Whenever I go out to eat at most places, my eyes tend to alight on the items that I’ve never tried before or that I don’t often take the time to cook at home.  One of those foods is fish.  Between the high price per pound of most fresh, high quality fish, plus the decision-making dilemma about which fish are sustainable and which are not, I tend to avoid preparing fish at home altogether.

But that Wednesday my stomach was rumbling and, as I perused the menu, I noticed that Gastrotruck was offering “opah skewers and napa cabbage salad with ginger aioli and radish slices” as the daily special.  Hmmm, intriguing.  Just what is opah??

A quick Internet search revealed that opah, also known as moonfish, is an open sea fish that is not a deliberately caught variety but rather, an accidental byproduct of longline fishing for tuna, mahi mahi and other large ocean fish.  It has firm pink flesh that turns whitish when cooked.

OK, sold.  (Reel, reel, reel…)

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Once in front of the truck, the omnivore’s dilemma reared its ugly head again, as I saw the vegetarian black bean and oat sliders that had initially caught my attention the last time I was at the #foodtruckcourt. Would this be a bait and switch?

Nope, I’d order both.  Existential crisis averted.

While I waited for the food to be ready, I surveyed the assortment of house-made sauces – hot; smoky and mild; and sweet and hot.

And then the colorful trio of relishes – pickled red onions, pickled radishes, and pickled cucumbers (I think?).

My order came up, and I was presented with this beauty of a basket.  I promptly loaded up on some pickled radishes and gave the fish skewers a few dashes of the sweet and hot sauce.

I couldn’t resist piling more pickled red onions and radishes onto the black bean and oat sliders.  This was on top of the smoked jalapeno relish, cucumber and sprouts.  (I’m publicly declaring myself to be a pickled vegetable convert right here and now.  It almost inspires me to have a go at pickling some vegetables myself this season.)

Ironically, we don’t do stir fries very often; our Asian cooking has tended more towards other types of dishes.

I like this recipe because it’s a meatless option, there’s a good dose of vegetables in it and when I choose to marinade the tofu ahead of time, it’s a quick weeknight meal to prep when returning home from work. Definitely use low-sodium soy sauce for this recipe; otherwise, it’s pretty salty.

Spicy Shrimp Noodle Bowl, a quick Cooking Light recipe that includes shrimp, red pepper strips, snap peas and rice noodles in a flavorful ginger-infused seafood broth.  We usually add a little extra chicken broth to this recipe because otherwise the rice noodles tend to soak up much of the liquid.

Thai Green Coconut Curry with Tofu and Vegetables, an easy, malleable stove-top recipe with tofu and whichever seasonal vegetables you wish to add. I like to double this recipe because my husband and I enjoy eating the leftovers for a work lunch.

These three recipes are all good options for a weeknight dinner later during the week, because the fresh ingredients (and tofu) can handle hanging out in the fridge for a couple of days; just remember to thaw the pork / shrimp overnight before the day you plan to make those recipes.

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Finally, one last dinner that I feel is best suited to preparing on a weekend because of the ingredient prep involved:

Peanut Chicken with Steamed Spinach and Basmati Rice

Yes, local strawberries are finally here!  Kinda. They’ve begun to appear at area farmers markets but the cool, wet weather in Minnesota this spring has meant that u-pick farms are just starting to get going, with limited hours beginning today for some places.  So, I’m waiting until next weekend to go pick my own strawberries for jam-making.

But I have my eyes on a bigger prize yet.

I didn’t get it together to plant any vegetables this year, just cooking herbs in pots.  But this patch?

These canes yield red gold during July.  For a brief couple of weeks, I will hit the motherlode of raspberries, enough to eat them every day plus put some away in jam.  There’s no food more local than what you can harvest from your own backyard.

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I’ve never thought much about the pollinators of the world – the bees, bats (yes, bats!), hummingbirds and butterflies.

But this year I’m noticing them because, as I learned at the recent TEDxTC Future of Food event, pollinators are responsible for one-third of our food supply.  If the pollinators disappear, will all sorts of food sources also disappear along with them?

The thought is enough to give you pause.  Or at least, it should.

I’m grateful for bees.

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Check out this amazing video of pollinators that was shown at the TEDxTC event. Happy Friday!