Our First Pho Try And Women’s Hair Revisited

I’ve never eaten Vietnamese Pho or any other Oriental noodle bowl that I can remember but I was inspired to try it by watching TV.  After seeing it made on several Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives shows, I realize the key ingredient in Oriental noodle bowls is the broth but I didn’t want to put in the effort for a first try as my main goal was to use up the case of ramen noodles that Bev bought.  As Blondie might say to Dagwood – “I know we never eat Ramen but I saved a lot of money by buying a case of it.”  I looked at several recipes online then made up the one below.  Since Madison was here with her no-gluten boyfriend, I cooked some rice noodles as well.

Salmon Pasta In A Lemon Cream Sauce Ala Karen

When I saw the recipe for Salmon Pasta In A Lemon Cream Sauce on Karen’s “Backroads Journal” blog, it was screaming our name as we love fish in lemon sauce.  I tripled the sauce recipe for six main course servings.  Since the salmon won’t stay with the string pasta when I twirl it on my fork, I prefer to use shaped pasta in a dish like this.  Since it was my birthday (gawd I’m old), Cindy cooked this meal for us.

Two More Delicious Tomato Pies

Previously we made a tomato pie by adapting the Pioneer Woman’s Tomato Pie recipe (first pic) so this time we bought the necessary ingredients to make it per her recipe below, except we used a frozen pie crust.

Delicious BLT's – Square Bread But Round Tomatoes

When your tomatoes are large enough to cover the slice of bread, the following doesn’t apply.  But since we rarely have those tomatoes, we are faced with using smaller ones.  I like thick slices of tomato but after you slice them and lay them on the bread with the tomatoes over lapping, the middle of the sandwich gets pretty thick, making it harder to eat - solution below.

 

Steak Oscar Then Crab Cakes - Both Semi-Failures

It’s hard to believe I built this meal this way but we had some asparagus in the fridge that needed to be used and Bev thought about Steak Oscar which sounded good to me.  I steamed the asparagus, nuked the crab meat just a little, and the steaks just got S&P for seasoning before cooking them reverse sear in a 225F oven then searing them in a smoking hot skillet.  I used the recipe for Easy Bearnaise Sauce from the “All Recipe” blog but I tried a short cut method by putting everything in a container and using the immersion blender to whip it up.

To assemble the dish, plate the steaks then top with asparagus, crab, and bearnaise.

Beef Empanadas – First Try

Meat pies can be traced back to 6000 B.C. and I like all forms of them whether they be pasties, dumplings, piroskis, turnovers, pierogis, empanadas, etc. and I've always wanted to make them so today was the day.  I opted for empanadas because they can be made with refrigerator pie dough and I chose the recipe for Beef Empanadas from the “Handle The Heat” blog.  I made the filling by the recipe and ignored the dough part to get the recipe below.

The Snow Crab Was Delicious But The Bread Was Outstanding

The plan was for Bev to have snow crab while Cindy and I had the tuna taste test but she opted for something else so we had the snow crab the next night and to go with it, Bev made focaccia bread.  The snow crab came from our May trip to Joe Patties In Pensacola, FL and the package contained three clusters which were a good bit larger than what we see in our grocery store.  I just steamed them and served with melted butter for Bev, Cindy, and me – Pat came over for the bread.

Surprising Fresh (Frozen) Tuna Taste Test

While Bev and Pat won’t eat fresh tuna (canned only), Cindy and I both enjoy the fresh version but we’ve never had a taste test.  When I buy fresh tuna from Joe Patti’s in Pensacola, it looks like this:

But when I buy it at the local Food City, it looks like this: