My beloved's birthday was this past Monday, and I cooked for him two special meals.
The first was on Monday morning around 2 AM. I made 'Blackened' Tuna on a bed of spinach, with 2tsp of salsa for flavor and sugar snap peas as a side. I put in a piece of challah bread and 4 small Knott's boysenberry cookies for dessert (which is one serving size.)
Birthday Lunch: 'Blackened' Tuna
I sprayed the tuna with some pam on each of it's side to make the cajun seasoning stick to it, put just a light covering of seasoning as you do not want to overpower the fish. I also added some Mediterranean Basil to give an extra kick. After this step, sauté some onions and chopped mushroom chunks with 2 tsp butter until mushrooms have a slight golden color. (Add just a pinch of Mesquite season if you have it.)
Add 1 deseeded (wash out the seeds completely) and diced tomato. Stir it all and then another 3 tsp butter and once melted, add the fish. leave alone for 3 min. Then flip fish over and leave for another 3 min. Cook according to taste but not for too long as fish is best when it isn't over cooked! (I don't cook it for longer than 5 min on each side.)
I set this all nicely on a bed of washed, fresh spinach with fresh salsa (the kind from the produce section of grocers, not the distasteful cheap jar type; there's a great difference in taste.)
Birthday Dinner: Shrimp Curry with Couscous
This took less time to prepare than the Tuna. I started with cleaning the shrimp. I was pressed for time, therefore bought pre-cleaned and deveined shrimp, however I still needed to rinse it with water to decontaminate and get rid of the 'fishiness'.
I started by making some couscous. Boil some water, you need about 1.25 water per 1 part couscous. I made 1 cup couscous, therefore I boiled 1.25-1.3 cups of water with at least 2 tsp butter and 1-2 tsp olive oil. Once the water started to boil, I added the couscous and then stirred it. Turn the heat OFF! (You can also move it to the side burner if you want to just use one burner instead of two.) Then cover and let stand. Couscous can stick together worse than spaghetti so I will stir it every so often even after it's done.
Next you need to sauté the veggies. (You can use fresh or frozen, never canned as they are packed with preservatives and way too mushy.) I had an asparagus stir-fry medley that I got from Walmart, and it worked really well. :)
I chopped a quarter of a red onion and a half of a medium yellow onion, then I sliced up some mushrooms.
Put the onions and mushrooms into the pan, then add the (thawed) veggie stir-fry. Stir together for a few minutes. Then add half your shrimp and about 1/4 cup of milk with 1-2tsp of cornstarch mixed in (which will provide thickness to the sauce.) Add about 2 tsp of Panang or the curry of your choice. Stir all of it together for another few minutes. now add the rest of the shrimp. Stir it up too keep from burning especially when sauce is a bit low, and lower the heat to lowest number. It only takes about 10-15 minutes to make this, with about 5 min to prepare the ingredients. (That's why I usually love to make curry, especially with shrimp, but chicken or sliced red meat can be used instead for those who are allergic to shellfish. Just add the other meats in the beginning instead of the end as they require longer cooking times.)
Tea, cold or hot, companions these meals well, however wine, great beer, soda or water can work as well. We had cool lemon tea with our dinner and i suspect he had soda with his lunch. :P
It was a great and mostly healthy meal, except for the fact that after we finished off dinner we went out for Ice-cream Sundays, shhh... ;-)
