lillibet | New Recipes #18 and 19 Plus Ceviche

After sailing with Gilly on Friday, I had a fabulously productive day on Saturday that included, among other things, making a dynamite dinner of steak au poivre served over a salad of mixed greens and heirloom tomatoes dressed with lemon olive oil, as well as a couple of new things:

For Christmas a couple of years ago, I got the What Can I Bring? Cookbook, also the source of the fabulous Mushroom & Gruyere Cheesecake that I've made a few times. This time I went with the recipe for smoked fish pate, going with trout because that's what was on hand at Trader Joe's. I upped the creamcheese, using 12 oz. to the ~10 oz. of fish I had (that's about double the recommended dosage) and the sour cream (ended up putting in at least a quarter cup) and skipped the additional salt entirely. Instead of mashing it with a fork, I threw it in the food processor and ended up with a really nice, heavy dip consistency. All the testers seemed to think it a success and two asked for the recipe, so we'll call that one a win.

A while back I had to buy more strawberries than I knew what to do with, so I pureed them with a little bit of sugar and froze them in pints, thinking that at some point I would thaw one out to make ice cream. At least a couple of months later, at Alice's prodding, I finally got around to it, working from this recipe. I skipped adding any more sugar to the strawberries, since one of my complaints about strawberry ice cream is that it's often too sweet, and on steve's advice, I added a spoonful of rosewater, which enhances the fresh flavor of the berries. Alice says "It's yummy!" and I have several more pints of frozen strawberry puree, so there will be more of this in her future.

I also made an old favorite, but couldn't find anywhere the recipe that I had previously used, so I went with this one, which may have been it and now I have a link for it on hand. I only made a pound of it, from a combination of halibut, shrimp, scallops and tilapia, so I cut the pepper down to just half a serrano and it could have used the whole thing, but otherwise it was tasty. Topped with avocado and served on the same bed of mixed greens dressed with lemon olive oil, it was wicked tasty and a delight to be able to serve such a cool, fresh, delicious meal in five minutes without turning on the stove.