Saturday, August 24, 2013

Grilled Salmon Fillet with Tropical Fruited Soy Glaze and Habanero


Grilled Salmon Fillet with Tropical Fruited Soy Glaze and Habanero 
In the freezer section of your grocery store they sell frozen fruit juice combinations.  This recipe works well with about any of them but the Apple, Mango and Passion fruit takes this recipe over the top.  And whatever you do, do not omit the lemon juice and dill it really ties the flavors together. 

1-2 Lb. Salmon fillet, skinned
2 tsp. White pepper
vegetable oil spray
¼ cup Frozen apple, mango and passion fruit juice concentrate, thawed
¼ cup coarse grain Dijon mustard
1 Tbl. Soy sauce
2 tsp. Your favorite habanero sauce, use more for extreme heat
1 fresh lemon
1 small bunch fresh dill, chopped

Light the grill.  Remove any pin bones from salmon fillet.  Rinse under cold water quickly and pat dry with a paper towel.  Cut fillet into 6 to 8 individual steaks.  Sprinkle both sides with white pepper.  Spray both sides with vegetable oil spray.  In a small mixing bowl stir together the fruit juice concentrate, mustard, soy sauce and habanero sauce. Turn grill to medium.  Place the salmon steaks on the hot grill with the side that had the skin up.  After about 10-15 seconds gently lift the salmon fillet up from the grill surface and set back down (This keeps the fish from sticking).  After 2 minutes gently turn the steaks and once again gently lift them to prevent sticking.  Spoon the glaze over the fish reserving some for the other side.  Depending on your grill you will need to cook the fish for about 8 more minutes.  The rule for grilling fish is 10 minutes of grilling for each inch of thickness…. more or less!  So after 8 more minutes turn the fish one more time spoon on the remaining glaze and let cook for 30 seconds and remove from grill.  Plate, drizzle a little lemon juice and top with fresh dill.
Serves 6-8

Friday, August 23, 2013

Stuff


Stuff

George Carlin said, “How come my stuff’s shit and your shit’s stuff!”  I’ve been thinking about stuff a lot lately.  We all have it and more importantly want it.  The question that occurs to me is, ‘what is the requisite amount of stuff and what is overkill?’ 
A while back I wrote and hosted a TV cooking show that was shot at our home.  Over it’s five year run we gathered hundreds of pieces of cooking equipment and kitchen gadgets, along with 64 barbecues and several sets of dishes.  These all made the visuals of the show keep interesting and I felt they were necessary.  However, they now are mostly, just more stuff.  Stuff that needs to be stored moved around and then eventually gets put with the other stuff.  And with our busy lives in gets into that terrible category of, I’ll sort this out later.  I was going through old boxes the other day and I found a few that I put away 30 years ago.  Important stuff, at the time, old concert tickets, an interesting piece of metal, a hoola girl bottle opener, and my first instinct was, ‘oh good that’s where all this stuff is.’ 
Making matters worse I have other stuff that I’ve been collecting to build a cooking school, windows, commercial kitchen equipment, a fire hood, two commercial stoves and numerous bits of building materials. 
It dawned on me that I’ve become the caretaker of all my stuff and it’s running our lives!  So we are now on a, sort it, sell it or dump it campaign.  We’re also downsizing.  We’re selling our home and finishing our 900 square foot straw bale cottage.  This will require a great de-stuffing, to live in this small of a space, but we look forward to the challenge.  Maybe George Carlin was only partially right, my stuff is shit, just old shit that’s getting in the way of some really important stuff, our lives!