Welcome to Friday Photos, a weekly feature here on Celiac in the City — you can read how it all started by clicking HERE.)
I’ve had some requests over on my Facebook page for the recipes from some of the Friday Photos… the funny thing is, the recipes that they asked for were kind of “on-the-fly.”
That’s how cooking goes sometimes around this house. We get hungry, head to the fridge, and see what we can find.
Case in point? These nachos.
Buffalo Chicken Tater Tot Nachos
gluten-free tater tots – we used Ore Ida, but always check the bag
pre-cooked chicken – cubed or shredded
buffalo sauce – Franks hot sauce with 1 tablespoon (or more if you’d like) butter
shredded cheese – any will do, we had provolone
chives or green onions
ranch dressing
You can make this as one serving, or for a whole crowd. Pre-cook the tater tots until crispy, but a few minutes from being done. While they are baking, pour the hot sauce into a pan and melt butter to make buffalo sauce. Add chicken (you can use a roasted chicken or sautéed chicken breasts) to the sauce to combine.
Remove tater tots from the oven and top with the chicken. Load it up with shredded cheese and return to oven to melt into ooey-gooey cheesiness.
Drizzle with ranch dressing and chives/onions. We served ours with leftover waffles — yum!
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And other times we had all the ingredients but didn’t really make a plan for how to put them all together.
Like this seafood sampler from last weekend in Palm Springs.
My Mamasita sort of had a plan — she knew she had tilapia, swordfish and salmon and she was already dreaming about some edamame-potato puree, but we were recipe-less.
So we just went for it. (a wind storm in the evening meant the grill was a no-go, so we had to get a little creative to cook three kinds of fish at once) After we poured some wine, things just fell into place.
Like I said, no recipes really, but I’ll let you know what went down that night and you just feel free to adapt it to fit your needs. Let me know if you make any of these and how it turns out.
For the tilapia and salmon: Pat the fish dry then coat with olive oil. (you can pour it on and rub it in, or put in a baggie if you don’t want to get your hands messy — but that is half the fun) Salt and pepper both sides of the fish. We stayed basic with ours, but you could do dill or any seasoning you’d like.
Put under the broiler, cook one side until it starts to crisp a little and you get some color — flip over and cook the other side until fish flakes easily with fork. (times will vary depending on thickness of the filet) If lemon is your thing, you can add lemon slices on top of the filets in the last minutes of cooking, or just squeeze over the fish before serving.
Swordfish: I’ll be honest, I had no idea what I was doing with this one. (but it turned out well!) Heat pan to medium-high heat, add a tablespoon of butter and a drizzle of olive oil. Add 1/4 cup thinly sliced onions and heat until the onion starts to soften. Smash a clove of garlic and toss it in the pan. (the whole place will smell amazing)
Pat the fish dry, salt and pepper each side, then place the fish in the pan and sear one side until golden brown, flip and cook the other side until opaque and flakes easily with a fork. You can squeeze lemon juice on this one too.
Sautéed Asparagus: Heat a tablespoon of olive in a large pan and bring to medium-high heat. Add a clove of garlic, minced and give it a couple of minutes, but don’t let it get brown.
Put your bunch of asparagus (that you have already soaked/rinsed well) into the pan and add salt/pepper. A tongs works well for this cooking technique, keep the asparagus moving around in the pan until your desired doneness. We like ours a little firm, no mushy asparagus for this girl.
Edamame-Potato Puree: Prepare a package of frozen (already shelled) edamame as directed on package. Peel, cube and boil two large potatoes. Be sure to reserve a cup of the potato water before draining.
After done cooking, puree edamame in your blender — use as much of the reserved water as needed to make a smooth puree. Return the potatoes to the pot and add a tablespoon of butter and enough milk or cream to make them as creamy as you’d like. Use a hand mixer for this. Then add the edamame puree into the potatoes and combine. Salt and pepper to taste.
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The open market was such a treat, after the chilly temps here in Milwaukee last week.
(Hi Mamasita! I think our kids should call you Gramasita, yes?)
And then there was the view from our condo in the morning.
Breathtaking.
And this view during the day was pretty sweet too — made for an easy run to finish off Week 3 of the C25K.
This is how I treated myself to rounding off week 4 today.
Updates from this week:
- It’s day 25 of real food (pretty close to 100% of the time, hioooo!)
- Down to once a week for coffee
- Week 5 is up next for the Couch to 5k — are you joining me for our 5k run/walk in May?
- 5lbs down… let’s keep the scale moving (our honeymoon is in March — in PUERTO RICO!)
What about you, how was YOUR week?
