Creative Cooking 101 - Fish Dish

Yesterday was a cooking day - I just wanted to make things - perhaps I had something on my mind or whatever - either way I ended up cooking several dishes for the children to try and then put the rest in the freezer for when my detox is over.

One of the foods I had on hand was some fish - we have eaten a lot of fish over these last 2 years since we went back on meat sources of protein - and sometimes we get a little tired of it. So with that in mind I did some thinking about the hake I had and what to do with it.

Fish is so simple and easy to work with - it's also very versatile. I like that I can add a lot of other flavours to it as well - such as herbs, citrus, onion and a few more. But I also like it when the dish tastes fresh and is full of interesting tastes...

I finally decided to stew the hake in lemon juice, sautéd onions, olive oil, apple cider vinegar and water (with a little pepper, salt and dried dill from my garden). This all went well and was very savoury smelling - it looked great.

When it was fairly well cooked I poured off a half cup of the fishy liquid and put it aside. Then I let the fish sit for a few minutes in the juices. In another pot I melted some butter added 1 tablespoon of spelt flour and made a little sauce - I poured the fish juice into this.

Once it was heated up again, it thickened and this was spooned over the fish in the other saucepan with more pepper and a little sea salt. My children loved it - however, I have yet to taste it, so the verdict is still out.

It does smell very nice however....

April

Hake cooking in the sauce pan...

Wild Rice, Sweet Potato & Fig Dish

I am in the final week of my Master Cleanse and I am itching to cook something - anything!! It really must be a passion for me - because I just want to play around with tastes, textures and flavours to see what I come up with.

Today I decided to make a little meal for my daughter using just the things I had on hand - a large sweet potato, some wild rice mix (she was asking for rice) and figs. This combination of foods is rich and hearty as well as complementary to each other.

I started out baking the sweet potato in the oven while I cooked a small portion of wild rice in a saucepan. Then I chopped a shallot and some cloves of garlic. These I stir-fried in a little olive oil. Once the rice was cooking away I added some turmeric - mostly because I just love the smell and I think it always adds a nice touch to food.

Wild rice mix is really nice to make and not something I make all that often - I usually reserve this rice for special occasions. Of course the recipe I was working on today is a special side dish I want to serve with either turkey or duck over the holidays. 

Once the sweet potato was tender - I took it out of the oven and let it cool for a little while before peeling it and cutting into different sized pieces. I did the same with the figs - loosely chopped them to smaller bite sized bits.

Next, the rice was ready. I wanted to let things cool slightly so as not to be mushy when combined - so the rice was set aside while the shallot and garlic sautéd. 

Once everything was sitting cooling and ready - using a large enough deep bowl I gently added each ingredient - then a little salt and pepper as I folded this mixture over a few times to lightly mix it and to allow the flavours to combine.

It looks and smells lovely - and is great on the side with some fish or fowl or even on it's own with a feta cheese topping. 

April

Wild Rice, sweet potato and figs