Crab Dip with Tang

Refreshing dip with a tangy zing

Ingredients

2 tbsp sour cream

2 1/2 tbsp reduced fat mayonnaise

2 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp celery salt

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp parsley chopped

8 oz imitation crab

1/4 cup chopped red onion

1/4 cup chopped celery

pepper to taste.

Directions

1. In a salad bowl, mix together the first five ingredients
2. With hand separate imitation crab into smaller chunk pieces, add to mixture
3. Add remaining ingredients toss to coat well.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours

This is a recipe out there that our daughter loves!  You have the meaty texture from the immitation crab and the nice crunch from the red onion and clelery all mixed in with a zesty tang!  I always try to serve this dip with a variety of crackers.  Ritz, Wheat Thins, Tortilla chips.  It gives people a chance to find there happy place. 

My Fruit Salad with a Thai Twist

This fruit salad hits the spot with the sweet and refreshing fruit flavors it's perfect for serving in the spring and summer

Dishes With Love

Much like kisses with love, I say dishes with love! 

In my blog I talk about food, recipes, cooking utensils, ingredients and all that good stuff.  My mom taught me so much of what I cook today.  So there is much love that goes into the preparing and cooking and even the presenting of my dishes.  I want to share the delicious Thai cooking and an incorporated American cooking style I have learned, it's all about all my food infused with my Asian persuasion! 

Something my mom always told me about eating and cooking is to add it up yourself.  To bring out the taste you desire you have to add the right balance of either or a combination of hot, sour, sweet, bitter and salty.  This is something that is practiced in everyday Thai cooking.


I really enjoy discovering what is behind the different tastes in the food we eat, from the different recipes and methods of cooking to the ingredients behind them and how adding them to our daily meals can add a good taste and good nutrition to our lives.


Lots of good stuff!


I work full time and juggle the many happening of daily life, it is important for me to achieve a good work life balance, so it is crucial for me to find the most effective ways to focus on preparing the best food that I can that my family loves to the best of my ability while giving them the needed nutrition that comes from the ingredients I use.


First let me give a little disclosure. 

Do not get me wrong I love when you can go out to eat and try the many different food from so many different restaurants it can be nice to get the taste.  But at the same time it is unbelievable to me how many of us eat fast food and how often we eat it.  For me and my family we eat home cooked dinners the majority of the time, which with sports and other school related functions for the kids can make cooking a bit tricky to pull off.  But we do it, and we do it because it is so much healthier and also importantly it is a time for family and even friends to come together to enjoy each other and good food.  


Meals can be made much healthier when you prepare them yourself, this way you know what is in the food and you can modify and make adjustments as needed.  To prepare your meals is much cheaper than eating out plus it goes along ways with leftovers.  Where if you eat out, you are out the money and the food doesn't leave much for later.


And can I mention to you that with all the talk that you hear in the news about food establishment of all sorts and kinds making us and our children obese, by making your own meals for you and your family you put yourself back in control.  The food you provide can be at your fingertips the way you want your family to have it.  So what are we waiting for!  To the kitchen!

Addictive Layered Mexican Dip

Quick and simple, this is a great appetizer or potluck food!

 

Ingredients

(1)  9 oz. can bean dip -fat free is good
1 cup sour cream – reduced fat.
1 ½ tblsp taco seasoning packet
2 green onions - root ends trimmed, dark green ends trimmed, minced
4.25 oz. can chopped black olives - drained
1 large tomato – diced
1 cup salsa
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese – reduced fat
     ½ tsp chili seasoning
¼ cup diced red onion
     ¼ cup bruised and chopped cilantro

Directions

In a bowl combine the bean dip and taco seasoning packet until well blended.  In a separate bowl combine the sour cream and chili seasoning until well blended.  Begin layering all the ingredients on a 1-2 inch deep serving plate as follows;

1. Bean dip
2. Sour cream
3. Green onions, olives, tomato, and red onion
4. Salsa
5. Cheddar cheese
6. Top with fresh cilantro

Refrigerate until ready to serve

Tip
I make this with reduced or fat free ingredients you don't loose the flavor and create a healthier dip.  I like to serve it using different varieties of chips.  I think it helps to make it interesting and colorful. 

Cilantro

I love the taste of cilantro, I try to use it when ever possible.  There is something about the distinctive unmistakable smell of cilantro that I love. The light and delicate leaf  with its pungent scent and wonderful flavor, I always have it on hand in my fridge.

When you think of Salmon

My family loves salmon, with the great taste and quite a bit of essential benefits to boot what is not to love.   I am always so excited when I hear that the first shipments of fresh wild caught salmon come are coming into our local store it’s the good stuff!  I try to buy it when I can, it can be pretty pricy for the good stuff.  I always make sure I check the label to see that it lists in the description entails wild and not farm-raised in it. 

It may look the same but make no mistake.  There is a reason why salmon is often at least double the price of farm raised salmon.  The difference is huge.  The wild caught ocean salmon has this nice natural pink color to them.  This color comes from being in the wild, where they have the ability to eat a daily diet from natural food in the ocean.  Because of how the salmon are raised on the farms they do not have this natural color so to replicate the look of fresh wild ocean salmon they add canthaxanthin and astaxanthin to artificially color the fish, this leads us to believe it looks healthy and makes it more enticing to the eye. 

Farm raised salmon contain PCB’s or Polychlorinated biphenyls.  PCB’s have been used as coolants and lubricants in capacitors, transformers, and other electrical equipment because they don’t burn easily and are good insulators.  And while they no longer use it today because of the harmful effects to humans it still exists in the environment from contamination.  Farm raised fish are fish squished together tight in bins with hundreds of other salmon where they are fed fishmeal pellets, these fishmeal pellets contain high levels of PCBs.

This is not good.

Remember how I said they are kept in jam packed bins tight with hundreds of other salmon?   Well they are in so tight that they are unable to move freely like the wild caught salmon in the ocean so like us humans who sit still for long durations of time the salmon have a higher level of fat.  Not only that but the fishmeal they are fed contain grounded-up sardines, anchovies, mackerel, and other small fish and the oils from the fishmeal pack more fat onto farm raised salmon giving them more than 50% more fat than the wild ocean caught salmon.

You pay a bit more but the alternative is not something to expose your family to. 

A tip for you, make sure when ordering fish from your favorite restaurant to ask whether the fish is wild or farm raised, you definitely want to get your money’s worth.