Dance After Dark Photography

I had planned to fry the tilapia, but at the last minute I decided to go in a different direction. I briefly marinated the tilapia with rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil, lime juice, salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme, & lime zest. I added a heaping spoonful of my favorite mustard - a roasted garlic champagne mustard I got at a specialty spice shop in Tampa. Let it sit for 10 minutes at room temperature, while I chopped veggies and heated the pan. I fried half of the fish and just seared the rest. For the frying, I coated each filet with mustard flour, AP flour, salt, & pepper. The seared filets I just dosed with kosher salt. Approx 4 minutes on med-high heat for each side, then on a plate to rest.

In the same pan, I sauteed a Vidalia onion (with more salt, of course.) I had to add a little olive oil because I hadn’t used much for the fish. Once the onion began to carmelize, I added some frozen peas, stirred, and covered to steam. While that cooked, I took the leftover marinade and whisked in a little flour. (Honestly, I used the breading mixture that was left from frying the fish.) Once the peas were fully cooked, I put all the veggies in a bowl off to the side and let the pan come back up to temperature. Here’s where I cheated and brought out the roasted garlic mashed potatoes from last week. I folded in some diced green onions. Since the pan was nice & hot, I added some olive oil & a little salt and slapped down the mashed potatoes. I let ‘em sit untouched for about 4 minutes, then stirred ‘em in an attempt to brown the other half. They had nice crusty bits. It wasn’t the right consistency to make a potato pancake, but I did get a good sear.

Once the mashed potatoes were reheated, I emptied the pan again and threw in the flour/marinade mix. Let it bubble for a bit so it’d thicken into a light pan sauce, added back the onions & peas, stirred to coat, and voila!

30 minutes later, when I was carrying my plate back into the kitchen, my back spasmed and sent me to the floor. Thus it was a night of culinary accomplishment followed by a little crawling to get myself into bed. Sadly, I’m enough of an internet addict that I crawled out of bed an hour later to write this post and check my e-mail. I think I need a 12-step program.

Edit: I just sneezed, and I’d swear that little blast of pain blew out a few neurons. Ouch.

It was steak & potatoes night. I marinated the steak overnight with rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, hot sauce, olive oil, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cumin, and ginger. Next time I’ll probably throw in some lime juice, too. I let it sit for 30 minutes on the counter prior to cooking so it would reach room temperature, and then I liberally sprinkled each steak with kosher salt before slapping them down in a large saucepan over high heat. Let ‘em sizzle undisturbed for 4-5 minutes, sprinkle the raw side with more salt, and flip. Another 4 minutes, and then they go in a 350º oven for about 5 minutes. These steaks were almost an inch thick, so 5 minutes is medium. 9-10 minutes for well done. I did a damn good job on the steaks, if I do say so myself. ‘Course, I didn’t have to because everyone else said it first.

The mashed potatoes were good, too. Mom did most of the work, peeling and boiling the potatoes. She boiled them with garlic powder and the ubiquitous salt. I mash them with more salt, pepper, butter, sour cream and (usually) milk. I had some heavy cream on hand, so that’s what I used in place of the milk this time. I added a few tablespoons of beef broth (see below), and I also used the last of my roasted garlic — about 3 cloves worth. It could have used more.

In the saucepan, I sauteed mushrooms with salt over the same medium-high heat, getting up all the brown bits from the steaks and rendering out a lot of the mushrooms’ own liquid before I added any oil. A little olive oil came about 5 minutes later, when the mushrooms’ liquid was almost evaporated, and it was followed shortly thereafter by half a can of beef broth. Add thyme, more paprika, pepper, and ground ancho chilies. At this point I should have remembered to add in the broccoli so it could steam above the almost-done mushrooms, but I’d entirely forgotten it and left it in the fridge.

Pulled it all together with a gravy made from a few teaspoons of flour made into a slurry with the remaining beef broth. Stirred that in, brought to a boil to thicken, stirred to coat the veggies, and set aside while I retrieved the steaks from their resting plate. To serve I dropped a dollop of potatoes on each plate, followed by the steak. Both were drizzled with veggies & gravy, and then more veggies were piled off to the side. Very pretty, although it would’ve been made better with a few diced green onions. Now I think of that.

I wouldn’t say they’re loaded, but I’ve got guns, baby! (heh) I just came from the gym. I’m nowhere near where I want to be physically, but I’m rather enjoying the fact that my arms are huge post-workout. “Huge” is of course a relative term, but I’ll take my happiness where I can find it. I was feeling a little self-conscious about my stomach when I looked over at the gym’s mirror wall and realized that I’m bigger than most of the guys who were there. The two big exceptions were the owner and a guy who’s obviously a personal trainer.

What I want is wider shoulders and a narrower waist. I’m built like a barrel, so I think I need to concentrate more on the widening than the narrowing. To that end, I did lots of deltoid and lat exercises today. I also toughed it out through 20 minutes (and 7 miles) on the bike, where I usually get mind-numbingly bored at 5. I’ve got a long road ahead of me and quite a few pounds to lose along the way, but I feel good.

This is Rashi, one of the red-shouldered hawks at the Audubon Birds of Prey Center. I was right - he is fully grown. He’s about 7 months old, and these hawks are fully grown within the first two months. Rashi was brought in as a baby and accidentally imprinted on people, so he’ll never be able to live on his own. He won’t stay at the Center, though. He’ll eventually be given to another facility.

I always knew kestrels were small, but today I found out just how small. They’re tiny! I thought I was looking at juveniles, but fully grown adults were only about 9″ tall, head to tail.

So today I followed Kira around, scrubbing water troughs and cleaning the big rehab mews. Most of the birds are fasted on Saturdays (to simulate the fact that they wouldn’t be able to eat every day in the wild), so there’s not a lot of cleanup on Sundays. Not compared with the rest of the week, anyway. Some of the birds were fed, though, so part of my duties were picking up leftover mouse, fish, chick, and quail bits. They count the amount of food left and subtract from the amount provided to keep track of the birds’ diets. Logical, eh?

Oh, and I got buzzed by a bald eagle. He was nervous.

I just joined Ironworks Gym down the street from my house. It’s within easy walking distance, or it will be when it isn’t hot as #$@^ outside. Less than two minutes to drive there. Much happiness on my part.

I spent just about an hour at the gym today, including 15 minutes on the recumbent bike. I usually stop at 10 because I get bored, but I zoned out today and took the full 15 to warm up. 5.5 miles, and I broke a good sweat. A little stretching, a lot of lifting, and now I’m strutting around with the “arms akimbo” tough-guy pose because I just can’t help it. I haven’t done curls in a while, and no matter how much I stretched afterward my arms just don’t fall back into a normal position. The good news is that I forgot how big my arms look after I’ve just worked out. (heh) Go me.

No pictures today. Maybe tomorrow. For now it’s shower time. That’s like Hammer Time, but wetter and with less dancing.