Tag Archives: inexpensive

Mexicali Taco & Co.

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I’m a fan of Mexican food and in the area of Chicago where I live there are a lot of places where I can indulge my craving for a good taco or burrito.

But on a recent trip to visit my brother and his new bride in Los Angeles, he took me to a place that blows away any Mexican restaurant I’ve ever eaten at in Chicago.

Carne Asado Taco and Chicken Vampiro

Carne Asado Taco and Chicken Vampiro

Mexicali Taco & Co., located at 702 N. Figueroa St., in downtown Los Angeles, started out as a taco truck in a vacant lot, but this past February it expanded into an attractive, if spartan, storefront restaurant across the street from an adult high school.

The food was incredible. The menu is small — offering less than a dozen items — but each was prepared lovingly and tasted incredibly fresh and delicious.

My brother is a passionate fan of the place and even had them cater his recent backyard wedding reception from their taco truck, so I asked him to order for me. I wasn’t disappointed because he ordered everything on the menu.

Everything we tasted was wonderful, but the standout was the chicken vampiro, which is a perfectly crisp quesadilla made with a soft, lush Mexican cheese and garlic sauce. I also enjoyed the carne asada cachetada, which is a tostada topped with beef, Mexican cheese and an aoli chipotle sauce.

But it doesn’t end there because diners are invited to customize their selections with a wide variety of homemade salsas and crisp fresh toppings. It’s like I died and went to Mexican food heaven!

Even though we went during the lunchtime rush and there was a long line of people waiting to order, the counterworkers were efficient in moving the line quickly and the kitchen had our food ready in just a few moments. There’s even a walk-up window where people walking past the restaurant on the sidewalk can order food to eat on the street.

The prices were extremely reasonable — $2.25 for the finest taco you will ever eat and $3.75 for the vampiro. The most expensive thing on the menu was the nachos, and it was only $6.

Despite its humble beginnings as a food truck, Mexicali Taco & Co. is no roach coach turned Mexican restaurant. The people who created this menu and prepare this food really know what they are doing and the entire experience – from the brightly colored dining room to the “old school” bottles of Coca Cola made with real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup to the cheerfulness of the employees — made it simply an unexpected treat.

My brother, Kevin, in front of his favorite Mexican restaurant

My brother, Kevin, in front of his favorite Mexican restaurant

Apparently, a group called LA Taco runs an annual “Best of” contest, and Mexicali Taco & Co. has won the top prize in the past. I’m not surprised because the food was great and the quality of the experience was superb.

So if you find yourself in Los Angeles at lunchtime — or even late night, the kitchen’s open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays — check out this treasure of a taco joint. I can’t wait to go back there!

 

Wine on Wednesday – How to Taste Wine, Part 1

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Tasting wine is neither an art nor a skill. It is a reflex.

Like anything else we put in our mouths, a combination of our senses of smell and taste send a signal to our brains, which then makes a subjective decision on whether we “like” the wine we are tasting or not.

But while everybody can taste wine, it takes a little bit more effort to appreciate wine.

That’s because in order to appreciate wine, you have to love wine. You need to know, or at least want to know, the difference between a cabernet sauvignon and a merlot and other varietals. And you need to want to know why one wine is good while another is not.

Appreciating wine is an act that requires you to use four of your five senses: Sight, taste, touch and smell.

It all begins with a bottle of wine and a glass.

While there are different wine glass shapes for different types of wine — white wine glasses are taller and thinner and red wine glasses are squatter and more globular — it really doesn’t make that much difference at first how the glass is shaped, as long as it is clean and dry.

Open your bottle of wine. Hopefully, your bottle of wine has a cork rather than a screwtop because uncorking a bottle of wine is a ritual that can be satisfying in itself. While wines with screw tops definitely tend to stay fresh longer, I find opening them to be a little disappointing because I miss the romance of the act of uncorking a bottle with a corkscrew.

If you have time, let the bottle “breathe” for a few minutes before tasting it by letting it sit undistrubed. This allows the air in the room to start reacting with the wine in the bottle — which usually has been bottled up for a long time — and has an absolute impact on the way the wine tastes.

Next, pour a little bit of wine into the glass, about an ounce. Now, look at the wine, preferably against a plain white background. What you are looking for is the wine’s clarity — that it has no haze or murkiness — and whether the wine is bright or dull. Really good wines tend to have a distinctive brilliantness to them.

You also are looking for the depth of color: Is the wine pale or dark? Generally, the deeper the color, the better the wine.

The next step is to swirl the wine around in the glass, then hold it up to the light again. Some of the wine will cling to the sides of the glass and form transparent “tears”, which are also called the wine’s “legs”. This is caused by the alcohol in the wine. The more alcohol a wine has, the thicker its legs.

The next step is to smell the wine. Our sense of smell is controlled by the olfactory gland, which is located at the top of our nose. In order to best judge a wine’s smell, it’s necessary to really stick your nose all the way into the glass so that the vapors can reach your olfactory gland.

What you are trying to smell is the wine’s aroma, the fresh, fruity smells that come from the grape. Generally, younger, more immature wines will have a simple, fruit-bomb smell that overpowers you, preventing you from smelling anything else. But older, more sophisticated wines will have an aroma that has more complexity.

You also are trying to smell the wine’s “bouquet.” This is the combination of flavors that have developed in the wine while it was being aged — either in oak barrels or in the bottle itself. These tend to be more subtle, but as you become accustomed to appreciating wines, you will be able to identify them more easily.

Swirl and smell the wine a couple of times. Use different types of sniffs: Long and deep inhalations, short sniffs, mouth open and mouth closed, eyes open and eyes closed. Pay attention to the types of smells you notice: floral aromas, spiciness, fruitiness, vegetal, animal smells, woody, smoky, chemical odors, mineral smells and others. Every wine will have a slightly different combination of these.

Next time, we will examine tasting and touching wines, and how to keep track of the wines you taste.

Low Carb Chicken Roll-Ups with Spicy Avocado Sauce

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I have been trying to cut out white sugar and white flour from my diet to drop some weight for the summer, but it’s been difficult.

Not so much that I have been craving these things, but because it seems like they are in everything!

So far, I’ve had to settle for drastically cutting back. This recipe, for example, features low-carb whole wheat tortillas, but they still contain some flour and a little sugar as well. Even the products that are suupposed to be better for you have sugar and flour!

This is a great use for leftover chicken. When I make chicken, I usually roast or grilll a whole chicken for just the two of us, so there is typically at least half of a chicken leftover. The next day, I separate the chicken from all the bones and skin, then pull the chicken into strips. Then I can either make it into a salad or toss it with some barbeque sauce and use it as a delicious pizza topping.

Avocados are one of our favorite foods, but because the weather has been so warm here in Chicago, we’ve had guacamole a lot already this year (OK, let’s face it, we never stop eating guacamole, even in the dead of winter).

So this time I went with a spicy avocado sauce that was super simple to make and was a delicious dressing for this wrap. The Sriracha sauce is very spicy, which was a refreshing compliment to the mellowness of the avocado and sour cream. But if you don’t like heat, you can reduce the amount or leave it out altogether.

This makes a delicious warm weather lunch or light dinner. I served it with plantain slices that I pan fried then simply seasoned with a little salt and pepper to give the dish a Carribean feel. The plantains were very good when they first came out of the pan, but they became soggy fast. Next time, I think I will either slice them thinner or grill them.

Low Carb Chicken Roll-Ups with Spicy Avocado Sauce

4 Low-Carb Whole Wheat Tortillas

1/2 lb chicken, pulled into thin strips

1/2 green bell pepper, ribs and skins removed, julienned

1/2 yellow bell pepper, ribs and skins removed, julienned

1/4 cup cabbage, sliced thin

2 green onions, sliced on the bias

4 to 5 leaves red leaf lettuce, chopped into thin strips

1/4 red onion, very thinly julienned

For the Spicy Avocado Sauce

2 avocados, mashed

1/2 cup fat free sour cream

1 TBS Sriracha Sauce

Sea salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Basically, you are making a chicken salad. Put the chicken and all the vegetables in a mixing bowl and toss together.

2. Combine mashed avocados, sour cream and Sriracha sauce in a separate bowl and mix together with a fork or spatula. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

3. Combine chicken mixture with dressing and toss until evenly coated. Lay tortilla on a flat surface, spoon filling into center then carefully roll up into a tight wrap. Try to prevent the salad from coming out the ends. Seal with a toothpick placed in the center of the roll-up.

What kind of warm weather dishes are you looking forward to making in the summer months? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Meat Free Mondays — Grilled Vegetable Salad

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Now that the weather is warming up, it’s time to clean up the grill, get some fresh propane or charcoal, and start thinking about the best menus for cooking out.

Cooking on the grill can be more limiting for vegetarians than it is for carnivores, but for those looking to avoid meat the backyard barbeque need not be avoided altogether.

For example, I recently wrote about a party I catered that featured a California vegetarian menu — with meat options — that focused on grilled vegan burgers and tofu dogs.

Today we will consider the grilled vegetable salad, one of my personal favorite summertime vegetarian meals.

The grilled vegetable salad offers a lot of different options for the home chef: various kinds of vegetables to include, fun plating opportunities, and a variety of salads that can anchor the plate — including those made with greens, grains or even beans.

Any kind of vegetable can be grilled: If you can cook it, you can grill it. Some, however, benefit from being blanched — the process of steaming or boiling until softened, then immersing in ice water to halt the cooking process — before being “marked” on the grill. Among these would be asparagus, potatoes, carrots and other harder textured vegetables.

Others grill perfectly from the raw state. These include any kind of peppers, onions, eggplant, mushrooms and other softer textured vegetables.

When grilling vegetables, there’s a couple of key concepts to remember:

  • You are grilling vegetables, not charring or burning them. Usually, veggies work best if you simply mark them for a few moments over the hottest part of the grill, then move them to a cooler spot where there is indirect heat for them to complete their cooking without becoming overcooked.
  • While you can grill any kind of vegetable, try to include a variety of colors, shapes and flavors to liven up your final plate. If all your vegetables are green, for example, the final product will look boring.
  • Grilled vegetables give you a lot of freedom for creative plating. Think of your plate as a frame and arrange your vegetables artfully for the most appealing visual effect. Don’t forget about the 3-D opportunities your plating can include: Consider stacking your vegetables into “towers” so that they come up out of the plate.
  • Don’t forget to use pan spray and seasoning for all your vegetables. A tiny bit of salt and pepper will bring out the natural flavors of your grilled vegetables.

For this salad, I used zucchini, yellow squash, red bell pepper, asparagus and eggplant (it’s under the salad where I used it as a pedestal), then topped it with a chopped salad of red leaf lettuce, sliced cabbage for a crunchy texture, and julienned tomatoes and radish, all topped with crumbled Gorgonzola cheese.

Grilled vegetables can be served warm or cold and can easily be marked off hours before you serve them. In restaurants, we would arrange our intricate vegetable platters long before service then simply warm them up for a few moments under the broiler, in the oven or even in the microwave to speed up service.

Finally, leftover grilled vegetables can be chopped up and served again later as a ratatouille if you like.

Grilled vegetables are a welcome addition to any plate at any time of the year, but take on a more prominent role on summer dinner menus. As this year’s grilling season begins, it’s time to start thinking about the best ways to feature our vegetables by grilling them.

What grilled vegetable dishes do you love to make? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Seafood Fridays – Shark Kabobs

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One of my most treasured memories is snorkeling inside the cone of an underwater volcano off the coast of Maui on my honeymoon.

The crystal clear water was about 50 feet deep and as I swam around I could look down on a dazzling display of sea life, including thousands of colorful fish and swaying sea plants. Then I saw the sharks.

There were three of them and they were about the same length as me. I watched as they swam along the bottom minding their own business. I wasn’t afraid of being attacked. Instead, I was fascinated by how menacing they looked and how incredible it was to be actually swimming among sharks.

Then it struck me: On some days the shark eats you. On other days, you eat the shark.

I was reminded of that experience when I saw shark meat on sale at the one of the local produce marts I visit regularly. It was extremely affordable — $3.99/lb — so I snapped it up.

I have cooked shark before and I remembered that it was a firm-fleshed fish, sort of like tuna but not as flavorful. When I brought it home, I decided to use it in shark kabobs.

Shark meat should not be eaten too frequently because it can have high levels of mercury. The US Food and Drug Administration recommends not eating shark meat more than twice per month, and pregnant women should avoid it altogether.

The meat is quite tasteless and dry, so you probably will want to marinate shark meat before cooking it. You can use a commercial salad dressing or make your own marinade, but you definitely will want to add flavor and moisture to shark.

Shark Kabobs

1 lb shark meat

1 bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, cut into large peices

4 button mushrooms

Fresh pineapple, cut into large chunks

Red onion, peeled and cut into large chunks

2 tomatoes, cored and halved

1/2 leek, cleaned and cut into large chunks

Sea salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

For the marinade

1/2 cup pineapple juice (or orange juice)

2 TBS Extra virgin olive oil

1 clove garlic, crushed

1. Combine pineapple juice, EVOO and garlic in a glass or ceramic mixing bowl. Don’t use a metal mixing bowl or acid could react with the metal and affect the way the meat tastes. Cut shark into large chunks and mix around in the mariade. Cover with plastic and refrigerate 30 minutes. Remove from marinade.

2. Submerge wooden shish kabob spears in water about 10 minutes prior to assembling your shish kabobs. This will help prevent them from burning up on the grill.

3. Assemble your shark kabobs in any order that you like. I always make sure each kabob is exactly the same because when I worked in restaurants customers would complain if somebody else’s kabob had more of one particular item than their kabob. As you assemble the kabobs, lay them out in a baking pan and brush them with the marinade.

4. Preheat grill. When hot, scrape down the grill with a metal brush to remove any debris, then lubricate the grill using a clean rag dipped in oil. Spray the kabobs with pan spray then season them with salt and pepper. Place the kabobs on the grill for about a minute just to mark them, then careful flip over to mark the other side. Remove kabobs to a cooler part of the grill not directly over the heat, brush them again with marinade and let them cook through, about 7 minutes.

I served my shark kabobs on a bed of brown rice and garnished them with fresh cilantro.

Have you ever tried shark meat? What did you think? Share your story in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Menu Planning

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Cookout season is coming up so it might be a good time to talk about menu planning.

The most successful parties have a theme, either stated or implicit. For example, a typical backyard barbeque most likely would feature grilled burgers, dogs and maybe some ribs and chicken. Sides probably would include potato salad, cole slaw and perhaps a tossed salad.

Desserts would be ice cream and pie, or perhaps a cake if it’s a special celebration such as a birthday.

This menu all fits together because it is thematically united. In other words, the foods all go together.

Menu planning can be the best part of any occasion because it’s fun and everybody can get involved. Coming up with great ideas and then executing them so that your guests enjoy themselves at your party is one of the most rewarding of all experiences.

Restaurants do the same thing, only on a more permanent scale. The menus restaurant chefs create are thematically united – Italian, Asian/French Fusion, All-American Grille, etc. — but the menus are repeated daily, with only minor seasonal changes and daily specials thrown into the equation.

Once your menu is planned, you can build on your creation by adding the most appropriate decorations and even music if you like.

I recently catered my brother-in-law’s birthday party at the new house my younger brother and his wife recently bought in Los Angeles’s up-and-coming Highland Park neighborhood. Because many of the guests were first-time visitors to LA, I wanted to evoke the California vegetarian tradition, but with meat as an option.

Because we were grilling outside, I immediately thought of veggie burgers and tofu hot dogs. I added hamburgers, turkey burgers and turkey dogs to the protein list, all of which were served on whole wheat burger buns.

For sides, I chose quinoa salad, smoked mozzarella pasta salad, cole slaw, macaroni salad and Asian chicken salad.

As an appetizer, I served my homemade guacamole with soy chips, and a spinach and artichoke flatbread.

Dessert was a giant birthday cake bought from a nearby supermarket.

I asked my young neices to make handmade signs for all everything, which they enjoyed a lot and which added a nice homespun feel to the event.

The party was a huge success, and the menu was extremely well received. Those people who weren’t familiar with vegetarian food enjoyed sampling California vegan cuisine, adding to their vacation adventure.

Selecting a menu that will resonate with your guests and enhance their experience at your party can turn a simple backyard get together into an event your friends and family won’t soon forget.

Wine on Wednesdays – Malbec

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I prefer red wines to whites and my favorite reds are zinfandels, shirazes and malbecs, in that order.

Each has a unique flavor: Zinfandels tend to be vegetable-like and spicy and usually have a distinctive green bell pepper flavor. Shirazes are a mellower version of zinfandels, sort of like the way merlot is a mellower version of cabernet sauvignon.

Malbecs tend to be in your face fruit bombs, which I like sometimes.

While malbec grapes are made into wines all over the world, there are two major types of malbecs. The first come from France, where they are mixed with other grapes to make Bordeaux. While these wines are quite delicious, they tend to be too expensive for me.

The second come from Argentina, which essentially has made malbec its national wine. Most Argentinean malbecs are grown in the Mendoza Province, although some vintners have been experimenting with growing the grapes at higher altitudes.

The grapes of the Mendoza Province are irrigated by mineral-enriched water flowing down from the Andes Mountains, which is nice to think about while sipping these wines.

While French malbec grapes tend to be large and loose, Argentinean malbec grapes grow smaller and in tighter clusters. Some wine experts contend that Argentinean malbecs are more closely related to the original French malbecs which were brought to South America from Europe in the mid-19th Century. Most of France’s malbec grapes were wiped out by a phylloxera epidemic.

This particular Malbec — Bodega Elena de Mendoza — is produced by Daniela Romero, whose family emigrated to Argentina from Italy in the mid-19th Century, about the same time the Argentinean wine industry was first getting up and running. It is named after Elena Napoli, the family’s matriarch. The brand is distributed by Gallo, the giant wine company.

I enjoy this particular malbec for two reasons: First, it tastes great. It has a bold fruity flavor but is still smooth enough to enjoy. Second, it is affordable, selling for $7.99/bottle at our local supermarket, which offers a 15% discount if you buy six mixed bottles of wine, bringing the final price to $6.79. This wine is a bargain at that price.

If you are looking for an affordable, lush wine that pairs well with strong flavors and grilled meats, check out Argentinean malbecs for a delicious alternative to cabernet sauvignons or zinfandels.

Corned Beef Hash

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A confession: One of my guilty pleasures is corned beef hash.

The kind that comes out of a can and looks like dog food. I know, right?

Whenever my wife and I go out to breakfast at our favorite diner – or anywhere for that matter – I always order the same thing: Corned beef hash and eggs over easy with Greek toast. It’s become sort of a running joke between us that someday I will order something else, but that day has never arrived.

I just love the way corned beef tastes, especially when it’s all mixed up with the eggs and the hash browns. Health food, it’s not. But I could eat it every morning if I wasn’t afraid I would die of a heart attack before I turned 50.

After this weekend (St. Patrick’s Day, remember?), I found myself with some leftover corned beef and potatoes. So I thought, why not try to make “healthy” corned beef hash? At least healthier than the kind that comes out of a can.

Chef’s tip: In most restaurants that serve breakfast, the corned beef hash they sell still comes out of a can. They are just really big cans.

Anyway, it turned out delicious, although it didn’t hold together the way the canned stuff does. I think if I had a meat grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid, I would have put it through the grinder to get that kind of consistency. But the flavor was still superior to the canned version and the crispiness as perfect.

So a belated happy St. Patrick’s Day to everybody. Now I have to figure out what I’m going to do with all this cabbage!

Corned Beef Hash

1/2 lb corned beef, cooked

2-3 red potatoes, cooked

Fresh cracked black pepper

1 TBS sunflower oil

1. Chop corned beef until fine. Cut potatoes into small dice size. Combine in mixing bowl and season generously with black pepper. You probably won’t need to add any additional salt because the corned beef already has a lot of salt in it.

2. Put cast iron skillet on the fire. When hot, add oil. When smoking, place corned beef hash in pan, being carefuly not to splash yourself with the hot oil. Use a spatula to form a rough patty shape.

3. Fry corned beef over medium heat until bottom is brown and crispy, about 3 minutes. Carefully flip patty with spatula then fry other side until brown and crispy. Remove to plate lined with paper towel to remove some of the grease, then transfer to serving plate.

I made hash browns out of the leftover red potatoes by passing them through a box grater, seasoning them and then frying them until crispy in a cast iron skillet. The corned beef hash and hash browns can be made ahead of time and kept warm in a 200F oven if you are making breakfast for a big group of people and want to make eggs to order.

What sort of guilty pleasures do you indulge yourself in every once in awhile? Share your story in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

 

Meat Free Mondays – The Ultimate Vegan Burger

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How do you define the ultimate vegan burger?

Is it the one with the best flavor? Is it the one with a texture closest to a hamburger? Is it the mouth feel?

Sadly, most commercial vegan burgers I’ve tried fail on all these criteria. They tend to be firm like ground beef, but sometimes they can be rubbery. Plus, store-bought vegan burgers are designed to appeal to the broadest audience, so they often lack any complexity of flavor.

I’ve been playing around with different vegan burger recipes trying to find one that has both the right texture and a lot of flavor. The biggest challenge has been finding a recipe that holds together without becoming crumbly when you cook it.

Ground beef has fat which binds the burger together, but vegan burgers tend to be low-fat or fat-free. Mashed up beans make a good binder, but they also can make the vegan burger taste pasty. Freezing the patties prior to cooking them will hold them together in the skillet or on the grill, but the burgers will still be crumbly once they are on the bun.

This recipe has plenty of flavor, plus it is made in the food processor. That combined with the beets make it bright red so that it actually looks like ground beef.

But it was still kind of crumbly. I thought the oatmeal would bind it better — and it did absorb a lot of the liquid — and the end result was delicious but could still be improved.

I served it with an Israeli couscous salad, which is pretty much the same recipe as the quinoa salad I made the other day, except I used Israeli couscous instead of quinoa, I used rice wine vinegar instead of lemon juice in the dressing, I included diced beets (which sort of stained it red), and I topped it with crumbled Gorgonzola. It was delicious.

Israeli couscous is just like regular couscous — both are made with granules of toasted pasta –  except the granules are much larger. Plus it’s from Israel.

Vegan Burger

3 cups brown rice, cooked

1/2 cup oatmeal, dry

1/2 cup lentils, cooked (okay, I used canned!)

1/2 cup carrots, rough chop

1/2 cup red onion, rough chop

1 medium beet, cooked and peeled, rough chop

1/4 cup celery, stem and leaves, rough chop

1/4 cup button mushrooms, sliced

2 TBS low-sodium soy sauce

3 cloves garlic, crushed

3 tsp Dijon mustard

3 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp fresh cracked black pepper

1. Place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until combined, then run the food processor until the mixture has the consistency of ground beef.

2. Remove to mixing bowl. Portion and shape into 8 oz patties and place on a sheet pan lined with wax paper. Cover with a second sheet of wax paper and place in refrigerator overnight. This helps the patties to firm up so they won’t fall apart when you cook them.

3. Cook in a cast iron skillet or on the grill until cooked through. Serve on whole wheat buns with burger set ups — red leaf lettuce, sliced tomato and sliced red onion – and big kosher pickles on the side.

Have you found a great vegan burger? Help us out by sharing the recipe in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Seafood Fridays – Grouper

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Grouper always reminds me of family vacations in Florida.

That’s because my parents used to have a condo on Siesta Key, which is near Sarasota on the Gulf Coast, and grouper is very common on restaurant menus in that area because it is plentiful in the Gulf.

Grouper is one of my favorites because it is from the sea bass family. It is firm fleshed like mahi mahi or even tuna, yet its meat is slightly sweet and still flaky.

I find grouper to be one of the most durable fish to cook. It is most commonly deep fried, but it also will stand up to grilling, like salmon or tuna. Most importantly, it is delicious.

Grouper is a very interesting fish. In comes in a lot of different varieties and can be found all over the globe. In the Gulf, it is sometimes called jewfish and can grow up to 700 lbs. Yet it is commonly caught with a fishing line under bridges and in narrow creeks.

Fun fact: Groupers are born and mature as females, then become males when they grow older. They also have no muscular bones, so they are easy to fillet, although the skin is extremely tough and difficult to remove.

Because grouper meat is so chunky and can withstand a lot of cooking, it is used a lot in stews and chowders. It is also commonly found in bouillabaise and paella.

In Florida, we most commonly ate grouper that was deep fried or grilled and served on a sandwich. So that’s how I prepared it for this recipe. I served it with a chipotle aioli, quinoa salad and braised mustard greens.

There are two ways to make the chipotle aioli: The easy way and the hard way.

For the hard way, you use a food processor to blend one egg yolk, one TBS of lemon juice and just a touch of Dijon mustard together, then slowly add 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil until it is emulsified into a mayonnaise, seasoning it with salt and pepper. Then you fold in 3 TBS chipotle salsa.

For the easy way, you just mix one cup of mayonnaise (preferably reduced fat) and the chipotle salsa. Most of the restaurants serving chipotle aioli make it the easy way, in my experience.

The grouper is simply sprayed with pan spray, seasoned with sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper and then grilled until done. It was served on whole wheat rolls.

Here’s the recipe for the quinoa salad:

Quinoa Salad

2 cups water

1 cup quinoa

1/4 cup red onion, small dice

2 stalks celery, medium dice

1/4 cup cucumber, peeled and seeds removed, medium dice

1/3 cup parsley, chopped

3 radish, small dice

2 green onions, sliced thin

1 jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed, small dice

1 clove garlic, crushed

Juice of 1 lemon

1/2 cup EVOO

1. Bring water to a boil and whisk in quinoa. Return to a boil, reduce heat and cover. Cook 12 minutes. Turn off and let sit 15 minutes so all the liquid is absorbed. Remove cover, fluff with fork and let sit until it’s at room temperature.

2. Combine cooled quinoa with onion, parsely, cucumber, radish, green onion, celery and jalapeno in a mixing bowl. Juice lemon into a separate mixing bowl, add garlic, then slowly whisk in EVOO until emulsified into a dresssing. Season with S&P, then fold into the quinoa salad. Season salad with S&P, then refrigerate at least 30 minutes so the flavors can meld together.

Are there any foods that remind you of your family vacations? Let us know what they are in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!