Grilled Marinated Chicken Salad

Okay I have a confession to make regarding tonight's dinner.  I didn't make it, my husband did.  The only thing I had a hand in is the marinade.  We wanted something very simple for tonight's dinner, so we thought a salad was as simple as it could be.

Grilled Marinated Chicken
4 chicken breasts
1 small piece of ginger, peeled and grated (it came to about 1 tablespoon grated)
1/2 cup coconut aminos (very similar to soy sauce or tamari - just without the soy)
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
Mixed salad greens (arugula, red and green leaf lettuce, red cabbage)
Tomatoes
Avocado (1 for each salad)
Asian Dressing
Place chicken breasts into a large Ziploc bag.  Combine the ginger, coconut aminos, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar in a bowl and whisk until thoroughly mixed.  Add marinade to chicken in bag.  Place in refrigerator and marinate for about 30 minutes.  Remove chicken from bag and place on a preheated 400 degree Fahrenheit grill.  Place chicken on direct heat for about 5 minutes, flip, and cook for another 5 minutes.  Move chicken on grill so that it is now on indirect heat.  Cook for 5 minutes, flip, cook for another 5 minutes.  Remove chicken from grill and let rest for 5 minutes, covered.  Slice and place on salad greens.

Ginger Grilled Tuna

I have this new pan from Le Creuset that I have been wanting to try out, it is a grill pan.  It is the kind that has the raised sections like a grill.  I thought that I would give tuna a try and see how I would do.  The tuna (as I thought I was cooking it just right) came out a little more done that I would like, we like to eat our tuna on the rare side.  I need to work on the amount of heat it needs to heat up and maintain.  Other than that it worked wonderful.  Can't wait to cook something else in this pan.

Ginger Grilled Tuna
2 tuna steaks
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Juice from 1 lime
1/4 cup tamari
Combine all ingredients, except tuna, mix thoroughly; pour over tuna and let marinade for about 30 minutes.  Remove from marinade and cook.  I cooked this tuna on this skillet for about 3 minutes per side, which for us overcooked it.

Tuna served with fresh cooked broccoli and a side salad
(lettuce, tomato, red bell pepper, carrots and Asian Dressing).

Green Salad with Vegetables

It has been so hot where we live on the East Coast that we have not wanted to really eat anything let alone cook anything.   All we have been doing this week is snacking.  The temperatures that we are having now in July are closer to our August temperatures.  Who knows what kind of temperatures we will have for August.  So we finally decided to make something to eat that was fitting for the temperatures.  A salad of all kinds of vegetables.

The salad contained the following ingredients:
Green Leaf lettuce
Cucumber (fresh from the garden)
Avocado
Cherokee Purple Tomato
Salad Beans (Comes in a can and contains, kidney, pinto and garbanzo beans)
Blue Cheese
Dried Cranberries
Pecans
Banana Peppers
Black Olives
Fresh Ground Pepper
Asian Dressing

Asian Dressing
1/3 cup rice vinegar
3 tablespoons tamari
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Put everything in a small jar and shake until mixed.

Also made a drink called a Sonoma Cooler.  Saw Guy Fieri making them on the Food Network one day and thought wow those really look delicious and refreshing so I decided to whip some up.

Sonoma Coolers
8 Sonoma-variety grapes, plus more for garnishing (I used seedless white grapes)
4 fresh basil leaves, plus more for garnishing
3 ounces vodka
2 ounces grapefruit juice (I used pink grapefruit juice - no sugar)
2 ounces Meter lemon juice (It is really hard to find Meyer lemons so I used regular instead and feel that it worked well)
2 ounces Orange Blossom Honey syrup
Ice
California sparkling wine, as needed
Make two cocktails at once using this method: In a cocktail shaker, muddle the grapes and basil.  Then add the vodka, citrus juices, orange blossom honey, ice to fill and shake.  Serve in 2 big wine glasses over fresh ice cubes.  Top off with California sparkling wine and garnish with 3 grapes on a skewer and a fresh basil leaf.
Orange Blossom Honey Syrup
1 ounce orange blossom honey
1 ounce water
Add the honey to hot water together.  Mix well.

Salmon Salad with Asian Dressing

We still had some of the fresh salmon that we received on Friday, so I decided that it would be perfect for dinner tonight.

Heat oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit.  Drizzle salmon with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Bake for about 20 minutes until done.

The salad was romaine lettuce, chopped tomato and fresh feta cheese (this is some of the cheese we bought at the Land and Table event last Tuesday).  Place cooked salmon on top.  Pour dressing over salad and serve.

Asian Dressing
1/3 cup rice vinegar
3 tablespoons tamari
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Place everything in a small jar and shake until mixed.

Tuna Salad with Asian Dressing

Made a salad tonight with fresh sushi grade tuna.  I took the tuna and marinated it in a teriyaki style sauce with sesame seeds in it.

Cooked the tuna in the oven at 525 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes.  It cooked it to medium rare.

The salad consisted of mixed greens, carrots and tomato.  Topped the cut tuna on the top followed by a grating of Parmesan cheese.

Added some Asian Style Dressing.

Here is my recipe:

1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/8 cup soy sauce (I used tamari)
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil