For Rebecca

One of my sisters is undertaking the "No Meat November" challenge and I am here to support her. She asked me to put together some great recipes that are either vegetarian or pescaterian. Here are some of my favorites:

Vegetarian:

Quinoa Salad with Candied Walnuts:
A great dish that I love to throw together. It features quinoa, which is a high protein grain that works
great in cold salads.

Mushroom Risotto:
This was really intimidating to make, but it is actually really simple. A lot of recipes have really confusing descriptions and instructions and I tried to make sure mine were very clear and user friendly. I served this with some seared tofu to make a good full meal.

Black Bean and Corn Salsa:
This dip is really good, but I slightly over complicated the recipe. It is pretty easy to make this recipe in a skillet as I described or can just be stirred together cold.

Guacamole:
Guacamole is actually one of my favorite things to make in the winter because I love to make it with pomegranate and you can only really get a good price on those around this time of year.

Not Beef Stroganoff:
This one takes advantage of the fact that mushrooms are really meaty. It is pretty simple to take a traditional and replace the meat with mushrooms. While this is a great recipe, I do need to take a new picture for it.

Here is a link to the rest of my vegetarian recipes, which, given how much I like meat, I have a surprising amount of.

Seafood:

Shrimp Bisque:
Dear God this stuff is good. As the weather gets cold, this is a perfect thing to warm you up with a little spice and a little alcohol.

Cream of Crab Soup:

Another fantastic soup for this time of year. This one is made that traditional way, only white ingredients, but it is easy to make it Maryland style, just add Old Bay!

Maryland Crab Cake:

I have nothing else to say about this one, just make it. It's amazing.

Miso Soup:

While I provided a traditional set of ingredients for this one, it really is fridge velcro. You can put pretty much anything into it that you want.

Crispy Skin Salmon:

This is a easy and simple application of my new favorite way to make salmon. This recipe includes detailed instructions on how to make this amazing dish. 

Bourbon Maple Pepper Salmon:

Ok, the title is a bit of a mouthful, but this is really good stuff. If you have not made crispy skin salmon before, I would recommend taking a look at the previous recipe to get a really good idea of how to do it.

Steamed Mussels:

Pretty much the best mussels I have ever had. It is spicy, but amazing. It is not strictly speaking pescatarian, since it includes sausage, but it is easy to leave that out and still have a great dish.

Shrimp Bisque

Ok so I actually have a pretty lengthy history with this one. My parents used to do a thing called home exchanges, where a family from somewhere you want to go on vacation to comes and stays in your house and you go stay in there's. It is a good way to get cheap lodging on vacations. One time, when I was still in college, they did one over Mother's Day.

This Mother's Day coincided with my spring break, so I had to leave campus, but I couldn't go home cause there was someone else staying there. I ended up staying with my best friend and celebrating Mother's Day with his family. His mom picked 2 recipies for us to cook for her, a shrimp bisque and beef bourguignon (which my friend kept calling beef boing-boing).

Because Maryland is weird and all spirits stores are closed on Sundays, we ended up having to drive about 45 minutes to go buy the wine from the vineyard. I was helping mostly with the bisque and I liked it so much that I decided to make it my own and it's been one of my go to recipes ever since!

Ingredients:

1lb of shrimp
4 C seafood stock
3 tbsp olive oil
2 C chopped leeks
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
2 C heavy cream
½ C white wine*
⅓ C tomato paste
¼ tsp cayenne powder
2 sprigs of thyme leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Peel and devein 1 lb of shrimp and reserve the shells. In a 2 quart sauce pan, pour in the seafood stock and the reserved shrimp shells and bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and reserve your new shrimp stock, straining out the shrimp shells.

In a 4 quart stock pot add the olive oil over medium heat and once the oil is shimmering, add the leeks and garlic. Sweat the leeks and garlic for about 3 minutes until the leeks are translucent. Add the butter and melt it down before adding the shrimp and cooking the shrimp until it is pink and opaque. Next, add the flour and stirring until the flour has soaked up all the liquid and the bottom of the pan is dry.

Reduce the heat to low and slowly pour in the heavy cream, stirring constantly. Once the cream is worked in, add the white wine, tomato paste, and shrimp stock. Stir to thoroughly combine everything. Increase heat to bring to a simmer before adding the remaining spices and cook for 3 minutes.

Use an immersion blender to puree to desired consistency. You can do this in batches in a normal blender, but it is way easier to keep it all in the pot. Salt and pepper to taste and serve.

To make it a meal I serve it with my roasted garlic tomato spread on crostini and some seared trout seasoned with cayenne.

*I recommend a semi-sweet riesling or gewurztraminer. If you go with a dry white it can make it too spicy and overwhelm the shrimp taste and too sweet can really clash with seafood flavors. If you are near or in MD and can get a bottle of Boordy's riesling, that is my personal favorite.

Cream of Crab Soup

My dad used to speak rather wistfully of ordering cream of crab soup and how you could make sure it was authentic by asking for a shot of sherry on the side. If the restaurant in question couldn't provide, you knew it wasn't going to be right, but if they did, or they said it was already in the soup, you knew you were in the right place.

Traditionally, Cream of Crab Soup is made with only white ingredients. It's a rather outdated look, but I'm a sucker for more traditional presentations. Because this doesn't have Old Bay in it, this isn't Maryland Cream of Crab Soup, but it does taste great with Old Bay if you want to put a Chesapeake twist on it.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 C finely chopped white onion
¼ tsp salt
2 tbsp flour
1 C heavy cream
3 C whole milk
1 lb lump crab meat
3 oz medium dry sherry
salt and white pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat the olive oil over medium-low heat in a medium saucepan before adding the onions and salt. Sweat the onions for about 10 minutes until translucent and before they take on color. Sprinkle on the flour and stir until the flour is coating all the onions and has absorbed any moisture in the pan.

Reduce the heat to low and slowly pour in the heavy cream stirring constantly so the cream doesn't break.Once the flour is all dissolved in the cream, pour in the milk and bring to a simmer. Reduce to desired consistency, stirring often to prevent a skin forming on top, and gently stir in the lumb crab meat and sherry. Add salt and white pepper to taste and serve.

I recommend serving with my Roasted Garlic Tomato Spread on some toasted baguette. The tang and acid go great with the sweetness of this soup.

If you liked this recipe please consider supporting me and my content on Patreon. For more info on my patreon, check out my previous post!

Maryland Crab Cake

I'm from Maryland, and one of the things being from Maryland means is having really strong feelings about crab, and especially what makes a good crab cake. I'm no exception. In my eyes, a crab cake should be jumbo lump blue crab with minimal filler and plenty of Old Bay. It should be eaten with a fork or in a sandwich and is not a deep fried fritter to be eaten by hand.

But, most of all, it should be simple and straightforward. A crab cake should be all about the crab and too much dressing up just gets in the way.

Ingredients:

½ c chopped fresh parsley
8 (or ½ c) crushed saltines
½ tsp yellow mustard
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp Old Bay or crab seasoning
1 egg, beaten
1 lb jumbo lump blue crab

Directions:

Preheat your broiler on high. Thoroughly combine everything except the crabmeat before gently folding in the crab. Jumbo lump is fragile stuff, and if you mix it too hard it will break apart into strings, which will defeat the purpose of using jumbo lump.

Once the mixture is well incorporated, divide into 4 lightly packed portions on a well greased baking sheet. Broil on high for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Let sit for 2 minutes before serving.

Serve, garnished with a bit of fresh parsley and a bit of lemon or, my prefered method, on a toasted roll with a bit of tarter sauce and some lemon.

I would tell you to enjoy, but I'm pretty sure you're going to do that anyway.

If you liked this recipe please consider supporting me and my content on Patreon. For more info on my patreon, check out my previous post!

Chesapeake Burger

If, like me, you have leftover deviled egg with crab filling, it might go great on some crackers, but it goes even better on a burger. It's an easy way to turn up the flavor on your traditional burger and add some Maryland flair to an American classic.

Ingredients:

Topping:

1 cup of deviled egg with crab filling
56 grams finely grated cheddar cheese

Patty:

1lb of ground beef
1 tbsp Old Bay or crab seasoning
2 tbsp unseasoned bread crumbs

Directions:

To make the topping, gently fold the cheese into the leftover filling and set aside.

Mix together the beef, Old Bay, and bread crumbs and form into 4 equal sized patties. Heat a skillet, griddle, or grill pan over medium high heat. Cook each patty 3-5 minutes on each side until cooked through or a meat thermometer reads 125.

Preheat your broiler on high.

Spread a portion of the topping on each burger and place under the broiler and broil until the topping forms a light golden brown crust. Serve on a kaiser roll spread with a little mayo or tarter sauce and garnished with some crisp lettuce and a meaty tomato slice.

If you like this recipe and would like to support me and my work, please consider supporting me on my Patreon. If you'd like some more info on Patreon, check out my previous post here.

Deviled Eggs with Crab

Early last week I was talking to some of my co-workers, and as often happens with me, the conversation turned to food. One of them introduced me to a concept I had never heard of, deviled eggs with crab. I had already been on a bit of a crab kick (more of that to come later) and so I instantly decided that I needed to make those.

They turned out to be really easy to make, the hardest bit is to peel all the eggs, and they taste amazing.

Ingredients:

12 eggs

1 tsp mustard

1 tbsp fresh parsley

1.5 tsp Old Bay

1 green onion, chopped fine

½ C mayo

8 oz crab claw meat

Directions:

In a large pot, place your dozen eggs and cover with and inch of water. Optionally, add 1 tbsp of white vinegar to keep egg from leaking out of any that might have cracked. Bring to a rolling boil over high heat and then kill the heat and let them sit in the pot for 10-12 minutes. Shock the eggs in a water and ice bath to cool them quickly, which, in my experience, is the best way to make them easy to peel. Peel the eggs then slice them in half long ways and extracting the yolks.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, mustard, parsley, Old Bay, onion, and mayo. Mix well before adding in the claw meat and stirring thoroughly.

Spoon a heaping amount of the filling into each egg half and serve.

Miso Ramen with Chashu

Here it finally is: my ramen recipe! One of the best things about ramen is how versatile it is. A basic broth with ramen noodles can host a whole bunch of toppings. I'll list out some of my favorites, but it is only a fraction of the whole world of toppings and condiments you can add.

Ingredients:

Base per serving:

2 cups dashi
1½ tbsp white miso
½ tbsp red miso
¼-½ cups of cooked ramen or soba noodles

Toppings:

Chashu
Marinated Tofu
Blanched bean sprouts
Corn
Sliced scallions
Soft boiled egg

Directions:

In a small sauce pan, stir the two flavors of miso into the dashi and bring to a simmer. Place your noodles into your soup bowl, layer on your prefered toppings, and pour on the hot broth. Let the soup sit for a minute to give everything time to heat up before enjoying.

This makes a really great build-your-own meal with plenty of toppings and a big pot of broth for everyone.

Miso Soup

Earlier I wrote about wanting to make my own ramen, which means I had to start with making dashi, a Japanese seafood stock. Once I'd made that, it was just a little bit more to make miso soup so I decided to try my hand at that too.

Like plenty of Japanese cooking, this isn't about using a lot of ingredients, it's about making the most from a few. It's about balance. In miso soup, you are balancing savory with salty and smooth with crunchy.

Serves: 1
Cook time: 10 min

Ingredients:

2 cups dashi
1.5 tbsp white miso
½ tbsp red miso
1 scallion
3 oz firm silken tofu

Directions:

Bring your dashi to a simmer and pour ¼ cup into a bowl. Add the red and white miso into the same bowl and stir well until all lumps are gone. Pour the miso mixture back into the rest of the dashi and heat on low to keep warm.

Cut your scallions into small slices and your tofu into small cubes and place in the bottom of your soup bowl, mug, or bucket. Pour the hot broth in and let sit for a minute to allow the tofu to warm up before enjoying with some sake or green tea!

Please note: the combination of miso flavors is up to you. White miso is lighter in color and flavor but has good body and mild sweetness. Red miso is much more flavorful, but too much will have your soup tasting like soy sauce. This 3:1 ratio is my preferred ratio, but feel free to experiment to find what you like.

Dashi

Like most of my generation, I spent a lot of time in college eating ramen. Ever since then, I've wanted to make my own from scratch, which, for most ramens, means starting with dashi. Dashi is an extremely simple seafood stock that is the base of many Japanese soups, but it's also great for sipping on if you've got a cold or need something to warm you up.

This recipe is sized for a single serving and is about as small a batch as you might want to make. This means it should be easy to scale up for any application.

Cook time: 20 min.
Serves: 1

Ingredients:

2 cups cold water
1 gram kombu (approx 2"x4.5")
5 grams bonito flakes (about ½ cup)

Directions:

Place the kombu into a small saucepan and pour two cups of cold water over it. Put over medium heat and cover for about 10 minutes. Remove the kombu just before it starts to simmer. I wait for bubbles to form on the bottom and take it out just before they start to break. If the kombu boils, it can turn bitter.

When the bottom of your saucepan looks like this, it's time to remove the kombu.

Add the bonito flakes to the water and bring it to a simmer. Hold at a simmer for 1 minute. If it simmers for too long, it will make the stock cloudy as the flakes fall apart. After 1 minute, remove from the heat and let it steep for 7 minutes. Strain and add enough water to bring it back to two cups.

Use immediately or refrigerate for up to a week or portion and freeze for up to a month. Large portions can be used as a soup base while small portions can help fortify sauces and stir-fries.

Bourbon Maple Peppery Salmon

I think my favorite thing about crispy skin salmon is that it looks quite impressive, but it's actually quite easy. This recipe takes advantage of the fact that maple goes surprisingly well with all different kinds of peppers. I'm still using my amazing bourbon maple syrup, but don't worry, this one works brilliantly with regular syrup too.

Since I've already put up a more in-depth guide on how to make crispy skin salmon, I'm not going to bore you with repeating all the details (just the basics here). I'll simply leave a link to the previous recipe here in case you need a refresher.

Ingredients:

4-6 oz salmon filet with the skin on
Salt
Pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp bourbon aged maple syrup
⅛ tsp red pepper flake
⅛ tsp ground white pepper

Directions:

Lightly score the skin of the salmon and salt and pepper both sides. Pour the olive oil into a cast iron or nonstick skillet over medium heat. While the oil heats up, mix together the syrup, red pepper and white pepper.

Once the oil is shimmering, place the salmon in the pan, skin-side down, making sure to lay it away from you. When the salmon is in the pan, give the pan a little shake to keep the skin from sticking.

Once the salmon is cooked about three-quarters of the way through, flip onto the flesh side and lightly brush the skin side with the peppery syrup. After 30 seconds, flip the salmon out onto a plate and brush the flesh side with the remaining syrup.

Crispy Skin Salmon with Honey Mustard

As a fan of Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen, I have seen countless chefs screw up crispy skin salmon. I'd never had it but wanted to try making it... but I was a little nervous since I don't have too much experience with cooking fish.

Meet Adam. We look nothing alike.

Luckily, I'm friends with Adam, my fish monger. Adam and I spent an evening cooking various kinds of seafood, a lot of his tips made it into my mussels recipe, and one of the things I asked him to teach me was how to make crispy skin salmon.

Because this recipe is a bit trickier, and is something I don't think many people have tried, I'm including some more in-process shots for reference.

Ingredients:

2 salmon filets with skin on, about 3-4 oz each
Salt
Pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp dijon mustard

Directions:

Flip your salmon filets over so they are skin-side up and cut shallow lines, not much deeper than the skin, diagonally along the length, about 1.5 inches apart. Then liberally salt and pepper both sides.

My knives were a bit dull, so we ended up slicing deeper than intended.

Heat a cast iron skillet or griddle over medium heat and pour on the olive oil, making sure to evenly coat the pan. Fish sticks really easily so you want to make sure you have a good non-stick surface. While the skillet is getting to temp, in a small bowl, mix together the honey and dijon mustard until smooth.

Once the griddle is hot, place the fish, skin-side down, in the pan. Leave it there. 90% of the cooking is going to be done with the skin side down.

Herein lies the tricky bit. How done do you like your salmon? I'm a risky fellow and I like mine to be a little raw in the middle, so I want a hotter pan so the skin gets crispy with a shorter cooking time. My wife, on the other hand, wants hers a little more well done, so for her I need a cooler pan that won't burn the skin over the longer cooking time.

How do you know when to flip? Well you can actually just watch the side of your salmon. The flesh changes color as it cooks, so if you want your filet rare, once it gets about three quarters of the way up, flip it. If you want it well done, wait until the color reaches almost all the way to the top

Once you have flipped it, lightly brush the honey mustard onto the skin. Let the salmon cook skin-side up for about 30 seconds. Remove from the pan and flip, skin-side down, onto a plate before brushing the remaining honey mustard onto the top.

Let the fish rest for about 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy with a side salad for lunch or with a salad and some quinoa for a filling dinner.

Steamed Mussels in a Spicy Broth

Ok, straight talk, this is the actual meal I served on Valentine's Day. There is minimal prep, and very little cook time, but tons of flavor. Plus, since this is a meal you mostly eat with your hands, it stays very light-hearted and casual, which I think is the perfect tone for an intimate evening alone.

Warning: though I do add a bit of spice to many recipes, even I think this one is actually spicy. It tastes amazing, but if you don't like spicy food, don't make this.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2-4

Ingredients:

3 cups of vegetable stock
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
¼ cup of white wine*
2 tbsp dried parsley
½ lb of andouille sausage cut into bite size pieces**
2 lbs of live mussels

Directions:

In a stock pot or dutch oven, pour in the stock and add the pepper, garlic, wine, parsley, and sausage. Cover and bring to a boil.

As you bring your broth to a boil, do a thorough inspection of your mussels. Assuming you kept your mussels in the fridge, when you take them out of the cold, they might start to open. This is perfectly fine, you should only worry about mussels that won't close back up. If you tap on an open one and it starts to close, it's good. Alternatively if you hold it closed and it doesn't open back up very much, you're good. If there are any that are cracked, or were open in the fridge, throw them away. Do not cook them.

Once your broth has reached a boil, add the mussels, return the broth to a simmer, and then re-cover. Cook the mussels for 4-5 minutes or until they are open. If there are any that didn't open, throw those away.

Serve your mussels in a bowl with a good helping of broth, a glass of the white wine you used in the broth, and some nice crusty bread to soak up all that deliciousness. I highly recommend serving the crusty bread with my roasted garlic and tomato spread since the tang of the sundried tomatoes goes great with the spicy broth.

*I would recommend a riesling for this recipe. If you want it spicy, use a dry or semi dry variety. Use a semi sweet or sweet riesling if you want it to be less spicy.
*If you want this to be less spicy, or want to make it pescaterian, leave out the sausage, it will still taste great.

Linguine Pesto with Shrimp

Now that I have put up some pesto recipes, it's time to make some things with them. Once you have made your pesto, it is relatively simple to make sophisticated looking, tasty dishes. I recommend the Lemon Pesto for this recipe, since citrus flavors play great with seafood.

Ingredients:

1 recipe worth of pesto
1.5 lbs of shrimp, on skewers
1 lb of linguine
Shredded parmesan
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Cook up the linguine until al dente drain, mix with the pesto, and set aside. I used the whole recipe of pesto, but feel free adjust the amount to fit your taste.

While the pasta is cooking, heat your lightly oiled cast iron griddle on medium heat until water sprinkled on the surface boils off immediately and cook the shrimp, about a minute on each side, until they are pink and opaque. Lightly salt the shrimp as it cooks.

Place a serving of pasta on a plate and serve with a skewer of shrimp. Garnish with freshly grated parmesan cheese.