When Vegetables Attack!

Dear Tricia, I need to find a way to use up everything when I buy a lot of veggies.

I got this question on my Facebook fan page (thanks, Erin) when I opened up a little conversation about vegetables. And its a good one, because no one likes to throw food away, unless you're a waster... and no one likes a waster. On a side note, I can totally relate to this because when I lived in San Francisco, I used to go the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market every Saturday and come home with a bag full of random produce that I had no intention of cooking within a week. It all just looked too pretty not to buy. Some people splurge on shoes, I splurge on pretty vegetables.
When I need to use up random veggies, (which never happens anymore, because feeding my husband is like feeding a 14 year old, garbage disposal stomach of a boy) I always make them into an easy enchilada casserole. I've written about this before too, when I was writing about how to eat your feelings without getting cellulite, but I'm happy to share it again. You'll need said excess veggies, a package of corn tortillas, two cans of enchilada sauce, a can of refried beans, and shredded cheddar cheese. (I like to use non fat for everything, but you can use whatever you want.)
To start off with, cut up your veggies into bite sized pieces. Steaming them without any gadgets is easy; just get a saute pan really hot (and seriously, wait until its really hot or this trick won't work), throw the veggies in there, pour in 1/2 cup of water and put a lid on it. When the water is completely evaporated, your veggies will be just about done. You don't want to crowd the pan and dump like 2 pounds of veggies in there because that's too much to cook at once. So do it in batches... just enough veggies to cover the bottom of the pan. When you're done, put all of your veggies together in a bowl.
Next, get a casserole dish ready. Put two tortillas in the bottom. Using a spatula or a knife, spread a healthy layer of refried beans on the tortillas. Then put a layer of vegetables on top. Pour about a 1/4 cup of enchilada sauce on the veggies. Repeat this until you've filled up the dish. You should use up the entire can of enchilada sauce. Once you've finished, put two last tortillas on top and pour the other can of sauce on them. Top it with a layer of shredded cheese and throw that sucker in the oven at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. When its melted and gooey, its ready, and you can eat your feelings, not get cellulite, and use up your vegetables. Congratulations, you just killed 3 birds with one stone.
Bird murderer.

The Truth about Tilapia

Dear Tricia, Talk to me about tilapia.

Talk to you about tilapia? Hmmm, should I tell you about that time it got in trouble in the 9th grade for selling history essays to jocks for $50 a pop? Or I could tell you about that one time it formed an all-girl group called the Hot Sundaes but got hooked on caffeine pills and ruined their chance at mainstream stardom. But you probably don't want to know that kind of stuff about tilapia. I'm guessing you want to know how to cook it. No problem.
Tilapia is a mild-tasting, white fish that lives in warm, shallow, fresh water. (Read: it doesn't come from the ocean.) Its super healthy for you because its high in protein, and low in carbs, fat and calories, unless its farm-raised. Farm raised tilapia is more commonly seen in grocery stores and its actually really high in fat. Try to avoid any farm raised fish if you can, especially tilapia. Its more expensive, but I believe that its completely worth it. Just my opinion.
Because tilapia filets are usually pretty small (you can only eat about 30% of the entire fish, which isn't much, compared to say tuna, where about 50% of the fish is edible), it cooks really quickly. And because its so mild-tasting, you can season it with whatever you want.
If you're on a health kick, the easiest way to cook tilapia is by preheating your oven to 400, putting it on a piece of foil to keep it from dripping, and seasoning it with anything you like: I like to go old school and just use Old Bay Seasoning. But look in your spice cabinet and use what sounds good... anything lemony or garlicky is awesome too. Put it in the oven and it only has to cook for about 8 minutes. (This may vary. If you preheated your oven like I told you to, it will be around 8 minutes. If you turned on your oven and then put the fish in right after then its obviously going to take longer. Le duh.) "But how will I know if its done, Tricia?" Its simple. The fish was kind of translucent when you put it in there, right? When the fish is solid white, then its done. If you're not sure, take a knife and open it up a little bit... the center should be white. And if its just about there, but not quite, you can go ahead and take it out of the oven because it will continue to cook another 5 degrees or so. (This is called "carry over cooking." It happens to every kind of meat when you take it out of the oven or off the stove.) Finish it off with a squeeze of lemon or lime and you're all set to go. Simple, and easy.
If you want to get a little fancier and aren't concerned about calories, try this:
1. Get about two tablespoons of butter ready, and chop up a clove of garlic. (The already chopped up stuff in the jar works fine too.)
2. Get a small bowl of milk ready and take your piece of tilapia and dip it in the milk. Make sure both sides get coated. Then sprinkle both sides with grated Parmesan cheese. Press down on the cheese lightly to make it stick on the fish. (If you don't like Parmesan cheese, you can use breadcrumbs. You can buy them already made at the grocery store, or click here to learn how to make your own.)
3. Put a saute pan on medium-high heat on your stove and let it get hot. (You can also do this while you're coating the fish.)
4. Melt the butter in the pan and put the garlic in there while its melting. Stir it around a little so that the garlic gets coated with butter.
5. When the butter is melted, put the Parmesan tilapia in the pan and let it cook for about a minute or two.
6. After a minute or two, use a spatula to turn the filet over to finish cooking. As soon as you turn it over, turn the heat down to medium. It should take another 2 minutes or so to finish cooking. Again, you'll know when it done when the fish is no longer translucent.

If its taking longer than this to cook, then you're not letting your pan get hot enough before you add the butter. The butter should make noise when you put it in the pan. Noise is good when you're cooking: it means something's happening in the pan. When you get good at that, you can start slamming pots around and slamming oven doors and dropping f-bombs and pretending like you're a professional chef. That's how it is in the real world.

On a side note, I would like to apologize for the month-long gap in my blogging. I got married in May and have been a little preoccupied. But I'm back from my honeymoon now and will get back to my regular writing. Thanks for reading! And don't forget to share your favorite blogs on Facebook and Twitter using the links on the right.

Easy, Cracker!

So I'm going back to an oldie but a goodie again, but for two very good reasons that all happened yesterday. Yesterday morning while my fiance was making me some post-birthday hangover eggs, he asked me for help on how to crack an egg without getting shell in it. And then last night while I was up late obsessing over this cool new show called Future Food, I saw an infomercial for a product called the EZ Cracker. It's a little plastic contraption of sorts that cracks an egg for you without getting the shell in it. Here's what they claim:

EZ Cracker is the new and easy way to crack and separate eggs. It cracks eggs, separates egg whites, and strip shells from hard boiled eggs in just seconds. Now you can enjoy eggs without any mess or hassles. You no longer have to worry about tiny pieces of egg shells getting into your food.


Right, because I stay up late at night, losing sleep, worrying about tiny egg shells in my food.

One of the first questions I received when I started this blog, was "What's the proper way to crack an egg? I always get pieces of shell in mine." I'm going to rewrite that blog here so that you can learn how to crack an egg with your own two hands, like a big boy, without having to shell out $20 bucks (Pun Alert!) for a plastic piece of shit that sounds like its a large African American man, yelling at me. "Easy, cracker!!"

1. Use a FLAT surface to crack the egg. If you use the lip of a bowl or the corner of the counter top, the edge just causes more unnecessary breakage that create tiny broken pieces of shell. What you're trying to do is create one simple broken line so that you can put your thumbs in there and open up the egg. You don't want to smash the daylights out of it. Then you'll look like one of the stroke victims in the commercial who act like they only learned hand-eye coordination yesterday. So just tap the egg on a flat counter, and put your thumbs in the crack to open up the shell. Easy peasy.

2. Don't be an idiot and bang things against the egg like in the commercial. Seriously, don't. The "actor" (I wonder how much she got paid) was banging a fork against an egg and it cracked all over the place and made a mess. Its just you, the egg, and a counter top. Leave the foreign objects out of it. (And why a fork?? Why not something substantial, like a meat tenderizer or something?)

3. If you get shells in your egg, use a big piece of shell to get the little pieces out. I know, it tempting to stick your fingers in there and chase that piece of shell around for like 10 minutes because "I can grab it, just wait a second," but swallow your pride and use a piece of shell. It works the fastest, every time.

4. If you're baking something and you have to add eggs to a recipe, crack the eggs in their own bowl first. Then if there's any shell in it, you can pick them out first before you add them to your Aunt Tillie's morning glory muffins. If you try breaking an egg over the side of a bowl (that's your first mistake. I said to use a flat surface.) to add them right into your recipe mix, you're probably going to get shells in everything, especially if you're new at this whole cracking of the eggs dilemma. And then you'll be digging around the batter trying to find a piece of shell, when you could have followed my advice and cracked the eggs in their own bowl.

5. To peel boiled eggs, all you need to do is put those eggs in a bowl of ice water as soon as they're done cooking. I swear by this trick. Its called "shocking" the eggs. Let them chill in the water until cold and they'll take off their shells like they were on "Huevos Gone Wild."

6. To separate egg whites from the yolk, crack the egg on a flat surface. But then, when you break open the shell with your thumbs, keep the egg in the biggest of the two shell halves. If you tip the shell and jiggle it around a little, the white will pour off the side and leave the yolk in the shell. If that's too difficult, you can break the egg into a bowl, and then use one of the shell halves to scoop the yolk out.

** My Aunt read this entry and emailed me, reminding me that you can use your fingers to separate eggs. You can crack the egg into your hand, an let the white slip through your fingers while the yolk stays in your hand. While she's right, one of my mentors in a restaurant I worked at wouldn't let me do this. We saved all of our whites to make meringue and she insisted that the oil on our hands could interfere with how fluffy the eggs would whip up. Since her resume is WAY more impressive than mine, I've never been able to use my hands to separate eggs since.**

So, to sum up, you have to trust your own two hands here. If you create one simple crack in that egg, let your thumbs do the work and just pull the egg apart. You don't have to get violent. Because, as much as I love cool kitchen gadgets, I do not love unnecessary ones that waste your money. (Although I'm sure an arthritic old lady could benefit from an EZ Cracker, but she's in a very small minority.) I'm sure you could use that $20 for something much better, even if you really want the Bacon Wave that comes as a free bonus gift. Call me old fashioned, but we got along fine without it until now (and the Bump It... and the iPad...), so I think you'll survive if you just learn how to break eggs with your own two hands like a real man. Or woman. And I'm looking at you, Rachael Ray.