Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Verde

When my cousin Kris came to visit me a few months ago, we decided to spend an entire afternoon eating at as many restaurants as possible. I know it sounds like a crazy thing to do, but we both love to eat, and I'm happy to have finally found someone who can eat as much and as often as I do! Anyway, we ended up really only eating at no more than 3 places, because she instantly fell in love with the crispy tacos at Las Palmas Taqueria on College Ave. in Oakland. Since she's from Vancouver, Canada, she has a hard time finding a good taqueria there to satisfy her taco needs. Needless to say, we spent most of our eating adventures at Las Palmas eating tacos. In fact, the first day we went in twice within a three-hour period, and the second day, we ended up ordering tacos three times in one sitting. I swore the staff thought we were totally crazy!

Anyway, ever since then, I have been looking for a good salsa verde recipe for her. So Kris, this is for you! :)

Read on to see if this is good enough for Kris...

Zesty Little Corn Muffins

Very close to where we live, we have this amazing neighborhood market, Piedmont Grocery, where we buy a majority of our groceries, especially meats and seafood. The butcher counter and display case is probably around 40 feet long, fill with the freshest looking meats and seafood, and makes my mouth water every time I gaze upon it.

Anyway, because of our busy schedules, I like to throw a few ingredients in the slow cooker, and have an easy meal the next day. One of my favorite things are split pea soup with ham. It is so simple and delicious! All I put in the cooker is one beautiful ham shank I buy from the butcher (I always have them cut in half), a bag of split pea, then fill the crockpot up with water. Since the shanks have been smoked already, it gives enough flavor to the soup that I don't have to add any salt to it.

So, long story short, I started the soup last night, and I decided to make some corn muffins today to eat with it. I thought that the savory of the soup and the sweetness of the bread might go well together. I did follow the directions on the box (I had no corn in the house!), but I added some orange zest to the batter before I baked it. It was really yummy! A little on the spongy and fluffy side, and not too dense, just the way I like my cornbread!

Read on for the corn muffin recipe if you happened to have thrown the box away...

Homemade Pizza Dough

Mushroom & Onion Pizza w/ Cilantro Pesto

It has been awhile since I've posted. Work has been busy and my computer just had a week-long battle with some virus. It was frustrating not being able to do my usual computer stuff, but I took advantage of this and took a mini-vacation from the online world. I wasn't as productive as I should've been, but I got to spend more time in the kitchen, took cat naps with Odin, and read some books...

I've been fascinated by bread-making lately. I can't say that I have too much success, but there were a couple of things that I was pretty proud about. With every bread-making project I embark on, the less and less I am afraid of using yeast. Now, I can't even remember why I hesitated to use yeast in the first place. If you remember a few posts before this, I made some yummy homemade English muffins. Strangely enough, that was one of my first attempts using yeast! Not even just regular bread, but English muffins! Sometimes I'm more ambitious than am practical.

Anyway, I've been making homemade pizza dough lately, even though it takes a little bit of time, but it's totally worth it! I love that I can have any topping I want and that I can make the crust as thin as I like! Now that I have had some experience with making dough with yeast, I find that it's very easy to do.

Read on if you'd like to see how I made my dinner last night...

Leftover Salmon Skin

If you've been following this blog the last few days, you know that I made some lox, based on FoodMayhem's recipe. Little did I know that they also have a recipe for the leftover salmon skin! The method they used (at least the one I read) was to broil the skin under the broiler until it's nice and crisp. Sounds good to me! I love anything crispy!

Read on if you love the idea of crispy fish skin chips...

Homemade Lox

About a week ago, I suddenly got a very strong craving for some lox. Don't know how, don't know why, probably because I was staring at the smoked salmon and then the fish counter while I was grocery shopping. So instead of going to the bagel shop across the street, I decided that I am going to make some myself. How I waited this long to satisfy my craving is beyond even me. I'm usually not this patient when it comes to food.

Read on if you wonder about what happened $10 and 5 days later...

Easy Smoked Trout and Pasta Salad

Until today, the weather has been warm and sunny, perfect days for a leisurely outdoor picnic. Unfortunately, with my ridiculous work schedule, I don't have time to indulge right now. However, I decided to make a perfect pasta salad for picnics anyway. While I was at Trader Joe's the other day, I picked up a can of smoked trout. For days, I had no idea how I would want to eat it, normally, I would have just eat it straight from the can, but I was determined to make it slightly more interesting. So when I decided to make the pasta salad, what better to use than this can of trout?

I must say that the result was absolutely delicious! I made a decent size batch of it, so I can have a yummy snack for myself before and after work. Even my boyfriend thought it was very tasty and that I should remember this for our future outdoor dinner parties and potlucks!

Read on to see this very simple and easy recipe!

Easy Fried Fish and Potato Cakes

If you have been reading my blog, you probably know that I'm a sucker for fried foods and panko. So, a couple of days ago, I had some leftover mashed potatoes and a fillet of cod in the fridge, and decided to make some fishcakes before work. It was very easy to make, and I didn't use very many ingredients, but it was delicious! It is a great way to use up leftovers and have a meal that I normally don't have.

Read on to find out how I made my fish cakes at home!