scooping condiments.