Craig Cooks Broiled Fish and Potato Salad

Once again Craig triumphs in the kitchen. I come home from work and Craig's standing in the middle of the kitchen with his cookbook in his hands. "Oh, you're home early!" We were out of mayo. So rather than go to the store (which by the way is IN the building we live in), Craig decided to just make mayonnaise. I don't know who this guy is, but he's pretty fabulous.


More chopping, no more injuries:

Potatoes were chopped up and boiled:

Mayo was mixed with a bunch of stuff:



To make this potato salad:

Somehow in all the hoopla of potato salad-ing, I didn't take any pictures of the fish until it was plated. It was broiled:


Broiled Fish Fillets
Adapted from "How to Cook Everything"
makes: 4 servings

3 T extra virgin olive oil
about 1 1/2 pounds thin fish fillets
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish
Lemon wedges for serving

1. Heat the broiled until quite hot. Move the rack as close to the heat source as possible (3 or 4 inches is good). Put a sturdy pan on the rack and heat it for about 5 minutes.
2. When it's hot, remove the pan and pour in the oil, then put the fillets in the oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Time under the broiler (for salmon or 1 inch thick pieces will be 10 minutes) for thin fillets 2 minutes 30 seconds.
3. To serve, carefully remove the fillets with a spatula, sprinkle with parsley, if you like. Garnish with lemon wedges.

Potato Salad
makes 4 servings

1 1/2 pounds waxy potatoes
salt
1/2 c minced fresh parsley
1/4 c chopped scallions or onions (we used shallots)
1/2 c mayonnaise
3 T white wine vinegar

1. Peel the potatoes if you like, then cut them into bite-sized pieces. Put them in a pot with enough water to cover them and add a large pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat so the water bubbles gently. Cook the potatoes until tender but still firm and not all mushy, 15 min or so, depending on the potato. Drain, rinse in cold water for a minute, then drain again.
2. Whisk together the mayo & vinegar. Toss the still-warm potatoes with the parsley and scallions. Add the mayo mixture until it is dressed as you like. Season to taste with black pepper. Serve as is or refrigerate to chill first. (At this point, you may refrigerate the salad, covered, for up to a day)

Craig Cooks Curried Eggplant & Potato

Last week Craig made Curried Eggplant & Potatoes. I'm not sure all that much was learned this week, since things were basically just chopped and thrown in a saucepan.

He is getting pretty good at that chopping though. I think this was the first time he'd ever touched an eggplant with his hands.




All thrown into a saucepan as I said:

Then you had to cook it until the potatoes were soft. Craig brought me a couple of spoonfuls every once in a while. Though he did admit that he really wasn't sure what was potato anymore.

Craig plating.
This tasted pretty fantastic. Not curry in the traditional sense, as there was no actual curry added. In the end I'm glad we didn't make the rice to go with it as it was plenty filling by itself.

Craig Cooks Chicken

This week's menu was Broiled Chicken and Baked Potatoes.
I'm trying to start him off easy and then I'll throw the hard stuff at him. Of course if I want it to be easy I should probably read the recipes first, not just the titles.

Apparently broiled chicken involved things like herb pastes and butchering a whole chicken. Whoops!


I did learn how to do this in high school "foods" class. My vegan teacher showed us how to break the chicken's back, and that's all I really remember.


Work was horrible on Friday (I blame Andy Samberg and Lauren Conrad personally) so unless you see Craig's hands in the picture it's a pretty good bet that they were taken by him.

Ladies and gentlemen the final meal:


Loved the lemony flavour of the chicken!

Also a big thank you to Amanda Laird - after this post, I woke up to an amazing breakfast, courtesy of my newly cooking husband: