This is a great hot weather dish. We make it three different ways by merely changing the protein. For a totally raw vegan dish use firm tofu. Heartier fare would use salmon. Or do a quick sauté with shrimp.
The key to all these dishes is the dressing. It is a soy vinaigrette.
We served the shrimp with shredded cabbage, edamame, avocado chunks, thinly sliced cucumber, rice, jalapeño or Fresno chiles, and scallions. We ladled the dressing over it all and added a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of furikake (optional.)
Of course we make a few changes. No soaking. 18 minutes in the Instant Pot. One can of Original Rotel plus 1 1/2 cup water for 1 cup of the Chana dal instead of water and tomatoes. Some ground cumin (1/4 teaspoon) in the spice mix.
I serve it over a bed of kale and a rice mix of 1/2 cup rice and 1/2 cup riced cauliflower. If sriracha is available 😢 we usually put a squirt of that on top for extra zing.
Because our grilled citrus marinated pork tenderloin had turned out so well last week, we figured if we used the same technique on our Spicy Thai Pork Tenderloin Salad it would turn out equally well. But it did not. The pork was dry and tasteless. We can only figure that a longer marinating time in acidic citrus made the difference. John pounded out the pieces and left them to marinate in the salty fish sauce liquid for a few hours. Then he grilled the pork pieces quickly on the grill but the result was not nearly as good.
The accompanying salad was pretty tasty with the reserved marinade as a dressing. I used a basic salad mix with some cabbage, red bell pepper, red onion, and cucumber. Right before I served it a tossed in some fresh basil, cilantro, and mint.
In case you would like to try the original recipe, here is a link – https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017575-spicy-thai-pork-tenderloin-salad?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share Since it is a NYTimes cooking site recipe it is unfortunately behind a paywall. We made ours a little differently and certainly did not use as much oil or 5 tablespoons of brown sugar! I know that John only used a teaspoon of the sugar. Maybe some of our changes resulted in a less than spectacular dish (but I don’t think so.)
I still have two pork tenderloins left and am in a quandary as to what to do with them.
Friday night was vegan night as the soup was made with no dairy and gets its creamy texture from blending the vegetables. It was quite simple. Just cook chopped up onions, garlic, celery, fennel, and potatoes with some herbs and seasoning in vegetable stock and when they are cooked through whiz it all up in a blender. Unfortunately the fennel flavor did not come through much even though I added a tablespoon of Pernod to try to amp it up.
I think we are all tired of the chilled soup regimen. I might have to start cooking dinners even though it will probably stay hot here until the end of September.
Very infrequently we buy a rib cap steak at Costco. The rib cap is what curves around the eye of meat in a rib eye steak. It is a really tasty piece of meat. We do not buy it often because it is hard to find, expensive, and we don’t often eat red meat. John simply seasoned it with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and grilled it to the rare side of medium-rare. Perfect.
For my part I microwaved a split russet potato and the handed it off to John for some searing on the grill. I also made a Caesar salad kit.
After days of chopping up vegetable for various salads, it was nice to have such a do-nothing dinner. Simple, yet delicious!
John and I bought a “previously frozen” tuna steak today. It was about 13 oz. and enough for us to split three ways. John used this recipe from Food Network as a basis for making the lightly seared tuna. https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tuna-tataki-recipe-1940352. He used less ginger, black pepper and oil. I took care of the salad part of the recipe.
In addition I made the Asian rice salad from a recipe I found at “The Spruce Eats” https://www.thespruceeats.com/cold-asian-rice-salad-with-veggies-3377789. Much like John I cut the amount of oil. I used less sugar as well. At some point I just kept tasting the dressing adding a little more sesame oil, a little more vinegar, and then a dash of soy sauce. I also put in some minced jalapeño for a little zing and chopped mango for sweetness.
This is our first time making either of these recipes but it will not be the last. Everything was delicious!
Red pepper hummus with crackers, tabbouleh, cucumber/tomato/onion salad
Tonight’s installment of what-to-make-for-dinner-when-it’s-hot is a combo of store-bought hummus and crackers plus a couple of homemade salads. The tabbouleh is parsley, tomatoes, some sort of grain and a lemony vinaigrette. My daughter offered to help me make it and took care of all the prep on the parsley. (It is really the most tedious part!) The cucumber and tomato salad were produce that came from her plot at the community garden!
This is my take on the French salad from Nice. I replaced the green beans with edamame and added carrots because John wanted carrots and artichoke hearts because I wanted them. Otherwise it’s a pretty true representation—salad greens, potatoes, canned tuna, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, and olives dressed with olive oil and white wine vinegar.
I boiled the potatoes and eggs around 8 AM and laid out the components buffet-style at 7 PM. This is one of my extremely-hot-weather dinners. I’ll be making most of my minimal cooking meals this week and probably try to find some new ones too as this really hot weather shows little sign of let up. Sigh.
Tonight I tried something different from my usual egg dishes. I microwaved a chipotle black bean veggie burger, crumbled it up, and mixed it with a scrambled egg. In addition to the two main components of my tostada I used shredded cheese, salsa, chopped onions, and shredded cabbage. I served all this on corn tortillas that I had toasted over the open flame of our cooktop.
I am experimenting with gluten-free eating to try to eliminate some digestive problems. Since I am a carb intensive person with wheat based products such as bread, pasta, and pizza being my real favorites, this has been kind of difficult. It is amazing how many foods have gluten in them! Corn is on the safe list so goodbye sandwiches and hello tacos! I really enjoyed my supper tonight!
Omnivore 