Eating in a box

I've been on a fish streak lately. I've been trying to stick with lean protein and simple sides that can be quickly prepared after work. They didn't have any cod at the grocery store so the closest thing I could find was " Pink Ling " sold in fillets. It's a bottom dwelling "eel like" fish. Apparently related to the "Assfish" (sorry I couldn't resist when I found that I had to work it in somehow), the fillet was pretty thin and the resulting dish was large flakey meat. The meat has a little more elasticity similar to eel  than say a cod that usually easily flakes apart. 3 tbsp brown sugar, 3 tbsp miso, and 2 tbsp mirin. When you mix it you want a "watery paste", you want it a little runny, too solid and you get too much salt concentration, too watery and it won't stick to the fish. There are quite a few variations of the same theme that I've used in the past. I've used honey instead of the brown sugar, a

One of the todo's from our northern European cruise was to replicate this delicious salmon dill soup we had while we were in Finland .  Lohikeitto is a hearty chowder with dill, potato, salmon and leeks. It's actually a very simple soup to make. Here's my crack at it: First the ingredients. Small onion, couple of potatoes (I used a white variety, it holds up under a boiling), leek, paprika, butter, dill light cream and some vegetable stock. I opted against fish stock in favor of vegetable stock, I figure that the vegetable stock is a little more neutral and the Salmon was rich enough to provide plenty of fish flavor.  I also went with salmon that had more of the belly attached since it's just fatty, tasty and a little more forgiving to reheating of the soup later. Prep: Sliced the leeks, cube the potatoes, dice the onions, chop the dill. Cut the salmon into chunk about 1.5 inches wide, we're working with fillet slices so they will vary in thickness but si

It's been a real struggle, I came to Sydney with two pieces of luggage and a backpack. The only kitchen device I brought was my Nomiku that burned out (but was replaced thanks to the generous Nomiku guys!) So it's been a struggle to choose what to buy and what to pass on. Only the essentials and multi-tasking is preferable 1) because of space and 2) because I'm not staying too long, so I can't afford to just replace everything I left behind. One of the items I really struggled with was whether or not a rice cooker was necessary. I have a rice cooker back home and it was the first kitchen device I ever owned. My mom got it for me when I left for college and that little six cup rice cooker has been my "go to" for everything rice, steamed and then some. It's one of those simple on/off cookers, none of that fuzzy logic business. I used my mom's tried and true "back of hand" method to measure water (amazingly it always seems to work and her