Funky Hugger Cuisine: March 2010

Recipe of the Week: March 29

Seared Ahi Tuna and Salad of Mixed Greens with Wasabi Vinaigrette
Hi! Jon here. I like to cook for Aimee and I often cook fish. Recently I decided to get the sashimi grade ahi tuna at our local fish market. I found a fun little Rachel Ray recipe (linked above) and followed it pretty closely. I opted for real wasabi paste instead of the super horseradish-y stuff, and I added half an avocado to the top of each of our plates. The results were delic -- err, YUM-O!

Recipe(s) of the Week: March 22

The February issue of Vegetarian Times had a really great group of healthy soup recipes, and Jon and I made three of them. Seriously, they were all so good I can't even pick a favorite. Try them! There's nothing like a pot of soup on the stove to make your house smell amazing. All of these recipes make enough to have leftovers, which are perfect for the next day's lunch.

Smoky Split Pea Soup
This one takes the longest to make, and you have to soak the split peas overnight. But it was delicious! And once you get started, it's really not that much work.

Red Pepper-Carrot Soup
You can finish this in a lot less time than the recipe suggests if you roast the peppers over a burner rather than in the oven. Just put the pepper on a skewer or use some tongs and hold it over the burner until it's black all over. And don't worry too much about getting all the skin off. I think a few charred bits add a nice smoky flavor.

Minestrone with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and White Beans
This recipe comes together the quickest, and has a great flavor. If you don't have white wine vinegar, I think red wine, champagne, or sherry vinegar would be fine.

That's all for now! Next up: Jon's Seared Ahi Salad with Wasabi Vinaigrette. So good!

January and February, 2010

In 2008, Jon and I bought a new digital camera and on a whim, decided to photograph everything we cooked. It was a means of recording the things we liked and didn't like, recommendations for the next time around, and a way to show our friends and family how we spend many, many of our waking hours. Though at first we weren't sure we'd make it the entire year, we discovered that that we really enjoyed it, especially the positive comments from our (few) loyal readers.

In 2009, we decided to take the year off. We attended something like seven weddings last summer, including our own. We had little time to relax, much less take pictures of food. But we missed it! And so, in 2010, we decided to start a real food blog--one that looks a little nicer and that people might actually want to read.

This is the first installment. We've been photographing food since the beginning of the year, but I only recently became ambitious enough to organize everything and start writing about it. In the interest of space and your attention span, these are just the highlights of the past few months.