Today I threw together a Brazilian fish stew, or at least somewhat inspired by Brazil. Very colourful and tasty, took some time to prep and cook though.

Here’s what we need:

• 28 oz can of tomatoes
• 1 lbs of salmon fillets
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 large onion
• 1 big yellow squash
• 1 big zucchini
• ½ cup fresh parsley
• 1/4 cup dried cilantro
• 1 tbs peperoncino
• 2 plantains
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup water
• 1/4-1/2 cup lime juice

Roughly chop up the onion. Pour the olive oil into a big pot and fry the onions on low heat for about 5 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes and garlic, let boil under lid while cutting up the yellow squash into strips (like fries) and the zucchini into small cubes. Add to the mix and also add the cilantro, peperoncino. Cut up the parsley rough and add as well.

Put the salmon on top and squeeze a good amount of lime juice over them. Put on the lid and cut up the plantains. About 1 inch thick pieces (around 8 pieces per plantain) add to the mix and stir. Add water and let simmer on medium heat until the fish and plantain is cooked through. About 20 minutes. Stir forcefully to break up the salmon into small pieces.

Salt and pepper to taste and then it’s ready to serve!

Kicking off this theme weekend with plantains :)

For this simple recipe you’ll need:

• 1 plantain
• 1½ cup water
• 1 tbs salt
• 3 cloves of garlic
• vegetable oil

Peel and cut up the plantain into about half inch thick pieces. Fill up a frying pan with vegetable oil, it should cover up about half the slice of plantain, so this will vary depending on the size of your frying pan. I used a small 8 inch skillet and used about half a cup or so. Fry the plantains for about 2 minutes on each side on medium heat.

In a separate bowl: mix water, garlic and salt.

Take out the plantains from the frying pan and let them soak in the salty garlic water for about a minute or so. Heat up the oil again and refry them for  2-4 minutes (until tender).

WARNING: Use a splash screen when refrying the water soaked plantains in the oil. If you don’t have one, pour out the oil and refry them as if you were frying eggs. Good luck :)

For the salad you will need:

• 1 red bell pepper
• about 1/3 cup kalamata olives (10-15 olives)
• about 1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves

Pit the kalamata olives and cut them in half. To pit them I have two ways to go:

1. Cut of the top of the olive and squeeze out the pit.
2. Smash it with the back side of a knife (or any other big flat tool you have) then squeeze the pit out.

Cut up the sun-dried tomatoes into little squares.

In a small frying pan, melt some butter (or oil) and mince in one of the garlic cloves. Cut up the bell pepper into long inch thick strips and fry on high heat until slightly scorched.

Microwave the other two garlic cloves for about 15-20 seconds, this will make them soft and buttery and mild. Cut them up and mix all the ingredients together.

this crop has become highly appreciated for its nutritional value, as its protein content is very high (12%–18%), making it a healthy choice for vegetarians and vegans. Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source. It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesiumiron. Quinoa is gluten-free and considered easy to digest. Because of all these characteristics, quinoa is being considered a possible crop in NASA’s Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration manned space flights

Source: Wikipedia

So I went out to buy a tiny bit to try it out. It’s as easy as pasta but is prepared more like rice, but it comes without the worry of accidentally burning it (unless you really forget about it!!)

Here’s the whole meal:

• 1 cup of qunioa
• 2 zucchinis
• 2 cloves of garlic

Prepare a pot with about two cups of water and bring it to a boil, add the quinoa and let simmer for about 10-15 minutes. The quinoa is cooked through when clear and kind of see-through. While boiling, cut up the zucchinis lengthwise and put them on an oiled aluminium wrap/baking sheet. Slice the garlic cloves and put a couple or three on each zucchini slice. Salt and pepper and broil for about 6-8 minutes.

Me and my assistant went to the grocery store yesterday, the first day after the storm for it to be open and it was chaotic. Not as bad as the day before the storm but it was still pretty bad. Trying to cram pass people in the isles. Finding the right ingredients and finding anything organic was hard even. I suppose it has been rough for the store itself to receive groceries. Anyway, we got what we came for.

• 1 lbs ground beef
• ½ yellow onion
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 14 oz can of crushed tomatoes
• 4 oz can of mushrooms
• 1 jalapeño
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbs ketchup
• 1 tbs dried oregano
• salt & pepper to taste

We got home and immediately started cooking. She helped me mince the onion, chop up the bell peppers and crush the garlic cloves.

I heated up a large frying pan with some olive oil and started frying the onions, adding the meat after the onions got soft and let sear until almost all the meat has colour. I added the bell peppers, garlic, jalapeño and mushrooms stirring and giving more colour to the meat and vegetables. Lastly I added the can of tomatoes and the oregano. Let it boil up for a little bit and then add salt and pepper to taste. Ready to serve!

As I said earlier it can probably be used as a bolognese on pasta as well but I prefer eating it by itself, maybe it’s just me. Enjoy! :)

My recipe:

• 1 lbs ground venison
• ½ yellow onion
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup gluten free bread crumbs
• 1 tbsp dried thyme leaves
• ½ cup salsa (medium hot)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• handful of cilantro

This is one of those “mix everything together” recipes. So it is very fast and simple. Add all the dry ingredients in a big bowl and mix them together. For the gluten free bread crumbs I just crumbled a slice of millet bread. Finely chop up the onion and press the garlic cloves. Chop up the cilantro roughly and add the salsa. Crack in the eggs and add the meat. Mix it all together. I prefer adding the meat lastly but since this recipe calls for mixing it all together you can put it in whenever you want.

Grease up a meatloaf pan if you have one, personally I used a bread pan and it worked just fine. I sprinkled some black pepper on top to taste. Preheat the oven to 350F and bake the meatloaf for about 45 minutes. If unsure when it’s done, use a kitchen thermometer to check the temperature in the middle of the meat. It should read 165F+

This is a sweet and spicy loaf, skip the salsa if you prefer it less sweet.

Enjoy! :)

I rushed home after a long day out and about and started preparing the kitchen. I started out by making the marinade. I went with something sweet, something foresty, something different…

My balsamic/forest marinade:

• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp honey
• plenty of thyme
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 2 tbsp juniper
• 2 cloves of garlic
• dash of liquid smoke

To make it you just have to mix everything together basically. I added everything in the order of my recipe (it’s an original!) got out the garlic press for the garlic cloves, crushed the juniper with the back of a knife and halved all the rosemary leaves. Stripped the thyme sprigs off of its leaves and mixed. While letting the flavours mix I prepared the skewers.

Here’s what I used:

• 1 lbs deer steak
• 1 orange bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 yellow squash
• 10 portobello mushrooms
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 jalapeño

Cut up everything into similar sized squares, with exception for the jalapeños of course. I cut the mushrooms into pieces of four. For the squashes I first halved them and then chopped them. Some of the steak pieces were long and thin so I wrapped up onions and jalapeños in some. Like hidden goodies.

Brush the marinade over the skewers. And put into the oven to broil for about ten minutes or until vegetables is starting to get golden. The venison will stay pink/red when broiling.

Boil up some rice and mix all of these ingredients in a big bowl.

• Rice
• Big handful of Italian parsley
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 2 lemons

It’s all ready to serve. I wish I had a barbecue or one of those grilling pans, but broiling things in the oven works almost as well. Extra thanks to the liquid smoke. It really gave it that barbecue flavour!

After 10 mins of broiling

Served on top of lettuce with a side of rice

Super simple to make, I made it a little bit of my own with additional spices and here’s my recipe:

• 1 small onion
• A handful of cilantro leaves
• A packet (in this case 14oz) of cherry tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 tsp peperoncino
• A lot of lime juice (2 limes)

Chop up the onions. Dice the tomatoes. Pull off the cilantro leaves off of the stalks and either tear them up with your hands or chop them super roughly. Mince the garlic and sprinkle the pepper and peperoncino (not to be mixed with pepperoncini) and mix. Pour over a good squeeze of lime juice mix again. Super easy. I would say that if you’re not a big fan of lime – just use less or none at all. Originally there is none in there.

Note: The onions in the image were cut up too roughly, so I had to let it refrigerate over night to not have too much of an onion flavour.

I experimented together a venison roast of loin. It didn’t taste bad, it just didn’t match. I won’t tell you the mismatching ingredient yet, let’s see if you can guess!

Heres what I used:

• about 1lbs of deer loin
• couple of table spoons of olive oil
• 1 yellow squash
• 2 carrots
• about an inch fresh ginger root
• 1 cinnamon stick
• garlic
• Jamaican “Pickapeppa Sauce”
• 1 large sweet potato

Oil up a deep pan for the deer, set the oven at 350F and just mix all the ingredients together. Mince four cloves of garlic, halve and cube the squash, chop the carrots, slice the ginger root thinly – one slice per piece of loin. Pour over the pickapeppa sauce and mix until everything is covered. Then pour the mix into the oven dish and put it in for about 20-25 minutes for medium rare meat.

While the deer is cooking, cut the sweet potato into long strips/fries. About a third of an inch thick each. Fry them either in oil or butter but be sure to turn often. They burn very easy and take 5-10 minutes to cook.

So can you figure out what the mismatching ingredient was?

Answer: GINGER

So lets start with the fish, I bought a barramundi (also known as “Asian bass”) a smaller fish around the pound size. I bought it whole and untouched meaning I had to clean, scale and gut it myself.

Clean the fish by rinsing it under cold water and scale it with the dull edge of a knife (a regular dinner knife works, just don’t press too hard). When I did this scales were flying everywhere. In my face, eyes, hair, all over my shirt and on the kitchen floor. Once again I suggest buying a pre-cleaned fish. I was scared about gutting the fish since as far as I can remember I’ve never done it with my own hands. I’ve watched a lot of people do it though. But it was very simple. You just cut a medium deep cut at the belly of the fish, starting at the vent and continuing up towards the head and gills. Don’t cut too deep, you don’t want to puncture the organs. When you have cut open the cavity just stick a finger in there and pull out all the contents. Some things you might have to use a little knife help for but it shouldn’t be much. Then rinse out the cavity and you have your scaled and gutted fish ready to be cooked.

Wrap aluminium wrap around a baking pan and oil it lightly or spray it with cooking spray. Place the fish and make diagonal cuts like in the image.

For the stuffing:

• 1 sage leaf for each cut
• 2 thin garlic slices for each cut
• rosemary sprinkled in each sage leaf and all over the fish
• 1 lemon

Place some garlic and rosemary on a big sage leaf and roll it up, place it in a cut. You can also put a slice of garlic on the outside of the sage leaf for extra flavour. Cut the lemon into wedges and stuff the cavity. I pressed them lightly to spill some lemon juice on the inside.

Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the flesh is completely white and tender.

I had trouble serving this for one reason, being that I used too little oil and the fish was stuck to the aluminium. But other than that I just cut it up and served on a plate of potatoes with some hollandaise sauce :)