Ahi Tuna Tacos with Wasabi Cream and Mango Avacado Salsa

Hi Everyone!

We had a great summer-time dinner on this cold and rainy day in Nashville. It made me wish for sunshine even more. 

This recipe sounds really intimidating, but it actually took me about 20 minutes from start to finish. However, it certainly was not cheap, at least not this time of year. I actually cheated and used yellowfin tuna because that was all they had at Kroger...I'm not even sure what the difference is. I bought 2 tuna steaks frozen for $7. I cut them into little peices, placed them on a skillet with taco seasoning and olive oil and cooked for about 5 min. 

I was nervous because I've never cooked tuna before. It turned out pretty good, not as good as at a restaurant though. 

Next I made my Wasabi Cream Sauce. 

Who remembers our incident with the wasabi crab cakes? Well I was really careful to put just a tiny bit of wasabi paste this time, and it tasted much better. No sinus burning. 

I mixed it in the yogurt container so I didn't have to do extra dishes. 

Then the salsa. This part took the longest because of all of the chopping. Let me just say that I paid $2.25 for that avocado. I'm not sure why they're so expensive right now, but we won't be eating those for a while, so I told Bradley he better savor this one. 

This was the part that tasted like summer! Delicious!

I made a little assembly line and:

Sous chef gives them:

He was shy tonight. 

White Chocolate Blueberry Bundt Cake

This recipe is where the money's at!

I used some blueberry's that I had in the freezer that we picked at the Richmond's house last summer. Just like the title says, there's white chocolate morsels throughout the cake. As far as cakes go, this one's pretty easy. I've always wondered why you have to mix the dry ingredients before adding them to the rest of the ingredients. They're all going to be mixed together in the end, so what difference does it make?

The recipe says you can add pecans if desired, but I didn't have any so I left them out. It's really the almond glaze that makes the cake. I wasn't sure about spending $3.00 on the tiny bottle of almond extract, but it was worth it. I want to put it in everything!

I had to cook the cake for about 60 min. It seems that my oven always takes much longer than what the recipe says.  Bundt cakes are weird. You can't make the bottom, which is really the top, flat because it cooks upside down and the bottom rises. 

Side view:

Sous chef gives this one 2 thumbs up and said it's the best recipe for blueberry cake he's ever tasted (and with his parents growing blueberries, he's tasted plenty). 

Homestyle Chicken

Our church has a committee that makes dinner for new mothers, so sweet sous chef signed me up last weekend while I was out of town. He said he knew whatever I cooked would be delicious and that he would get the extras. I picked Homestyle Chicken and made a side of Oriental Pasta (per Bradley's request. I've made it before, it's in a previous post) and Blueberry pie for Dessert. The Homestyle Chicken was fairly easy. I had 12 chicken breast in the freezer so I was eager to use them. 

This is basically a chicken breast in an onion flavored gravy. It was quite tasty. If I make it again I would put it in the slow cooker. 

I realize that it doesn't look that fantastic. This is because the chicken is coated in flour and when I mixed it in the gravy it started peeling off. It tasted great though. 

Sous chef gave this 1 thumb up. 

Seared Scallops wrapped in Prosciutto

Okay folks, I'm sorry to say that this was the first recipe that I didn't like. But in all fairness to the recipe, I don't care for scallops. This recipe has 2 ingredients: scallops and prosciutto and the total cost for me was $20. I bought the scallops at Costco, which was probably my first mistake. Are you supposed to wash the scallops first? Well I didn't and they were gritty.  The recipe was super easy to prepare and cook. It took about 10 minutes to wrap them, and about 10 minutes to cook them. My advice to anyone making this recipe would be 1. don't buy the scallops at Costco, 2. rinse the scallops. 

Here's a photo. They look lovely:

I'm not going to give this one a rating because I knew I wouldn't like them before I even cooked them. 

Sous chef isn't a fan of scallops either unless they're wrapped in bacon dripping with grease at Bosco's. 

Barbecue Shrimp

I love Sundays! This morning after church we spent about 2 hours walking around Costco and tasting all of the samples. We also picked up the ingredients for a treat of a dish tomorrow night and the next few weeks. After Costco, we picked up our friend who is an international student at Vanderbilt, Shuai. He's from China. They connect the international students with local families to try to immerse them in our culture while they're in the United States. He's from a coastal city in China so I made the Barbecue Shrimp. 

I bought the headless, shell on shrimp from the freezer section because that was what was on sale at Kroger. A 2 lb bag was $7.99. I let them thaw overnight last night in the fridge. 

This is a super easy recipe and if you did a taste test with Mr B's Barbecue shrimp you wouldn't be able to tell too much of a difference, but your waisteline could. I looked up their recipe on-line, it has 2 sticks of butter in it. No wonder it's so delicious. Holly's recipe has no butter, consider yourself safe to sop up all of the drippings with bread. 

Mix all ingreadients into one large pan, boil, then add shrimp. Easy as that. 

We all soaked up all of the sauce at the bottom of the bowl with some ciabatta bread. They went very well together. Shuai altered his dish a little with about 2 tsp of cracked red pepper. He likes his food very spicy.

After much explaining of the rules, and some serious contemplating by Shuai, he gave it two thumbs up. Sous chef gives it one. 

Quick Lemon Blueberry Bread

I've been trying to make a quick loaf of bread each week. It's easy to cut a slice for breakfast before work. 

I made the blueberry bread with some frozen blueberries that we picked fresh at the Richmond's house last summer. This recipe was delicious. Very tart with the lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract, but I loved it. It even has a nice glaze that you pour over the top when it comes out the oven. 

My only comment is that I tried to use Neufchatel cheese instead of cream cheese and it wouldn't completely dissolve. If I were to make it again, which I'm sure I will, I'll use cream cheese. 

Sous chef gives this loaf 1 thumb up. Apparently he's not a big lemon person. That's the first I'm hearing of this. I give it two thumbs up. 

Great Greek Meatballs with Orzo

A nice change from spaghetti and meatballs. 

I've said this before, but the last time I cooked with orzo pasta it congealed into one large lump of pasta, so I was extra careful while cooking it this time and it came out perfect!

This recipe gives you a little freedom to choose your marinara sauce. I used a jar of home canned tomatoes from the Richmond's garden in Clarksville. Guaranteed fresh and no preservatives. 

Since I used this, I had to turn it into a marinara with some onions and italian seasoning. 

The recipe was fairly easy. I've always hated forming all of those little meatballs. My hands turn to ice from the freezing meat, and you can't stir it up with a spoon, that never works, you have to use your cold hands to mush it all together. This recipe is pretty much spaghetti and meatballs, but uses orzo and feta cheese. 

It was quite tasty. It is supposed to make 6 servings, but Bradley had seconds each time he ate it so it only yielded 4 servings for us. It was very good. 

Sous Chef gives it: 

1 thumb up!

Speedy Chicken Chili

To quote sous chef "if there's one thing Holly does well, it's soups."

He's right about that. We had Speedy Chicken Chili this week because the canned vegetables were on sale for $.50 this week at Kroger, and there were 4 cans of vegetables in this recipe.

I just can't say enough how genius I think it is to use salsa in dishes like this. It adds so much flavor and spice, and you don't have to chop onions and bell peppers. 

It was hard to get a good picture because all of the good stuff kept sinking to the bottom of the bowl. 

This recipe made about 8 servings for Bradley and I, which was nice because that was 4 nights of cooking and cleaning pots that we didn't have to worry about. 

This dish was super easy to prepare. You can buy pre-cooked chicken and not have to do a thing, but I used frozen chicken. The dish only takes one large pot and that's about it. No clean up required, we put the pot in the fridge with the leftovers and enjoyed it all week. 

Sous chef gives this:

One thumb up!

Greek Shrimp

Before the invention of this cookbook I never cooked with shrimp. They were something special for eating out at restaurants, so I've really been enjoying eating the shrimp recipes. 

This dish was delicious and delightfully different from all of the others.

A healthy serving of vegetables is included with the tomatoes, peas, olives and onions. The recipe makes 6-8 servings, for us it was 6. We enjoyed it over angel hair pasta the first two nights, then basmati rice the 3rd night. I liked it best with the pasta, sous chef liked it best with the rice. Either way you serve it's still delicious, especially with the feta cheese on top!
Prep time was about 10 minutes. Everything came from the freezer or a can. All I had to do was chop an onion. 

Shrimp Dumplings with Asian Sauce

I was really nervous about making this recipe. It's quite tedious and unlike anything I've ever made before. 

First I had to google won ton wrappers because I haven't been able to find them at the store. My google search showed that you have to look in the refrigerated health food/soy section. That's where I found these:

Once I had all of my ingredients I put them in the food processor and made a spinach and shrimp paste:

Then I filled the won ton wrappers with the paste and twist the top:

A tip I figured out after I had finished was to wet the edges of the wrappers so they stick together easier. As you might imagine this part took a while. 

Once they're all filled and pinched you cook them in water:

Then serve them with the Asian sauce:

We had this dish with the left over Asian pasta I had made the night before. They went quite well together. 

I made the dumplings in the morning on a day off. It took about an hour to from start to finish, so definitely save this recipe for a day off. I had time to have the kitchen cleaned and once it was time for dinner it took about 15 minutes to prepare, all I had to do was boil them in the water and cover with asian sauce. 

Sous Chef not only gave this recipe two thumbs up, he said it was the best recipe in the cookbook thus far. Of course his favorite would be one of the hardest to prepare. 

The recipe made about 5 servings which brings the cost to $2.60 a serving.