Tuna with Lemon and Caramelized Red Onions, Arugula

Salmon with Miso-Ginger Glaze and Kale with Caramelized Shallots

Trying to eat more fish...

Shaved Asparagus, Beet, Blood Orange and Olive Salad with Seared Scallops and Avocado

This was a total mash-up based on what was in my refrigerator and what I was craving. I cooked the scallops for almost no time in some ghee, dressed the asparagus (and arugula) with shallots, blood orange, lemon juice, and chopped olives, and roasted the beets until tender.

Black Cod Baked with Tahini, Spicy Roasted Squash, Chickpeas and Spinach, Herb, Orange and Olive Salad

A team effort: three dishes from Moro and one from my imagination. It is still hard to get good lighting at night without some sort of fancy rig. I'm working on it...

Fresh Butter Beans with Tuna, Onions, Capers and Chillies

This is a preparation I use a lot for quick pasta dinners (sautee onions until translucent with chilli flakes and capers, add tuna packed in oil to warm through, and toss with pasta), but I had these fresh butter beans from the market, and I thought I'd use them instead. Cannellinis and tuna are a classic combo, and I thought this worked out really well.

Poached Salmon with Lentils

I really need to work on my night photography skills. Lunch always looks so much nicer than dinner!

Chilled Asparagus with Crab, Lemon Yogurt Sauce, and Breadcrumbs

For the lemon sauce: grind garlic into a paste using a mortar and pestle. Season with salt and pepper and add lemon juice to achieve the desired consistency. Finish with freshly grated lemon zest.

Black Cod Tagine with Green Peppers, Tomatoes, Potatoes, and Olives

Also from Moro.

Whole Halibut Baked in Salt

We made this using a combination of instructions from Jamie Oliver, River Cafe, and an episode of Two Fat Ladies. It was a little scary at first but turned out amazingly!

Spaghetti with Tuna, Capers, Onions and Chili

This is my go-to meal when I don't have anything else in mind. I always have the ingredients in the pantry, so it's quick and easy.

Crab Salad with Fried Green Tomatoes

While I was working in the garden the other day, I accidentally snapped off a tomato vine full of green tomatoes. Naturally, I had to fry them. Erik and I brainstormed about different dishes we could make to compliment the tomatoes, and I remembered a very good crab cake Benedict I'd had years ago at a diner, that used fried green tomatoes as a base. This being our month of salads, I decided to deconstruct the dish. I made a spicy remoulade (with sweet peppers, red onion, fennel, basil, chili, paprika, and mayonnaise) to dress the crab meat, and then I put together a salad of Romaine lettuce, more basil and sliced fennel, and sweet corn. For the tomatoes, I dredged them in flour (seasoned with paprika, Cayenne, salt and pepper), then egg mixed with buttermilk, and finally bread crumbs. I fried them lightly in oil, and I have to say that these were some of the best fried green tomatoes I've ever had! Sorry, South Carolina.

Linguine with Crab and Fennel

I'm repostng this because I finally got a good picture of it. The original post was March 24, and we've made this dish a couple of times since then. It's always delicious!

We found a copy of the second River Cafe cookbook on sale today, and were drooling over this recipe (which originally called for linguine, but we had spaghetti and it worked just fine) when we passed by our local fish market and saw fresh crabs in the window. It was fate! We bought the crabs pre-cooked and cracked and then pulled the meat out ourselves.

1 lb Spaghetti
Crab meat
1 Fennel bulb
1 Garlic clove
1 tbspFennel seeds
2 Dried chillies
1 Lemon
Extra-virgin olive oil

Remove the tough outer part and stalk of the fennel. Slice the bulb as finely as you can across the grain. Keep any of the green tops. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Crush the fennel seeds and crumble the chilli. Grate the zest of the lemon, and squeeze the juice.

Heat two tablespoons of oil in a thick-bottomed pan, add the garlic, fennel seeds and chilli, and cook to soften. Add the crab, lemon juice and zest, and season. Stir through, just to heat up the crab.

Cook the linguine in boiling, salted water for five minutes, then add the fennel slices and cook together until al dente. Drain the pasta, keeping a little of the water, and add to the crab mixture. Stir thoroughly to combine, adding a little of the reserved water to loosen the sauce if necessary. Serve with olive oil.

If cooking crab yourself, buy them live and choose one or two large crabs - it will be much easier to pick the meat out from them than from many small ones. Cock crabs (males) have larger claws and a higher proportion of white meat. Spider crabs are very sweet and good for this recipe, though it takes longer to pick out the meat than from the common crab, as the meat-to-shell ratio is lower.

Salad Nicoise

I managed to get a better pic than the last time I posted this summertime favorite.

Chapati "Tacos"

Erik has been perfecting his chapati-making, so we decided to make "tacos" out of them. We used this recipe for shrimp tikka with mango chutney (which was realy more like an Indian salsa), and then Erik made a batch of extra-thick red lentil dal, plus some amazing raita to top it all off. Definitely a keeper!

Sea Scallops with Borlotti Beans, Arugula and Hot Chilis

Another River Cafe recipe, made with Rancho Gordo beans.

Fennel-Rubbed Salmon with Caramelized Carrots and Poached Quail Eggs over Salad

Not our prettiest presentation, and maybe a little over-complicated, but everything was delicious together.

Buckwheat Pasta with Red Snapper, Roasted Tomatoes and Olives

This dish was inspired by a recipe from River Cafe Two Easy, and we broke the rules to make it, as tomatoes are not even close to in season. It was pretty tasty though, and I plan to make it again this summer when I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. The original recipe calls for Red Mullet, but since they are an East Coast fish, we substituted filets of Red Snapper instead. We just roasted the tomatoes with thyme and olive oil for about a half hour (I might give them an hour next time so they get caramelized), smashed the olives, and roasted the fish for maybe 10 minutes before tossing it all together with the pasta.

Spaghetti with Anchovy, Hot Pepper and Breadcrumbs

This is a super simple recipe from Jamie Oliver. We made it with farro pasta, which I use for everything these days- it's a little bit sweet and has a really nice bite. We toasted some bread crumbs in a pan with olive oil, garlic, and some fresh thyme, and put them aside. Then we melted the anchovies with some minced garlic and hot pepper flakes, and tossed the pasta in it, adding the breadcrumbs on top.

Salmon over Lentils with Caramelized Shallots and Kale

For the salmon, I chopped up a bunch of herbs from the garden and some lemon zest, mixed them with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and drizzled the mixture over the salmon. I baked the filets for about 12 minutes in a 450 degree oven.


Meanwhile, Erik sliced the shallots very thin and caramelized them slowly in a pan with some olive oil. Then he added the kale and let it cook down. We'd soaked the lentils overnight, so all we had to do was strain them, bring them to a boil, and season them before serving.

Pasta Puttanesca with Roasted Tomatoes and Tuna

Every summer I roast and freeze tomatoes to use when they are out of season. This dish is great with fresh tomatoes, but since it's December, I tapped into my reserve and used the roasted ones instead. It actually ends up saving time, since the tomatoes are already caramelized and you can just throw them into the sauce as is.


Boil pasta. Melt anchovies in a little olive oil, and add garlic (I just throw in whole cloves), capers and chili flakes. Add tomatoes, tuna*, smashed Kalamata olives, and a little pasta water. Season with black pepper. Toss with drained pasta and serve.

*I always use tuna canned in olive oil for cooking. I think it is more flavorful and moist than the kind in water, but you could use either.