Giving Up Red Meat for Lent? Try This Tuna Steak.

Yes, Home With Mandy takes requests! I received a sweet e-mail from Benita who has given up red meat for lent and request I post a vegetarian or fish dish. Well here you go Benita, I have this great fish marinade that worked exceptionally well on tuna steak.

Tuna is high in valued omega 3, it has a "steak" like texture and is cooked very similar to red meat. The key here, like many other steaks, is NOT to overcook it. In fact, most people (me included) like tuna steak served rare. That is red on the inside and seared on the outside. But eating healthy doesn't mean we have to give up flavor, so let me show you this (easily customizable) marinade recipe that I tried and REALLY loved.

There is the pink tuna steak at bottom left in a zip top baggie. I also used fresh ginger (that I keep frozen in a zip top bag in the freezer door), sesame oil, olive oil, d'Oni Happy Together, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and fresh cilantro.

You probably have much of this in your fridge although the d'Oni sauce is a bit unusual. I bought a few of these sauces at my local grocery store after reading a review on hungry-girl.com which shared that d'Oni products are all-natural & preservative-free and healthy-lifestyle & weight management friendly. Happy Together is a blend of sweet mandarin oranges joined together with the perfect amount of chili and garlic. If I didn't have this sauce, I would have added something else with a kick like an asian chili-garlic hot sauce, or a teaspoon of garlic and a dash of soy sauce.

I didn't want it to be too spicy, but this little pinch of red pepper flakes will heat up the marinade just enough.

Adding the marinade to a zip top bag with the fish makes this an easy and clean way to marinade the meat.

Next, I chopped up fresh cilantro and tossed in.

This is two tablespoons of sesame oil (distinctive asian flavor in this oil) and one tablespoon of the Happy Together sauce.

I gave the marinade a good pinch of sea salt and a couple turns of the pepper grinder.

Sliced and diced about a tablespoon and a half of fresh ginger.

Mix everything together by squishing around your bag of marinade with the fish inside. I put this in the fridge and let it sit for an hour before cooking.

In comes the olive oil. Just a little in my non-stick pan, heated to medium-high. Then the tuna steak goes in and I cook just a few minutes on one side before flipping and pouring a couple tablespoons of the marinade on top of the browned side.

We like to eat the tuna on the rare side, so the total cook time for this entree was about eight minutes. Talk about a QUICK meal!

I served this with steamed asparagus for a super healthy week night dinner.

The marinade turned out great, and I was surprised at how mellow it actually was. I added several "spicy" ingredients like red pepper flakes and ginger, but maybe the fish needed longer to absorb those flavors. The orange and garlic flavors in the Happy Together sauce were the most profound, making this a lovely asian inspired tuna steak meal.

There are many ways to cook asparagus. The easiest in my opinion (and what I did here) was snap the bottoms off a handful of asparagus (they snap naturally above the bottom woody area of the stalk), then rinse under cold water. I lay them in a shallow dish, like corning ware and add just enough water to cover the bottom. Give it a lid and pop in the microwave for a couple minutes (2-3 minutes depending on your microwave.) The water gets hot and steams the asparagus perfectly so they are warmed through but still crunchy.

I'm giving up sleep for lent. Well actually I'm going to seriously commit to waking up early every morning to go to the gym, and it's not just a lent thing...I'm doing this for the long haul.

Oh, and I have to tell you about a really cute giveaway at Sweet Tea Diaries. This SWEET giveaway ends Monday (March 2nd) at 11:59 pm Pacific Time, so scoot over there quickly to enter.