Category Archives: seafood

Antipasti-Style Calamari Salad

When done right, calamari can be a seductive, tender, delicately ocean-flavored vehicle for bright, pungent, spicy, and otherwise bold flavors. For example, I love the Thai-style calamari salad with fish sauce, lime, cilantro, chilis, and garlic in Paul Johnson’s Fish Forever. One recent night though, I had a craving for traditional southern Italian (or American) [...]
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Chickpea and Salmon Salad with Spring Vegetables

Usually I’m planning at least four meals ahead in the part of my brain especially reserved for such musings. However, once in awhile, I find myself sitting at my desk, starving and uninspired at 12:30 or so. On one such occasion I raided the pantry and the vegetables from my CSA box to create a [...]
Also posted in from the market, healthy, pantry staples | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

7 Simple, Seasonal, (Nearly) One-Pot Meals

After a flurry of inspiration and posts over the cooking holidays, I’ve been remiss about updating my blog lately. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been eating (and cooking!), it just means I haven’t been cooking anything I’d consider to be necessarily ground-breaking. But yeah, I cook and eat every day, as we all have [...]
Also posted in Food and Drink, Latin American, from the market, healthy, hearty | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Albacore Ceviche with Pumpkin Seeds and Persimmon

I’ve been on a ceviche kick lately. It’s the perfect appetizer…satisfying, yet light. And it perfectly suits my way of cooking…invent as you go. Every weekend I’ve been picking up some type of fish (sustainable only) and experimenting with different ceviche flavor profiles. Eventually I plan to go around the word with my ceviche experiments, [...]
Also posted in Food and Drink, Latin American, entertaining, food sustainability, healthy, holidays | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Easy, Sustainable Seafood Stew (with variations)

Here’s a method for making a quick seafood stew that’s both sustainable and perfect for casual summer dining. No need to turn the oven on or fuss for hours in the kitchen. Sustainable seafood is a complex topic. Even if you conscientiously refer to the guidelines of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, you’ll [...]
Also posted in DIY, food sustainability, from the market, healthy | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Creamy Polenta with Spicy Crab

It’s funny how recipes are developed. At least in my house. This one came out of the fateful collision between the opening of crab season and a few scenes in a bad Woody Allen movie. Let me explain. Crab season always opens just before Thanksgiving when everyone is busy with turkey, stuffing, gravy and mashed [...]
Also posted in Food and Drink, entertaining, from the market, hearty | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

When Life Gives You Zucchini Make O Konomi Yaki

Evidently I’m pretty good at growing summer squash, and not much else. Of all my garden plants the only two that bore much of anything edible are two very different heirloom squash varieties. They sit next to a trumpet vine so they were pollinated and pollinated and pollinated. Did I mention I live alone? I’m [...]
Also posted in Asian, gardening, healthy | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Mendocino Abalone Plus Recipes: Abalone Ceviche with Kumquats and Abalone Chowder with Bacon

I’m not a diver but I’m a cook so I feel fortunate to have been invited on a camping trip with a bunch of abalone divers. I’m always happy to let my imagination run wild in the camp kitchen. And even happier to be able to eat copious amounts of one of the last wild [...]
Also posted in Latin American, food sustainability, healthy, hearty | 2 Comments

A Healthy, Restorative Meal with Sablefish and Dal

I rarely cook a protein, starch, veg meal anymore. And I rarely eat fish either. Our oceans are just so endangered, that it’s a once-in-awhile treat these days. And it’s gotta be on Seafood Watch’s green list, or I’m not even eating it as a treat. If you’ve never cooked sablefish, you’ll find that it’s [...]
Also posted in Asian, Books, food sustainability, from the market, healthy, hearty | 1 Comment

Wild Salmon-Potato Cakes

I'm turning into my mother. She used to "do things" with canned salmon. Namely a tasty but disturbingly cat-food textured dip served with Ritz crackers. I never have "done things" with canned salmon other than eating it on salads like tuna. In one of my ongoing battles with odd bits of leftovers and an overfull [...]
Also posted in food sustainability, healthy | 1 Comment
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    The recipes and images on this site belong to Vanessa Barrington. Feel free to link here and if you’d like to use a recipe or image, please ask permission first. Thank you.