Food for thought: What's for dinner? Blackened tuna, easy carbs, basic white sauce segues to easy mac 'n' cheese, veggies, mango sorbet

So, what's for dinner? Let us know!

"What's for dinner?" Ahhh. That's a question as old as the hills. I can actually picture cavepeople in Clan-of-the-Cave-Bear-style costumes grunting this. What I'd be asking is, "What the &$%#! is that?" But that's just me.

Menu:

Blackened tuna or catfish
Cream sauce or cheese sauce
Mac 'n' cheese
Disclaimer: do not make this for grandma or any iconic master of mac 'n' cheese. This is a simplified version.
Cous cous or potatoes as easy-to-make carbs
Vegetables
Mango sorbet

Tasks so that you don't spend 3 hours in the kitchen:

You can do this stuff ahead of time. Asterisks* are for steps you may not have.
*Thaw fish, if necessary 12-24 hours in advance.
*Make cajun seasoning.
Thaw mangoes/frozen fruit for 10-15 minutes.
Season fish; set aside.
Make sorbet. Freeze.

Get out all your remaining ingredients now. Even if you forget something, it's faster for me this way. If you have the memory of a flea, don't bother getting out everything. Just get out protein, starch & veggies.
*Boil water for pasta/ turn on oven for potatoes
Make sauce
*Add pasta
*Bake potatoesPrepare fish (while pasta is in oven).
*Prepare cous cous & keep warmPrepare vegetables while the butter is browning for the fish. You could sautee veggies in extra butter, then keep them warm while you make the fish in the same pan.

If you've glanced below, you've noticed that I don't use recipes. Do you need to look at a recipe? I swear by Epicurious.com which houses free free! Gourmet and Bon Appetit recipes. You can even have your own recipe box (I have 70 recipes in mine). Click on the "Food for thought" title link. I know that some form of these menu items above are on that site.

On heavy rotation in our household is Blackened Tuna, adapted from this Gourmet recipe for catfish. Make sure you increase the cooking time if using, as I do, a thick tuna medallion or tuna steak. I'm guessing 2-3 minutes extra per side. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/12271I I cook it in a cast iron skillet, though a nonstick will do fine. Just make sure you cook the butter until golden/light brown bubbles appear before adding the fish, or the buttery taste might not come through. Oh, feel free to buy those pre-made blackening spices. Add just a pinch of sugar to the mix if it's not there already, so that the sugar will caramelize the tuna (browned with crispy parts).


I like serving this with a cooked vegetable, like green beans browned in butter or cooked in boiling 1/2 cup water and a vegetarian bouillon cube until bright green.

For starch and sauce, I do a number of things. I HAVE to make a sauce . All the West Africans know what I'm talking about, as we tend to like dishes that are swimming in something!

Starch, easy: cous cous, prepared according to package directions. Cous cous is the best for when you need a starch in 10 minutes or less. So are microwaved potatoes. You could also microwave red bliss or new potatoes or roast them in the oven. If you're doing the oven method, do that after you season the tuna, so you won't wait for them to be done at the end.

Kinda special dinner? Make mac 'n' cheese.

Sauce? For this go-round, I'll do a white sauce base with cream. R U vegan? Please remind me to post a tomato-coconut sauce with garam masala and sauteed vegetables for another time. If you don't do dairy, use olive oil instead of butter, and use vegetarian broth or vegan bouillon cube (or use chicken) with 1 1/2 cups water for 1 tablespoon oil & 1 tablespoon flour. It won't be super thick, but I like it like that.

Cream sauce: First, make a roux. Use a 1:1 ratio. If you use 1 tablespoon of UNSALTED butter, use 1 tablespoon of flour. Put butter into a pan, and after it sizzles, bubbles and it's turning dark yellow, add your flour. If you want to add fresh garlic, put it in now. Using a wooden spoon, stir the 2 ingredients until they make a thick paste. The color should be light brown. If you want to add fresh herbs, put them in now. Stir a little. Add cream, evaporated milk, milk, soy milk, bouillon cube and liquid, a can of tomatoes, chopped veggies, etc. until the sauce bubbles and gets thick again. If you're adding cheese, use very small pieces, either grated, finely chopped, or small chunks in the food processor and wait until you've turned off the heat. Dirty little secret: I use undiluted evaporated milk instead of cream quite often. Avoid lemon juice, vinegar, etc. if you're using this. Use lemon zest, lemon pepper or lemon extract, in a pinch.

What variation would I make? Anything goes, but I usually do cream (evap. mik), diced tomatoes, some of the blackening mix, and lemon zest.

This is also the sauce recipe for mac 'n' cheese. For 12-16 ounces of sauce (1 1/2- 2 cups), use about 1/3 cup of cheese. It doesn't take much. That's for basic cheese sauce.

For mac 'n' cheese, double the amount of cheese to 2/3 cup. Pour it over cooked noodles. Add 1/2 c. cheese, then put it in the oven for 15 minutes. This is for 350 degrees. If you already have something in, let's say, at 425degreess, reduce time to 9 minutes, etc. Remember, everything is cooked but the cheese; you just want people to think you struggled. I prefer to leave this uncovered in the oven.

Want to kill 2 birds with 1 stone? Make double the sauce & use one for mac 'n' cheese, the other for your veggies & protein.

For dessert, why not some mango sorbet? I recommend making this during the weekend, when you have more time. Or, make it on a nite you're not cooking. No need to buy it these days. Make more for less by buying frozen mango chunks from Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, or some Shoppers/Asian stores/Latino grocery chains.
Use 1 12-16-oz packet of frozen mango. Just make sure it's had 15 minutes to thaw, so it doesn't break a machine. Add to that some honey mixed in with lukewarm liquid--lime, mango & orange juices work well. You'll need the amount of honey you'd cup in a medium-sized hand and double the juice. If you are a sugar fiend, and you know it, use more honey. The key in this step is to have a syrup, not clumps of honey. Make sure your liquid is at room temperature. If it isn't heat it up. Avoid heating honey, as it changes the taste for the worse. Add grated lemon, lime or orange zest if you have it/feel like it.

Puree all of this in a food processor. If you use a blender, you'll have to thaw the fruit, puree it, freeze it till it's almost frozen, then puree it again. If it's a little hard to scoop out, then process it again. If there's no way you can get fresh or frozen mango, or if it's too expensive, use frozen peaches & some of the mango concentrate or nectar in the Latino food section. If you live in a place where there is no form of mango, move! Seriously, use frozen peaches & peach nectar.

If you just live for strawberries, use the same size package without the sugar syrup added.

Bon appetit!

Scratch & sniff beneath the surface: what is aromatherapy & how is it used?

Tami, I should have spelled out in my opinion (IMO). I corrected that.

How is aromatherapy used? The short answer is in many ways. Before answering that further, I'd like to say what aromatherapy is.

Again, I like the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy's site. You can go there by clicking on the title.

In plain English, aromatherapy is intentional, informed use of extracted plant aromas for emotional and physical (and some add spiritual) healing and well-being.
How is aromatherapy used?
You can apply plant extracts, usually diluted essential oils:

• with a compress, with a massage or in a bath
• inhale them using steam, a spray or diffuser or candle/aroma pot
• diluted directly onto the skin on pulse points
• with salves/ointments, creams, mouthwash, oral tinctures (diluted droplets--you could use diluted cinnamon and mint as a breath freshener) and gel.

I referred to http://www.naha.org/methods_of_application.htm Plus, as many of you know, I always have essential oils around. Check it out!

Scratch and sniff beneath the surface: essential oils and pregnancy safety

According to the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy, "chamomile oils, geranium, jasmine, lavender, neroli, patchouli, sandalwood, and ylang ylang" essential oils are safe to use during pregnancy. If you're pregnant and want to use aromatherapy, the site advises that you wait until after the first trimester.

In my opinion, only trust aromatherapy advice from licensed holistic practitioners and web sites ending in .org. Businesses have too much to gain by giving false or inaccurate information.

Food for thought: food fantasies

Isn't food a funny thing? We've transformed something we need into an art. Since I work in the environment, I often wonder why we don't positively transform our air! But that's another subject...

When I was in Peace Corps, we would torture ourselves with things we couldn't reasonably acquire, given our place and station. Why did we do this? I have NO clue. But I remember that I could forget the amoebas and mosquito bites for a while and just float on this cloud of comfort and longing. It was always ephemeral; for me, those self-induced hallucinations shouldn't last. Otherwise, dissatisfaction and its henchman, disillusionment, would quickly set in.

And you know what? Those food fantasies made me a better cook. I learned to make caramel corn, grasshopper pie, sweet and sour pork, ketchup, beer-battered onion rings, yeast rolls, exotic bread puddings, and, like, 50 types of chutney. Basically, I focused on things I could make, and by the end of my service, I had a host of foods I loved and prepared like it was nothing. Fantasy became reality. Whoa!

Welcome and Introduction to SATOWTL

All my life, it seems, I've had ESP. No, I can't see auras, or know where to find someone's cat, but I can sniff things out and taste things beyond most people's cares or capabilities.

When scents or tastes are all aligned properly, it is the olfactory or gustatory equivalent of a symphony, a harmony, a balance. When they are bad or off, it's an invisible, often lingering menace. So, in growing up with heightened sensory awareness, I've been cooking and doing perfumery more and more.

Neither one is my profession, but there's no doubt that I love both and would do either cooking or perfumery beyond a hobby if I didn't already have a good job that I like. That doesn't stop me from daydreaming about perfumes or food combinations, especially the former. If I had to pick either cooking or perfumery, I'd pick perfumery, since cooking already has a bigger following. It also seems that perfumes have yet to be deconstructed so that the average consumer could make educated decisions, so perfumery scores extra points on that front, too.

How should this work? Well, I definitely want to hear from others with extra-sensitive palates and nose bulbs. I also would like to trade recipes (really food combos and preparations, since I don't use measuring utensils often) and scent combinations.

I guess I should mention that squeezed in our apartment, I have 120+ essential and perfume oils. I've also started hawking personalized perfumes based on eating/lifestyle habits, scent affinities (what smells good to someone) and scent wardrobe (what scents a person already wears + I include what people would wear if price were no object).

So, if this interests you, please post something, whether it's a question, a comment or information. I'll answer questions, and throw in my two scents when asked. A few times a week I'll put up some "food for thought" and "scratch and sniff beneath the surface" updates and some links.

Thanks.

Sonia Kassambara