Twofer Tonight

Finally I am home and life has slowed to a dull roar and I am able to cook. Well I suppose I could cook every night but it seems kind of pointless when it is just The Hub and me at dinner. We honestly can pick up something almost as cheaply as I can make it. Well tonight we had bought some beautiful Tuna steaks to toss on the grill. It was going to be the first sit down together family meal we would be having in quite a while.

Yesterday while The Hub and I were out running errands, we stopped by THE CAJUN CLEAVER, a butcher shop with a Louisiana flair. They had a nice hunk of tuna and I got them to slice 3 steaks ( tad under an inch each). It turns out they do not have fish all the time so we lucked out there. I also got some beautiful veal chops for tomorrow and some andouille sausage. Turns out they make their sausage on the premises. They also had boudin and Italian sausage along with homemade hot dogs. It is a place I will return often, especially since I left my email address with a "please let me know what you have in weekly". I love happening on a place and it turns out to be somewhere I want to make a point of going on a regular basis.

Fast forward to tonight: Son3 calls ( OK! He texted so he won't get mired down in conversation ) to ask ( let us know) if 7 kids can come home with him to swim. Oh and if we could fix them some hot dogs it would be great too. So much for the family dinner, and lucky for us that we keep a pack of dogs and buns always so we are ready for these little impromptu events he throws at us.

We hustled into event mode for them and got everyone fed then decided to cook our supper. I personally have overdosed on hot dogs and don't feel like I will be eating one in the near future.

The tuna had to all be cooked tonight whether we were all eating or not, so we just turned the grill to high to burn off any remaining hot dog essence, and I went in the house to figure out what exactly I was going to do with it. I found a recipe that sounded good, but I knew we would have substantial amounts of leftover fish, so whatever I did had to cool and reheat easily. I searched the internet and found a new recipe to try. Since we were having just tuna, a salad and a roll I flipped through a few pages of salads for something else I have never done before. Voila! Two recipes in the same night. If I actually start cooking nightly and find a couple of recipes per night I might actually meet my 100 untried before recipes in a year deadline. MAYBE! It could happen but not if I cook at the rate I have been cooking.

We had Wasabi Grilled Tuna with Wasabi Sauce.

Wasabi Sauce

1 teaspoon wasabi powder or 1 teaspoon dry hot mustard
1 teaspoon water
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 garlic clove (crushed)

In a bowl mix wasabi and water to make a paste. Let stand 10 minutes. Stir in vinegar, mayonnaise and garlic. Set aside.

Tuna

1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon wasabi powder or 1/2 teaspoon dry hot mustard
2 fresh tuna steaks (1 1/2 lbs total, 1 1/2 inch thick)

Directions:

Prepare grill with medium-hot coals.In a cup, mix the soy sauce, oil, and wasabi powder. Brush on tuna. Grill for 3-4 minutes on each side for rare tuna.Thinly slice the tuna and serve with the Wasabi sauce.

This is the recipe I found and I did make the sauce exactly by the recipe. I did the tuna a tad differently mainly because we were bound to have a lot left and I thought the wasabi sauce might not translate well to cold or rewarmed tuna. Instead I made a very basic Asian sauce using 3 Tablespoons of olive oil, 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 2 nickle size slices of fresh ginger, peeled and minced. I poured it in a zip lock bag and put the steaks in the marinade. I turned it a few times to get the liquid distributed evenly over the steaks then put them on a blazing hot grill for exactly 2 minutes. The Hub turned them and let them cook exactly 1 1/2 minutes more. I do not get the directions requiring you to cook tuna 4 or 5 minutes. We like it seared on the outside and very rare in the middle. It's just the perfect way to eat tuna. I took the steaks off of the grill and sliced them into rather thin slices, then dribbled the wasabi sauce over the tuna. It was perfect.

We had a Strawberry Salad along with the tuna and it was a delicious contradiction to the harsh bite from the wasabi. Once again I found this on the internet. I will cook from my beautiful cookbooks soon, just not right now.

Strawberry Salad with Blue Cheese

1/2 Cup pecans, toasted
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons raspberry vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon sugar
6 cups chopped romaine lettuce
2 cups sliced strawberries
8 ounces blue cheese
1/4 cup chopped onion.

Mix the vinegars. oil and sugar to form an emulsion. Toss the lettuce, cheese, onion and strawberries. Pour dressing over the top and toss lightly. Serve and put pecans on the top of each salad.

As we know I follow recipes very well and this one was no real exception. I did not just want a sweet dressing on the strawberries, so I added about 1/4 teaspoon of Cavander's Greek Seasoning to the vinegars before adding the sugar and oil. I like the sweet and savory tastes combined. When it was finished it tasted very much like Ken's Raspberry Vinaigrette so when I make this again I will just use it rather than take the few minutes it takes to put the dressing together.

I made the rest as the recipe called for with the exception of the blue cheese, because I simply forgot to put it in. (Which is fine since I think I am going to toy with blue cheese pimento cheese anyway)


The meal was fantastic, not too much nor too little. The flavors just worked together and it is a meal we will have again before summer is gone.

I do have some pictures to post but my phone is now dead as a doornail and does not seem to want to send. It does no good to have a Smart Phone if one is not smart enough to keep the blooming thing charged. Will post it tomorrow.

Till then have something delicious today!