Green Seasoning

I've talked briefly about my "green seasoning" in a previous post, but since I decided to make some this morning, I thought I'd share my process!  Publix had chicken breast and chicken thigh on sale this week for their buy one get one free sales and so I bought two of each and needed to season them!  One of the best pieces of advice I can give to anyone who is too busy to season (hello....2 kids under the age of 3!!!!!), is to buy good meat, clean it and season it right away, and put it in the freezer!  I, personally, have been doing this for years (even pre-children).  It makes life sooooo much easier.  You just take down the meat you want to cook that morning and when you come home, it's thawed and seasoned and all you have to do is cook it!

Green seasoning is another Caribbean staple that I've learned along the way.  It's basically a mix of green herbs, onions, and garlic blended together to make a paste that you can season all of your meat with!  When I lived in NYC, I used to just buy a large bottle of this stuff (pre-made) from my local West Indian grocery store and just pour it over my meat to season it.  Now that I have my own herb garden and try to make food as fresh as possible, I make my own.  There are tons of recipes on how to do this and what ingredients to add - but you should add more of what you like and less of what you don't like I think :)

In my green seasoning, I like to use things from my garden: chives, green onion, thyme, parsley, and cilantro.  If we happen to go to the Flea market and have some culantro (Shadon Beni), I put that in, otherwise, the cilantro is just fine.  I also add an onion, some garlic, a small piece of ginger, and a squeeze of lemon.  I like to also put in my own spices and tend to add in salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika.  I drizzle some olive oil over the top and put it all in the blender.  A few years ago, we invested in one of those Vitamix blenders, so that's what I use for almost all of my blending!

Here's a look at my green seasoning:

Fresh herbs, onions, and garlic in the blender

All blended up

Seasoning over cleaned chicken

Seasoning massaged in

My two freezer bags of meat, labeled and ready for the next time I want to cook chicken

In the mood for fish...

I was in the mood to make something quick and easy and remembered I had some fish in the freezer.  We like to buy the frozen pack of Whiting from Publix and just keep it in the freezer for quick meals and so that's what I decided to make last night.  I started looking up Whiting recipes on Pinterest, but honestly, had very little luck.  So I decided to use a recipe for another type of white, flakey, fish and try it out.  It was sooooooooo good!  I made a lemon, butter, cilantro, pan-fried fish using my Calphalon skillet!  My husband bought me the skillet because I complained that I needed something better to make pancakes on (because I'm a horrible pancake maker), but I use it for EVERYTHIGN except making pancakes on and I absolutely love it!  LOL!  It was perfect for this fish recipe.  I followed the recipe below, but like I said earlier, I used Whiting and I used cilantro instead of the parsley.  I also used a little onion powder and garlic powder to marinate my fish with. This meal was honestly, super quick and easy!  I made a pot of rice and steamed some broccoli next to it - it was perfect!

Here's the link to the recipe:
http://juliasalbum.com/2015/10/trout-with-garlic-lemon-butter-herb-sauce/


Here's what it looked like:

Completed fish put back in the sauce

Cooking fish flesh side down 

Fresh garlic, cilantro, and lemon

Pan frying skin side down

Making the sauce - as a side note, I do not cook with alcohol and so where the recipe says to deglaze with white wine, I used a little broth instead

Completed meal

Fresh Garden Herbs!

So I was watching today's episode of "The Chew" and was inspired by a dish being made using lots of fresh herbs.  It was a grilled chicken with a cilantro/mint marinade! Luckily, the herbs in our garden are growing fabulously and so I decided to get up and make it!  The marinade has lots of asian flavors in it, which our family loves.  It includes fresh cilantro, mint, lemongrass, and chives from our garden along with some red onion, rice wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh ginger.

Here's the link to Clinton's recipe on "The Chew" today that inspired my dinner:
http://abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/grilled-chicken-lettuce-cups-with-fresh-herbs-chiles-clinton-kelly


While I was cutting up all of these herbs, I decided to also make some spring rolls at the same time!  I used all of the same ingredients but also threw in some cabbage, sprouts, and shredded carrots!  Our eldest daughter, Deena, is a huge fan of spring rolls!  It took me MANY years to even try Asian flavors, but thanks to the hubby, I started getting used to eating it when we went out, and now I love it and love cooking it.

Here are some pics of what today's dinner will look like:

This is the mix I made to put into the spring rolls

This is the fresh herb marinade to put over the grilled chicken

Chicken grilled on the stove top using my cast iron pan

Chicken after its been shredded

I added salt, pepper, olive oil, and some vegetable grilling seasoning to the veggies going into the spring rolls

So you basically fill the egg roll dough with the veggie mix (and for those Egyptians)...roll it like mahshee waraa 3nab or grape leaf rolls!  See picture below!

Wrapped spring rolls ready to be pan fried (do this like you would dumplings)