Hi friends!

Happy Tuesday!  And I do mean HAPPY.  Happy to be DONE with political ads after today!  Anyone else tired of it all?  The debates, the mudslinging, the ridiculous ads…. it sure seems to start earlier every year.  It’s been at least 3 months of this right?  So now we get maybe 8 more months of peace?  Let’s enjoy!

I received your comments on egg poaching and will definitely get working on a post describing some different methods!  Thank you for the feedback!

Today I’m doing some test cooking of a couple of recipes I’ve come up with for our next homework project due next week.   I’m going to try a tilapia roulade (most likely stuffed with daikon radish and carrots) and also a wild rice & arame side dish (which I will definitely share if it turns out since I know you guys would like to get some more ways to incorporate sea veggies into your meals). I just got back from a trip to Sprouts to pick up some of the ingredients and will be donning my apron and clogs shortly!

In the meantime, I thought I’d share some more photos of some of our recent food productions at school.

From Vegetable Proteins Day:

My teammate and I were assigned the Lentil Millet Burgers with a “cheesy” Almond Sauce:

Have you tried making cheese sauce from soaked nuts or seeds, such as cashews, almonds or pine nuts? This is another fun thing to take to parties to get people talking.  I’ve taken cashew cheese to two parties now, and it’s been pretty popular!

Some of the day’s other recipes included an African-Style Quinoa Stew:

Kale with Seaweed:

Raw Chocolate Mint Truffles with Spirulina:

Talk about a great way to add booster foods into your diet!  Coat it in chocolate!  ;)   These were amazing and so was the plating done by one of the class members.

From Fish Day:

Fish day was a blast.  My team recipe was Tea-Smoked Fish.  Basically you line a cast-iron pan with foil, add some loose herbal tea of choice (we used red clover and lemonbalm) mixed with some dry brown rice, and then you cover that with a bamboo steamer that is housing your fish.  You slowly let the tea and rice smoke (without burning it!) and it will smoke the fish above it!  It hadn’t made into my mind that it would be like smoked salmon  and as such still LOOK raw.  I kept thinking our fish wasn’t done!

But it WAS! And it had wonderful flavor.  This is a technique I’ll definitely try again so that I can get some good practice at it!  However, I might have to do it outside to keep my kitchen from smelling like a BBQ shack! ;)

We also had some Seared Tuna:

Herbed Fish Cakes with Aioli:

And a Bouillabaisse Salad:

After fish day, I decided that I wanted to use fish in my upcoming homework because would love to have my homecooked fish taste as amazing as it does when I eat at a restaurant (but healthier!).

On the topic of seafood:  A website you should check into is SEAFOOD WATCH by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where you can print off a handy “Pocket Guide” to carry with you as you shop for seafood.  This pocket guide will let you know whether certain fish are currently being overfished, which are being sustainably caught or farmed, and whether they are currently registering high in toxins.  If you prefer there is even an iPhone app!

This pocket guide has already taught me a lot.  For example, I would always see Chilean seabass on menus (and wanted to order, but it’s expensive).  Now I’m glad that I haven’t ordered it because I’ve read on Seafood Watch that this fish is on the AVOID list not only because it is extremely overfished, but also because of the illegal methods used to catch them.  And the site provides you with a better alternative, which in this case would be striped bass.

So the next time you want to purchase seafood at the store or at a restaurant, consult your little pocket guide and you’ll know what your best options are!

Well, friends, on that note I’m off to cook some tilapia!

Have a fabulous Tuesday!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

Related FitFeat Posts to Check Out: