Tea Smoked Salmon

My search for the perfect, yet easy way to smoke salmon on the stove top ended here. Sure, the burnt odor from the rice-tea mixture still lingers, but the tasty smokiness of the wild chinook salmon outweighs it!

Delish dinner! Yes, wine on a Monday night is OK.

Make a foil packet with a few handfulls fo white rice, sugar, loose tea and some fresh hebs (which I swipped from my neighbor's garden haha...there were a couple things still alive). I wanted to use orange or lemon peel, but my citrus trees have still not produced fruit. Could it be that growing citrus in Pittsburgh is impossible...







Season some wild salmon (no farmed allowed!) with lots of kosher salt and pepper. If you have high blood pressure, YOU KNOW BETTER!







Turn heat up to medium and the mixture will start to smoke. Note to self-dont use your nice Le Creusset pot for this; you may regret it. Cook for about 25-30 minutes. Make sure the internal temp is 140F!! SAFETY FIRST.






Serve with lemon wedges, on toast with a little mayonaisse, on a salad, on a bagel with cream cheese and capers...you get the picture.

Spianata-Italian Easter Bread

My weekend revolved around testing this recipe for work. From freaking out about the overnight room temperature rising (perishable products in dough) and contacting the photographer in order to see how the food stylist prepared the recipe, to adjusting my workout date in the morning to let the dough rise once more. I did end up proofing the half of the dough in the refrigerator, which put my food safety concern at ease. There was also afternoon icing and decorating, which turned out to be pretty fun! But the final product proved to be worth the work(plus the extra hours are nice too!).

Fried Buffalo Tofu with Greek Yogurt-Gorgonzola Dipping Sauce


I really needed some excitement in my life; fun dinners/appetizers always help on a weeknight. It welcomes the weekend!!

Seared tofu strips, egg wash (1 egg mixed with a slash of water), whole bread crumbs, seasoned flour



Bread tofu strips: dip lightly in flour, then in egg wash and lastly in bread crumbs

Pan fry in olive or canola oil, for 4 minutes on each side, until nicely browned

Make dipping sauce by combining Greek yogurt, a splash of milk, a bit of homemade or store bought ranch seasoning and crumbled Gorgonzola

Coat tofu with hot sauce and serve with dipping sauce!

Arroz Verde con Pollo

Testing recipes for a living is tough work. This one is for a local newsletter and it needed some tweaking (yes, I know, but I live in Pittsburgh). Luckily, I am pretty good at that!

Enchiladas meet Dippy Eggs

Decided that after a long day saving lives at clinical, I deserved a fun dinner! Basically, a dippy egg brings to life any leftovers. For those of you who do not live in Pittsburgh, a dippy egg is either cooked sunny side up or over easy. As long as you can dip your toast in it,or your tortillas, they are dippy.