Into the Strenuous Briefness

I posted my dinner from last night and a few people asked for recipes.

Pan Fried Lemon Garlic Tilapia

1. (The hour marinade is really not critical, but it does improve things) About an hour before you want to cook, put the tilapia filet in a ziploc bag with about 1-2T olive oil, juice from 1/4 a lemon, a clove of minced garlic, and some salt and pepper. Lemon zest never hurt anything either. Seal the bag and put it in the fridge until you’re ready to cook. 
2. For the breading, I use about 3/4 cup panko-style breadcrumbs with about 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. I also mix some lemon pepper into the breading. 
3. Heat some canola oil in a pan while you bread the fish. Once the oil is hot, fry for about 3 min a side.
4. Eat.

Asparagus: Toss some asparagus in olive oil, put on foil-lined baking sheet, bake at 325 (or any temp, really, tbh, this isn’t analytical chemistry) for about 10 min or so, until the asparagus is tender. I often cover mine in feta cheese. Or goat cheese. Or any kind of cheese you have in the fridge.

Lemon Risotto with Spinach:

I used this recipe. I didn’t have any onions so I substituted 2 shallots. The original recipe called for arugula, but I prefer spinach so that’s what I used. I used veggie stock instead of chicken stock (which is why mine had such a dark color, I think, but the flavor was great). The recipe calls for 1 or 1.5 lemons; I used one decent sized lemon and ended up with a very strong lemon flavor. For me juicing another half lemon would definitely have been too much.

I actually didn’t feel the need to add any cheese to the risotto; it was really rich all on its own.

Enjoy.

Since student teaching, Saturday mornings have been my personal sanctuary. I listen to podcasts or read news while cooking and eating a nice hot breakfast and espresso. I generally clean a little and mentally recover from a week with no personal time.

In Pittsburgh, Saturday mornings were for the farmers’ market. There was a small year round market very near my lovely little apartment. I would normally get up around 7:30, without an alarm, and amble out to get my groceries for the week. I’d get fresh eggs and veggies and meat from local farms and locally roasted coffee. Typically, on my way out, I would pick up a fresh cinnamon sugar donut from the bakery stall. Then I’d go home, clean and put away the produce, and make myself coffee, bacon, eggs, and toast with stuff I had just bought. After breakfast, while perusing news, I’d enjoy my cinnamon sugar donut, which was about a billion times more delicious than a donut from Dunkin Donuts and reminded me of cider mill donuts.

I wish that i could still spend my Saturday mornings at that market. I wish I had one of those donuts right now. Or a cider mill donut. Why aren’t cider mill donuts a thing outside of Michigan?

I love it. It’s been a standby of mine since forever. As a kid, the only sandwich I would eat was peanut butter, no jelly. (Seriously, I didn’t eat any lunch meat ever until high school, and even then it was only when there was no way for me to get a peanut butter sandwich.)

My sandwich habits have branched out (nothing more delicious than spicy cured meat and ridiculously sharp cheese), but peanut butter remains a staple. And tonight I made my own!

Easiest thing ever. In food processor, 2 cups of roasted unsalted peanuts and 2 tablespoons of oil. Peanut oil was ridiculously expensive, so I got grapeseed oil instead and it worked out great. I added a heaping tablespoon-ish of brown sugar and about 2 tsp of sea salt, but you could obviously do whatever you wanted. Next time I’m going to blend in some cinnamon and sugar, I think. Honey would be lovely. My current mix is delicious, though—slightly sweet with a hint of salt.

I don’t think it’s any cheaper than buying pre-made stuff—a jar of peanuts costs about the same as a jar of peanut butter. It’s probably at least marginally healthier, though. And tinkering with the taste is fun.

• Cheddar cheese
• Monterey Jack cheese
• Mozzarella cheese
• Goat cheese
• Feta cheese
• Cream cheese

I am one person. What is wrong with me?

I want pizza.

I don’t need it because I have delicious leftovers in the fridge and plenty o’groceries. I also don’t need it because, let’s face it, who ever really needs a pile of greasy processed cheese and meat?

But I am really craving it. This is one of the problems with being a grown-up. I can easily make the pizza happen. If I were a kid, my dad would just be like, “No, there’s food in the kitchen,” and that would be that.