Category: healthy

Cajun Salmon Tacos with Persimmon Salsa

Sometimes recipes happen by accident. And sometimes those are the best ones. Like this one.

For the second day of rosh Hashanah I planned on serving tacos, and filling them with whatever meats I had leftover from the previous meals. Because, really anything you stuff inside a taco tastes good. Amiright?

Well, what I did not plan for was having extra mini tacos shells leftover. So, shabbos day, in addition to my crab cakes I decided to fill my leftover shells with some of my leftover cajun salmon. Perfect right? Wrong.

Why is that wrong? Because tacos ALWAYS need a salsa. My first days, meat filled tacos, were just fined with a dollop of garlic mayo and some crunchy shredded cabbage because I was able to reheat the sauce from thew meat and that moistened the whole thing. But shabbos day, I could for sure not heat up a sauce so I needed a salsa.

And thats when it hit me. I had 3 beautiful, orange, fall-esque persimmons sitting in my fridge. I chopped them up, threw it together with a bunch of other salsa-must ingredients and boom.

The perfect Fall time Salmon Taco.

I knew was recipe I had to share so I made it again after the holiday, just so I could “photograph” (quotations b/c I only pretend to be a food photographer), and share the recipe with you all.

For the taco shells I used wonton wrappers that I fry with my handy dandy taco shaper, that you can buy here from amazon. It actually pretty fast to fry them up and they really make the best taco shells. Plus, after they cool you can store in them in an airtight container for up to a week and the will stay fresh! I know, magic!

I also halved the cajun salmon recipe because really you don’t need a whole side of salmon to fill 40 tacos. Half a side will do just fine. Which, FYI, also makes this recipe super economical!

You can also totally skip the taco shells and just serve the salsa right on top of the salmon!

However you do it, make sure you do! It’s the perfect fish appetizer for Succos.

And the colors, oh the colors. They are so appropriate for the beautiful fall season. Besides being delicious they’ll also look soooo pretty in your Succah’s.

To assemble the tacos place a few pieces of the salmon inside the taco and top with a teaspoon of persimmon salsa.

For the printable Cajun Salmon recipe click here

For the printable Persimmon Salsa recipe click here

Rosh Hashannah Salatim

For me salads are the best part of any meal. I love those cold, refreshing, crunchy bites in between all the hot food. Making salads on the other hand is the worst!

I force myself to make them on a daily basis because I love them and when I make them on my own I get to put in them exactly what I want. However, I would say that any salad that is not cut up and chopped by me is already halfway there to being my favorite salad.

In an effort to make sure theres tons of cold crunchy veggies on my Rosh Hashannah table this holiday, I made a bunch of salads today that can stay in the fridge and get better everyday they sit! This way if I’m too tired or busy with kids, I at least know I can pull these out!

I made a carrot salad, a fennel salad, a sweet and sour type of eggplant salad, a garlic confit and a bunch of dips to put on the table at every meal.

I hope everyones cooking is going well and can’t wait to see what you all made!

Happy Cooking!

For the printable Moroccan-y Carrot Slaw recipe click here

For the printable Fennel and Apple Slaw recipe click here

For the Pickled Eggplant and Onion recipe click here

For the printable Garlic Confit recipe click here

5 More So Simple Salad Dressings

Salads are so personal. The addition or subtraction of one single component in a salad can make it or break it for people. For me it’s tomatoes. You stick even a few cherry tomatoes in that salad and I’m out. I could love every other thing in there and be totally addicted to the dressing, but once the juice of the tomatoes touches the other veggies it goes from appealing to completely off limits.

That’s why, a while back, I gave you all a post all about the dressings. We all pretty much know what we want or are in the mood to throw in our salads, but when it comes to the dressing I think thats where most people get stumped. They either stick to the same old boring dressing they’ve been making for ~~months~~ years, or, even worse, they use, GASP, bottled dressing. Ugh, I know. That stuff is just not right.

Really though, once you understand the really basic principles of making a good dressing, it’s so easy to whip up your own. If your interested in what those are click here to go the original post. Also, thats where the first 6 salad dressing recipes are.

So, here I am again, posting another 6 dressings recipe for you to help with your summertime salad habits. All I crave in this heat is something light, crunchy, fresh and flavorful. Which basically means I’m making some sort of salad every single night. Usually it’s a full meal in a salad. It’s packed with veggies, topped with some sort of protein (grilled chicken, deli, steak or even feta cheese or crispy chickpeas) lightly sprinkled with a little crunch in the form of crispy homemade croutons or crou”tot”s, and drizzled with most yummy and satisfying salad dressing.

I hope these dressings make many, many appearances on all your dinner tables all summer long!

Happy Summer Everyone!

Peas Out,

Danielle

For the printable Mango Sumac Vinaigrette recipe click here

For the printable Lightened Up Green Goddess Dressing recipe click here

For the printable Pomegranate Vinaigrette recipe click here

For the printable Raspberry Lime Vinaigrette recipe click here

For the printable Spicy Peanut Sesame Dressing recipe click here

“Pho” Style Soup with Super Thinly Sliced Steak + All Asian Soup Base

Soup is everything.

Its a meal, it’s a snack, it heals you when you don’t feel good, it can be a fridge cleaner, it can be meaty and hearty, it can be light and refreshing, it can be eaten with a soup for a dignified experience, it can be slurpped up with a huge chopstick full of noodles(my personal fav) and it is, most importantly, always delicious.

I’ve said this before and I can not stress it enough, that a good soup is something that every single person can make. They are not hard and in my opinion the main contributor from taking a soup from good to great is merely the addition of time. For the most part, you can basically dump anything in a pot, add some seasoning, cover with water and if you let it simmer for long enough it will taste delicious.

BUT. If you want your soups to go from great to INSANE, it does require a little bit of technical work so that you can layer flavors and build a soup that is so complex in it’s taste but simple in it’s appearance.

To me, that is what this soup is all about. It is a combination of a chicken soup stock, layered with a mushroom broth and infused with Asian aromatics that gives this soup it’s absolutely addicting flavor.

Since I make a version of Asian soups basically every week, I’m going to do you all a favor and give you my base recipe. From there you can either follow this exact recipe (which I highly recommend because it was the freakin bomb) or you can use whatever you have in your fridge to make your own incredible Asian soup bowl.

If you don’t have an ingredient I use, just leave it out or swap it for something similar. The only component that I would say you absolutely should include is the mushroom broth. It is very simple to make as it requires only dried mushrooms and water and you can freeze it in one cup containers so that you to can easily make these soups on a weekly basis from your leftover shabbos chicken soup.

I’m going to break this recipe up into 2 parts for those of you who just want the base. Please, please, please use this recipe as a jumping off point to create your own amazing Asian soups!!!!!

Happy slurping everyone!

For the printable Asian Soup base recipe click here

For the printable Asian “Pho” with Philly Sandwich Steak recipe click here

To watch the making of this soup and see how easy it really is click here (don’t forget to subscribe to my youtube channel while your there…)