Comfort Food

It's a rainy Sunday in Tallahassee so here are a couple good recipes for comfort food. Enjoy!

Magnificent Meatloaf

2 pc sour dough bread
1 egg
¼ c. milk
Olive oil
½ med. Bell pepper, finely chopped (yellow, red or orange)
½ med. Onion, finely chopped
4 mushrooms, chopped in pieces
2 cloves fresh garlic
2 lbs. ground beef (preferably organic)
Salt to taste
Lemon pepper to taste
1 tsp. Dried parsley
¼ c. Parmesan cheese
½ c. Katsup

Preheat oven to 350°. Pour milk over sour dough bread. Beat egg and pour over the bread and milk; let soak.

On low heat, sauté peppers, onion and mushrooms in olive oil. Add garlic.

In a large bowl, mix hamburger, bread mixture, sautéed pepper mixture, salt, pepper, parsley and parmesan cheese. Shape into meatloaf and place in a pan coated with olive oil. Cook for 30-40 min. uncovered. Remove from oven and coat meatloaf with katsup. Cook for 20 more minutes uncovered.


Gourmet Tuna Casserole

1 sm. Onion, chopped
2 sticks of celery with leafy tops, sliced
4 mushrooms, cut in pieces
1-2 fresh garlic cloves
Splash of white wine
Fresh herbs – parsley, oregano and thyme (1 TBS of each)
1 can cream of celery soup
1 cup lite sour cream
2 cans of white chunk tuna, drained
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/3 c. Parmesan cheese
2/3 c. Fresh bread crumbs
1 pkg. wide egg noodles

Preheat oven to 400° for the casserole and put a pot of water on the stove to boil for the egg noodles. Partially cook the egg noodles while you prepare the tuna casserole.

Sautee onion and celery on low heat. Add mushrooms and garlic cloves. When veggies are soft, throw in a splash of wine. Add fresh herbs. Turn heat off. Add cream of celery soup, tuna, cheese and sour cream, mix together. Fold in partially cooked egg noodles. Put tuna mixture in a casserole dish greased with olive oil. In a food processor, make fresh bread crumbs (pumpernickel-rye is a good choice). Add parmesan to the bread crumbs and sprinkle over the tuna casserole. Bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes until breadcrumbs are crispy and casserole is bubbling.

Live Simple, Eat Simple

So friends, it's been a long time since I've blogged. 2009 was a stressful year for me but I have since then simplified my life and things are much better now. I will try to blog more often. This picture is Tom's grandparents at their 75th wedding anniversary this past December. Mary Lou and Marvin are our role models for simple living. Now in their 90's, they work long days growing all of their own vegetables and raising their own beef. They got married when he was 16 and she was 15 and as the story goes, after they were married, it took Marvin three years to sell enough collard greens to buy Mary Lou's wedding ring...true story! Mary Lou went to New Orleans on a recent girl's trip and Marvin was in trouble with his daughters for going out dancing twice on the weekend without Mary Lou. (Now, that just ain't right!)

Tom and I are getting the garden ready to plant (I supervise and he does the work). It's always tempting to plant too soon because you get anxious when the weather warms up. Be warned...it WILL freeze again so don't plant yet! We have really gone out on a limb lately by buying all of our vegetables, meats and dairy organic. No pesticides, additives, preservatives, hormones or antibiotics, whew! It is much more expensive but it's just the two of us and it is so much better for you! My sister who lives in NY stayed with me recently and she thought I was trying to detox her. There was no sugar, soda, additives, preservatives, etc. in the house and we live far enough out in the country that you don't just jump in the car and run to the store when you want a treat. I thought she would have a breakdown if I didn't get her a diet coke. Not in this house, baby!!

Anyway, today's blog is inspired by the fact that many of the most delicious dishes that I cook are so simple and good for you. Here's a fish recipe that is ALL THAT!

Grilled Salmon with Roasted Vegetables
(I made this for dinner tonight and it was awesome.)

Start by preparing your roasted vegetables. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut the vegetables in large bite size chunks. Put the first 4 veggies and the fresh garlic in a roasting pan and douse it with extra virgin olive oil. Season with kosher salt, lemon pepper and dried oregano. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes. After 30 min., add the tomatoes, pineapple, mushrooms and fresh cilanto. Return to the oven for 15 minutes more or until vegetables are tender.

zuccini
onion
red bell peppers
sweet potatoe
fresh garlic cloves cut in small pieces
mushrooms
cherry tomatoes
pineapple
fresh cilantro

Once you put the vegetables in the oven, start your charcoaler. We use real charcoal, not gas. To prepare your salmon, season with kosher salt, lemon pepper, seafood seasoning and garlic. Use a disposable tin pan and pour about 2 tbls of olive oil in the bottom. Put the salmon in flesh side down. When the grill is ready, cook the fish on this side for about 2 minutes then flip it to the skin side down. Cook with lid down until the salmon is barely cooked all the way. Check it often and do not overcook! When you take the salmon out of the pan, the skin will stick to the bottom so just lift the salmon off of the skin to remove. Then you can throw away the pan.

Serve the salmon with the roasted vegetables and a glass of white wine. Perfectly simple!

TIP: Buy wild-caught, Alaskan salmon. It is on the list of sustainable fish. Most farmed salmon (which includes ALL Atlantic salmon) are raised in tightly packed, open-net pens often having parasites and diseases that threaten the wild salmon trying to swim by to their ancestral spawning waters. Farmed salmon are fed fishmeal, antibiotics and have high levels of PCBs. Yuck!