Korean Tacos/Lettuce Wraps

~30 min, feeds two

A very simple but flavorful meal.
Ingredients:

• 1lb beef
• rice
• several large intact lettuce leaves
• diced onions and mushrooms
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tsp ginger powder
• 1-2 tablespoons soy sauce

Cook the rice first.
Secondly cook the ground beef, mushrooms, and onions in a skillet over medium heat.

Mix the spices, sesame oil, and diced garlic together in a separate bowl.

Add the soy sauce in small amounts until the spices are all evenly mixed in the liquid.

  Then pour the mixture over the cooked beef. And cook for about 5 more minutes to soak the spices into the meat.

 Pull a couple of large lettuce leaves out for use. Serve the rice and beef in a lettuce leaf or two and eat like a taco.

Adapted from: http://www.hoteatsandcoolreads.com/2013/01/korean-ground-beef-lettuce-wraps-recipe.html - I found the recipe to have too much oil and soy sauce.

Spicy Ground Beef Stuffed Bell Peppers: gluten free

~30 min + 30 oven time
Going on a low carb/sugar kick for two weeks to help my digestive system and possibly reduce my acne. Because of my breakouts I take a lot of antibacterials, so even though I eat healthy I still think I need a bit of an extra push to try to isolate its cause. Day one.

Ingredients:

• Two bell peppers
• 1lb ground beef
• half of a tomato diced
• six button mushrooms diced or whatever other kind you want to use
• half of a large onion
• two cloves of garlic
• 3Tbsp Sesame seeds
• 1 tsp Italian spice
• salt
• pepper
• spicy pepper paste to taste

-Preheat oven to 350.
-Cut off the top of the bell peppers. Remove the cores and stems then throw away. Set aside the good part of the leftover vegetables.

-Cook the beef over medium high heat in a LARGE skillet with a diced clove of garlic. While the beef is cooking dice all of your vegetables and the remaining bell pepper. Once completely cooked, drain the beef, remove it from the pan and reserve a little of the beef grease to cook the vegetables in.

-Turn the skillet back to medium high heat and let the grease start bubbling again. Add the vegetables, sesame seeds, a clove of garlic, salt, pepper, Italian spice, and spicy pepper paste. Stir well to combine. Cook for about ten minutes until the vegetables are nearly done.

-Remove from heat and combine the vegetables and beef well.

-Sprinkle the interior of the bell peppers with some salt, pepper, and Italian spice. Now stuff each with the mixture. Top everything with some more Italian spice.

-Put peppers in a bread pan or etc. and cover with aluminum foil.

-Cook in the oven for half an hour and it will be ready to eat. Feel free to melt some cheese on top right as it comes out of the oven.

I used poblanos as well for some extra spice and less bitterness.

Crispy Fish Skins

~5 min
Next time you have fish for dinner and have leftover fish skins, don't just feed them to your cat. Save them and cook them to make crispy fish skins for later use. These are great on rice with seaweed and sesame seeds or on eggs in the morning.

Ingredients:

• fish skin
• sesame oil 

Pour a dab of sesame oil into a cast iron or frying pan. Turn on medium heat. Once the pan has pre-heated throw in the fish skins.

Cook for approximately 2 min on each side. For safety, DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM THE STOVE TOP. These burn ridiculously easy. I've seen many recipes call for placing these in ovens to bake but I always burn mine! And when fish skins burn your house will smell like them for several days. And your pans will be stained. And you will miss out on some tasty crispy snacks. So don't be negligent here and have some patience. 

When the skins look like the one on the right in this photo they are done. They may not seem crispy in the hot pan, but when they cool they will be plenty crunchy.

The crunchy bacon like resulting fish.

 

Also don't forget to use that leftover fish oil now in the frying pan to cook some vegetables or etc.

Bean Tostadas

Ingredients:
Filling:

• 8 oz Pinto Beans
• 2 Tbsp lard (I used beef fat)
• Garlic salt to taste
• tsp cumin
• tsp chili powder
• 4 sweet or spicy banana peppers
• half an onion
• one minced clove of garlic
• salsa
• cheese of your choice
• lettuce and cilantro for garnish

Corn Tortillas:

• 1/3 cup Masa Harina per tortilla
• 6 Tbsp water
• 1 tsp of garlic salt

To make the beans:
Soak them in 3 parts water for at least 12 hours. Discard any floating ones. Add the soaked beans into a pot and cover with new water. Bring it to a boil and then cover and reduce to a simmer for about one hour until the beans are soft. In a separate frying pan add a few tablespoons of lard. Finely chop the garlic clove and half of the onions and banana peppers. Cut the other half of the vegetables into strips. Turn the eye on medium and fry them until golden. Drain the beans and using a potato masher roughly make a paste. Add the chopped vegetables to the beans and season with cumin, chili powder, and garlic salt to taste.

To make the corn tortillas:
Mix the corn flour, garlic salt, and water to make a ball.

 Flatten the ball into the size of a tortilla. Or use a tortilla press.

Use a big flat knife to pick up the tortilla.

Add some lard to preferably a cast iron skillet or frying pan. Over medium high heat fry the tortilla for about 30 seconds on each side until slightly browned.
Top with beans, cheese, salsa, lettuce and cilantro.

Egg Drop Soup

~5-15 min

Ingredients:

• one can  low sodium chicken broth
• one egg
• approx 1 cubic inch of grated ginger
• one clove of minced garlic
• Tablespoon of soy sauce
• tsp of sesame oil if you don't stir fry any veggies
• optional: stir fried vegetables in sesame oil

To begin heat the chicken broth on low-med heat. Stir fry your veggies in some sesame oil if you choose.

 Add in soy sauce, grated ginger, and garlic. If you didn't cook any veggies, add about a tsp of sesame oil to your broth for some flavor.

 In a separate bowl whisk an egg.

 Now comes the fun part. Take a spoon and stir the broth around in a circle until you get a pretty good whirlpool going. Quickly drizzle in the egg.

 Add your vegetables and any other seasonings you want. I put in pepper and chili paste for a bit of a kick. Toasted sesame seeds would also taste great here.

 Makes two small bowls of soup. Great for a super quick appetizer or side dish. Sometimes I like to eat this soup as a meal. When doing this, I usually add in some meat and rice to make it more filling.

Quick Chicken and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Pilaf

~15 min
This recipe was thrown together with a combination of things I had leftover in the fridge. I didn't expect this mixture to taste quite as good as it did. I suspect it had something to do with the copious amounts of garlic and spices in the boxed rice and peppers.

Ingredients for the CRRBPP:

• one whole roasted red bell pepper (I bought a brand canned in olive oil and garlic)
• rotisserie chicken
• zucchini
• onion
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• olive oil
• salt to taste
• pea sized amount of spicy pepper paste- one per serving 
• boxed rice pilaf (I used: http://www.neareast.com/#products/long_grain_wild_rice_pilaf)

-Roughly chop up the onions and then zucchini into pieces with about the same dimensions. I used a fourth of an onion and an equal amount of  zucchini.
-Add some olive oil to a frying pan and turn on medium heat. When the oil is bubbling add the zucchini and onions. Stir the vegetables around to coat in oil and then let them brown in the skillet by only stirring them every three minutes or so. As soon as they start to brown add the garlic. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes.
-Now remove a whole roasted red bell pepper from its can and chop it up into slivers. Remove some chunks of rotisserie chicken as well. Throw both the chicken, peppers, and as much of the canned bell pepper juice into the hot frying pan as you want. Mix in a bit of spicy pepper paste then turn the eye down to low and cover until the chicken and peppers are warm. Serve on rice pilaf.

The stir fry: This amount was exactly one serving.

I included olives in my version, however I didn't think they added much to the meal. But that could just be because I don't like olives very much duh durh.