Trout with Romesco Sauce + Roasted Asparagus and Yellow Squash

Sorry about the lack of posts, I haven't really felt like taking photos of my meals lately, although I can assure you that I've been cooking a lot. Last night I made some of the best banana bread I've ever made before (very exciting considering that I totally mixed up the measurements for baking powder and baking soda). I've tried about a billion banana bread recipes but I always go back to this one. SO GOOD but having said that, I can recommend a few adjustments.

1) Reverse the quantities of baking powder and baking soda (I need to figure out why this worked)
2) Substitute 1/2 cup of the flour for whole wheat flour
3) Add in some cinnamon
4) Also add in about 1/2 cup of dried unsweetened coconut

Anyways, onto tonight's meal.

One night when Lucas and I were in Barcelona, every restaurant we wanted to go to was either closed or packed. After wandering around for about an hour, we finally decided to settle on some mediocre touristy spot that we had remembered reading about on a blog somewhere. The food was mostly ok, but one thing that really stood out was a side of roasted asparagus with romesco sauce. It might have even been one of the best things I ate on the entire trip! Anyways, I've been thinking about that asparagus a lot so I decided to try making my own romesco.

I read a bunch of recipes for research and went with the following ingredients -
(most called for hazelnuts but I skipped them because I didn't have any)

- 2 medium sized tomatoes, sliced in half and roasted in the over at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes
- 1 dried ancho chile, toasted in a pan for a few minutes on each side
- 1 piece of stale whole wheat bread, chopped into cubes and then toasted in olive oil
- about a tablespoon of almonds, toasted
- 2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped and briefly sautéed in olive oil
- a few pinches of dried chili flakes
- about 3 tablespoons of jarred pimientos
- a small handful of parsley
- a tablespoon of anchovy paste (apparently not traditional but it just seemed to make sense to me)
- a tiny bit of grated orange zest (maybe half of a teaspoon)
- a bunch of olive oil
- red wine vinegar
- salt
- pepper

I threw all of the ingredients into my food processor, blended until smooth and adjusted the seasoning with salt/vinegar.

Then, I roasted some yellow squash and asparagus at about 425 degrees until cooked but still a little crunchy and seared my fish briefly in olive oil. Turned out really well!

Looking forward to Thanksgiving! I'll be taking lots of photos!!

Wild Trout + Wilted Mustard Greens and Zucchini Panzanella

Please forgive me for the lack of updates - I've been terribly busy with finals and now that the semester is finally over, I have to pack up my apartment and put everything in storage before I leave for my trip on Wednesday! Lucas and I are going to spend 3 leisurely weeks in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and Barcelona so expect lots of photos and food!

Back to tonight's meal: I started by cutting up some stale sourdough bread into bite sized chunks and spreading them out on a baking tray. In a small pan, I cooked up equal parts of olive oil and butter, threw in 3 minced garlic cloves, salt, pepper and some chili flakes. Once the butter had melted and the garlic had softened, I tossed the garlicky mixture with the bread and put the tray in a 450 degree oven until the bread started to turn brown.

Next, I sliced up 2 zucchinis and a bunch of mustard greens. I sautéed both vegetables together in a little bit of olive oil for about 6-7 minutes. Lucas picked up some wild trout at the market this afternoon and I simply cooked that on medium heat in the pan that I had cooked the olive oil/butter/garlic dressing for the bread in. I let the fish cook for a few minutes on each side and then put the pan in a 350 degree oven until the fish was just cooked.

When the vegetables were cooked, I poured in a little bit of balsamic vinegar, a little more olive oil and squeezed in the juice of about a third of a lemon. I then added in the toasted bread and some roughly chopped parsley and tossed everything together about 10 minutes before the fish was ready so the bread could soak up the juices from the vegetables and the dressing.

This turned out to be a very nice light spring meal! Now I must get back to packing up my apartment but here are the pictures -