Roasting, My Default Cooking Method

In a fit of enthusiasm, I bought broccolini last week ... but I didn't quite know what to do with it when I got home. I decided to pretend it was just a weird version of asparagus and roasted it accordingly.

Easy Roasted Broccolini & Salmon
Serves 2

Ingredients
15± broccolini stems, washed and trimmed
2 4 oz frozen wild-caught sockeye salmon fillets Sockeye, thawed
Olive oil, as needed
Boxed Goodes Allium Salt, as needed (or a similar blend of sea salt, dried onion/shallots/chives)

Directions
Preheat oven to 400F°.

Spread broccolini on large jelly roll pan and toss with olive oil and Allium Salt to taste. Shove to one side of the pan and add the salmon. Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with a few grinds of Allium Salt.

Roast for approximately 20 minutes or until stems are crisp-tender and tops are slightly browned.

Surprisingly yum for something so simple, but I might toss in lemon juice and zest next time for a little brightness ... When I took the leftovers to work, I garnished them with a generous helping of leftover bruschetta (work parties are the best) and that was simply fantastic.

Roasted Salmon & Asparagus

Since one of my "lifestyle changes" is to eat more wild caught fish of discoverable provenance, I've been buying bags of frozen wild caught Alaskan sockeye salmon fillets -- mainly because it's more convenient and slightly cheaper than fresh. Does frozen wild caught taste as good as fresh wild caught? Not quite, but it's still steps above fresh farmed.

Mind you, frozen or fresh, wild salmon is a lot leaner than the farm-raised stuff and so cooks faster. It seems obvious, but I didn't know and turned my first piece of wild caught salmon into salmon jerky. Ah well, practice makes perfect!

Asparagus and salmon with garlic oil, minced shallot, fresh thyme, salt and pepper. Roasted, uncovered, in a 400F° oven for about 10 minutes.

Sardines, My Fishy Darlings

Hungry and too lazy to go food shopping, I turned to "Sardines with Sun-Dried Tomato and Capers," a recipe I pinned weeks ago when I decided sardines and mackerel should be my new fishy BFF's as I tried to pack more healthy oils and lean protein into my diet. This has been no hardship as sardines and mackerel are delicious.

Ingredients: Oil-packed sardines, lemon juice, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, sriracha.

I usually buy boneless filleted sardines packed in olive oil and did not realize Wild Planet's "Wild Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil" would be any different as the packaging said "Delicious meaty portions cleaned and scale-free." Therefore, I was quite surprised to see little fishy spines when I started mixed everything together! This made me feel a little squeamish and I at the spread very ... cautiously ... always expecting to crunch down on spiny goodness.

Which never happened. The bones broke up, mixed right in, and tasted no different than the surrounding fish mixture. Or the crunchiness of the crisp bread obscured the crunchy fish bones. Either way, it was all actually quite good and I would happily make it again for lunch.

If I were serving this to other people, however, I think I would probably use good quality oil-packed tuna instead of the sardines. I would also throw in some chopped pitted Niçoise olives and fresh parsley. Indeed, fresh herbs all around would make this a great summer dish.

Fishy Rice Salad

I saw a sardine rice salad posted on flickr a while ago and the idea of it has been lurking in the back of my mind ever since, waiting for an "I'm starving, but there's nothing I want to eat" moment. Which was yesterday.

The original version used canned sardines in olive oil, warm jasmine thai rice, lettuce, mayonnaise, onions, and lemon juice, but I adapted it for my kitchen. I imagine most tinned fish would work well -- particularly a really good olive-oil packed tuna -- but I went with mackerel, because it's my fishy new BFF.

Mackerel & Rice Salad
Makes 1 large serving

Ingredients
1 romaine lettuce heart, chopped fine
1 can oil-packed mackerel fillets, drained and flaked, oil reserved
1 cup cooked brown rice, hot
Lemon juice, to taste
Black pepper, to taste

Directions
Toss lettuce, mackerel, and rice together in a large bowl (the heat from the rice will wilt the lettuce a little bit). Add reserved oil, lemon juice, and black pepper, until salad is dressed to your taste. Nom away.

(If you're using fished packed in water, definitely add a tablespoon of olive or flaxseed oil to the dish).

Simple Chayote Slaw

I've been experimenting with chayotes for March's Eating the Alphabet Challenge and ended up throwing together this rather marvelous slaw of shredded chayote, Napa cabbage, carrots, and honey mustard dressing. I ate the slaw with cold salmon I'd also brushed with some of the honey mustard dressing before baking and it was all omnomnomilicious.

I halved Alton Brown's Honey Mustard Dressing recipe to make the dressing as part of the whole eating more "real things" plan means many commercially prepared salad dressings are now dietary no-goes. Which is not to say I never eat commerically prepared salad dressings, just that I'm getting a lot chooser. Also, I'm finding a salad dressed with a little flaxseed oil, lemon or lime juice, and salt and pepper is a pretty fine thing. (Wow, I sound like an insufferable prig).

Anyway, the slaw and the salad dressing are both dead easy to prepare and I recommend them both.

Easy Chayote Slaw
Serves 3

Ingredients
⅓ head napa cabbage
2 carrots, peeled
1 chayote, peeled, pit removed
Alton Brown's Honey Mustard Dressing, to taste
Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

Directions
Shred the chayote and carrots using the largest holes on a box grater or, if you love your knuckles, run them through your food processor. Dump the shredded vegetables onto a tea towel, twist it up, and give everything a good squeeze. Set towel aside while you shred the cabbage.

In a big bowl, toss the shredded vegetables with honey mustard dressing, tasting as you go, until the slaw is dressed to your satisfaction. Season slaw with salt and pepper to taste. Toss in a little cilantro or some pepitas, if you're feeling fancy.

If you want a crispy-crunchy slaw and aren't going to eat the entire dish right away, don't dress it! I portioned my slaw out into three bowls with three tiny containers of dressing and dressed the slaw at work when I was ready to eat.

Lazilicious Cheesy Salmon-Potato Cakes

I recently found myself craving my mother's salmon-potato cakes. Growing up, she made them a lot during Lent using canned salmon, leftover mashed potatoes, egg, bread crumbs, and such. I was always unnerved by the sight of Mom picking the salmon skin and bones out of the drained meat and was quite sure, for a very long time, that salmon was the grossest food ever. Tuna was good as it came in a nice little can I was allowed to drain and prepare all on my own. There was nothing fishy or weird about it. (To my chagrin, I must admit it wasn't until high school that I stopped drowning my mom's salmon cakes in ketchup and realized how good they were on their own and changed my mind about salmon).

So I wanted salmon cakes. Alas, I had no leftover mashed potatoes or even whole potatoes to turn into mash. What I did have was a box of Streit's Potato Pancake Mix. "Hmm," I thought, "surely I can salmonize this." And I did.

Start by putting a large serving platter in your oven and setting the oven to its lowest setting (mine actually has a "warm" setting). Then prepare potato pancake mix according to box instructions and let sit until very thick (about 10 minutes). Stir in one can drained skinless, boneless salmon (Wild Planet Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon) and one cup shredded cheddar (Cabot 75% Light). Stir well.

Heat canola oil in a large saute pan and drop dollops of batter into the hot oil. Pan-fry cakes until golden brown on both sides. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels on a platter in the warm oven. Repeat until all the batter is used. Serve with sour cream or ketchup and a large salad.

Semi-Planned Salmon Supper

Monday, I was supposed to make "Baked Lemon Caper Salmon" with baked potatoes and roast asparagus for supper and ... I kinda-sorta did? We did eat salmon and potatoes. There were no capers. There was rosemary. Somehow, asparagus became green beans. It was all very good and home-cooked so I'll count it a win, anyway.

I used the recipe for "Baked Lemon Caper Salmon" from My Daily Dish as the model for my salmon. I had planned on boneless steaks, not fillets, so panicked a bit when I realized Peapod had delivered bone-in steaks (labeled as boneless, but clearly full of jabby things). I have terrible deboning skillz so eventually, after abusing the poor salmon with a pair of tweezers, decided to deal with the bones after the steaks cooked.

Aside from using the wrong cut of salmon, I mostly followed My Daily Dish's recipe as written. I did replace the capers with sprigs of rosemary, because I suddenly wasn't in a capery mood.

Which is also why we ate green beans instead of asparagus. I just looked at the asparagus, rampant and green, and thought "not tonight, you" and stuffed it back in the fridge. Of course, it's now Friday and we still haven't eaten the asparagus ...

To make supper, I cut two large unpeeled baking potatoes into bite-size cubes and tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary. I roasted the potatoes in a jelly roll pan in a 425F° oven for 30 minutes. Then I scooted the potatoes to one side of the pan, added the green beans tossed with olive oil, and slid the salmon pan into the oven next to the jelly roll pan, and let everything roast for 15 minutes.

I didn't stir the green beans while they and the salmon roasted, so they charred a little bit, but I like my roasted vegetables extra crispy around the edges.

Presto! Pesto Baked Salmon & Tomatoes

When life gives you a bumper-crop tomatoes ... you darn well eat them, knowing you'll miss them dreadfully in January. This week, we've had tomato-bread salad, tomato soup, tomato pizza, tomatoes stuffed with eggs, and now tomatoes baked with salmon.

All this lycopene better be doing brilliant things to my ramshackle body, I tell you what.

Anyway, this dish was dead easy to make and tasted really good -- the tomato juices and olive oil mingled with the herbs and salmon juices and it was just oh! a savory flavor explosion for the tastebuds.

Pesto-Baked Salmon & Tomatoes

Ingredients
4 large tomatoes, cored and diced
1 lb salmon fillet, boned and halved
2 Tbsp prepared pesto
freshly ground black pepper
fresh thyme, minced
fresh oregano, minced

Directions
Preheat oven to 375°F.

Toss tomatoes with one tablespoon pesto, pepper, and herbs. Set aside.

Spread salmon with remaining tablespoon of pesto. Place, skin-side up in a baking dish. Surround with tomatoes.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until salmon flakes easily with fork. Let stand 5 minutes. Peel off salmon skin.

Serve with pesto rice (toss hot rice with pesto) and steamed spinach.

Spicy Surimi Salad

When I made this surimi salad, I was inspired by Jacques Pepin's recipe for "Surimi Salad on Greens" from More Fast Food My Way (Episode 216 -- the same as the mini savory cheesecakes) but I didn't have quite the right ingredients. Nonetheless, I was pleased by the results and recommend you give it a try.

(Obviously, if you don't like spicy, use less sriracha).

Spicy Surimi Salad

Ingredients
8 oz package surimi
2 bottled roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
2 Tbsp light mayonnaise
1 Tbsp minced shallot
1 Tbsp minced chives
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp sriracha
3 tomatoes, cut into wedges
Mixed salad greens

Directions
In a bowl, combine surimi, pepper, mayonnaise, shallot, chives, lemon juice, and sriracha. Arrange salad greens among three plates. Spoon the surimi salad on top. Garnish each serving with tomato wedges.

Makes 3 servings.

Pantry Raid: Tuna, Capers, & White Bean Salad

Restlessly pacing the kitchen at eleven o'clock Thursday evening, eager to slap together something fast and (hopefully) tasty to take to work in the morning, my gaze fell upon a small golden tin of oil-packed tuna and I had the most delicious brainstorm. I would make tuna and white bean salad! Why not?! I had tuna. I had beans. I had capers. And shallots. And lemon. Mmm, lemon! It was going to be the most awesome tuna salad ever.

And, you know, it pretty much was. If you're sensible, this recipe serves two. I am not sensible and went omnomnom until it was all gone and then I wished for more.

Tuna & White Bean Salad

5 oz tin oil packed tuna, undrained
15.5 oz tin white beans, drained and rinsed
1 small shallot, minced
2 tsp capers, drained but not rinsed
Lemon juice
Black pepper
Parsley
Baby spinach

Mix undrained tuna, beans, shallot, and capers together. Season with lemon juice, black pepper, and parsley to taste. Serve on a bed of baby spinach.

I'm thinking this would be awesome in the summer with chopped garden tomatoes and fresh basil or tarragon.

Simple Seared Tuna

Made tuna steaks for supper Monday night. I would have preferred to cook them on our grill, but it's been raining for what feels like weeks now and grilling in the rain is just no fun. I used the recipe for "Seared Herbed Tuna" from Weight Watchers 4 Ingredient 10 Minute Recipes and we thought the steaks turned out quite deliciously -- so deliciously, in fact, that I wondered why I didn't cook tuna more often!

(I know tuna is "supposed" to be served medium-rare, 

but we're not very brave and stick with a warm bright pink center).

Ingredients: wild caught tuna steaks (from freezer), Penzeys Parisian Bonnes Herbes (instead of Herbes de Provence), salt, black pepper, olive oil, lemon.

I had planned on serving these steaks with "Sauteed Green Beans and Cherry Tomatoes," but two stove top dishes just seemed beyond me considering how exhausted I was (three hours sleep, natch) so I microwaved green beans then tossed them with chopped jarred roasted peppers, lightly salted butter, and Penzeys Parisian Bonnes Herbes. The green beans came out really well and I will be making them this way again.

Homemade Spudulike: Tuna & Sweetcorn Mayonnaise

Another week, another spudulike. And, as promised, I went with classic tuna and sweetcorn spudulike. How was it? Pretty darn good!

Tuna Sweetcorn Mayonnaise

Ingredients
12 oz solid white albacore tuna, well drained
7 oz low sodium corn, drained
Mayonnaise, to taste
Parsley, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Portion out onto baked potatoes, use as a sandwich filling, spread on crispbread, or serve on a bed of mixed salad greens.

(This recipe makes enough to fill two large potatoes and spread liberally across six crispbread).

Supper of Infinite Suckitude

Last week I made "Mahi Mahi with Citrus" from The South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook, wheat pilaf, and caesar salad for supper one night.

This was the first time I ever cooked mahi mahi and I was really pleased with how it turned out. The Husband is extremely picky about fish so I wasn't expecting him to embrace it with open arms so much as pick at it for a bit before pronouncing it okay. I figured he'd be fine with the salad and pilaf as I'd served both before ...

However, The Husband utterly disdained the entire meal! Didn't like the mahi mahi, thought the caesar salad was meh, and gave decidedly low marks to the bulgur pilaf.

I ended up taking him to Wendy's. Facepalm?

Woe Unto You, Tartar Sauce ...

Last week, I tried cooking catfish for the very first time after I impulsively purchased some from Peapod. It was on sale, I'm trying to make ethical fish purchases, and Peapod claimed it was "sustainable seafood." Apparently, Peapod's been teamed up with the New England Aquarium since 2000 to help customers make smart and sustainable seafood choices:

The New England Aquarium works with some of the largest seafood retailers and suppliers to encourage the sustainable development of farmed and wild-caught seafood resources. As the founding partner of the New England Aquarium’s seafood advisory services program, Stop & Shop was one of the first companies in the seafood industry to seek out a non-governmental organization with expertise in the oceans to help improve the sustainability of the seafood products we sell. The best quality products, and the safest, are sourced from suppliers who share our commitment to freshness, quality, and food safety.

What is that worth, exactly? Buggered if I know, but the catfish turned out all right.


Ingredients: catfish fillets, thyme, smoked paprika, black pepper, canola mayonnaise, lemon juice, lemon zest, pressed garlic.

Recipe was adapted from The South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook. I didn't have any cayenne so I rubbed the catfish fillets with smoked paprika and was generous with the black pepper. The lemon aioli was very garlicky and vastly superior to my favorite mayonnaise-based condiment, tartar sauce.

Woe unto you, tartar sauce, for you have been supplanted!

Cod Could Be Better

So I made "Cod with Artichokes and Basil" from The South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook the other day. Cod loin rubbed with olive oil and basil, roasted with marinated artichoke hearts (and some chopped roasted peppers I threw in for color) until yummy ... except yummy never really arrived. Oh, it was okay, but you know what would have made it better? Feta cheese, grape tomatoes, some fresh basil, and smaller artichoke bits.

Seriously, next time I'd coarsely chop the quartered hearts, mix them with fresh basil and chopped grape tomatoes, and spread them over the cod. Then I'd sprinkle two or three tablespoons of marinade from the artichokes over the cheese. I'm pretty sure that will bake up yummy.

(Of course it would, because it's a variation on Jamie Oliver's recipe for "Roasted Cod with Cherry Tomatoes, Basil and Mozzarella" that I already love so much).

My Fish Paste Brings All the Cats to the Yard

I know, you are looking at this photo and you are thinking "Am I wrong or does it look like she spread cat food on some foam board and plated it?" and you are right for that is what it looks like. But that isn't what I did. Not at all. I made fish paste!

Fish paste is exactly what it sounds like -- a paste of fish mixed with spices and butter meant to be spread on crackers or toast or used as sandwich filler. It seems very British to me and whenever I hear "fish paste" (admittedly, not very often), I envision an afternoon tea of cold tongue and potted meat sandwiches, plummy fruitcake thick with royal icing, and tiny glasses of sherry in a damp room heavy with antimacassars ...

Yes. Well. Anyway, after discovering two tins of mackerel fillets in the back of a cupboard, I found a recipe for "Mixed Fish Pate" and modified it to suit me. While I'm very pleased with my homemade fish paste, The Husband thinks it is too lemony!

Fish Paste

1 5 oz can tuna fish in oil
2 3.88 oz cans mackerel fillets in oil
1 oz unsalted butter, melted
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp dried parsley
1 tsp salt-free lemon-pepper herb blend
Grated zest of 1 lemon

Drain most of the oil from the tuna and mackerel (save oil for another use, if you're feeling thrifty). Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until a smooth paste is formed. Refrigerate until needed.

Yummy, Elegant Salmon & Asparagus Crepes

Kitchen of Light: New Scandinavian Cooking with Andreas Viestad (Workman Publishing, 2003) is due back to the library by the end of the week and there are still four recipes I really want to make, so I'm trying to cook through my bookmarks before I have to let Kitchen of Light go on to some other deserving patron.

Monday being a holiday, I was home for lunch and decided to make a half recipe of Viestad's "Smoked Salmon, Asparagus, and Potato Cake Canapes."

Ingredients: crepes, asparagus, lemon, smoked salmon, sour cream, dill.

Spread crepes with a thin layer of sour cream and top with salmon. Place an asparagus spear (I used two per crepe, arranged top-to-tail) on each crepe and roll up the crepes around the asparagus. Cut each rolled crepe into 6 slices and arrange on a serving plate. Sprinkle with dill. If you can find it, garnish each canape with a little salmon roe.

Overall, these canapes made for an easy, elegant, and tasty lunch. I look forward to making them again with Viestad's "Simple Salmon Mousse" and salmon roe. While the recipe works well with smoked salmon, it would be even better with Viestad's mousse but, as he writes, smoked salmon is an acceptable substitute if you're not sure of the freshness or hygienic handling of the salmon at your grocery store (and I wasn't). You could also probably use a commercially prepared smoked salmon spread, if you could find a good one.

(I appreciated Viestad's suggestion to add lemon juice and rind to the asparagus's cooking water as it did seem to keep the asparagus from yellowing as it cooked).

Crabby Cottage Cheese

Thursday, I made a half recipe of Taste of Home's "Cottage Cheese Crab Salad" for lunch and was surprised by just how much I liked it. I did omit the sour cream as I had none and that probably made the salad quite a bit drier than it would have been otherwise, but I didn't mind that as my greens didn't get soggy in the five hours between packing lunch and eating it!




Ingredients: salad greens, grape tomatoes, surimi, 2% cottage cheese, green onions, celery, Dijon mustard, garlic powder, pepper.

I served this salad on a bed of greens just I could just as easily see stuffing it in a whole wheat pita pocket.

Hey Presto, Pesto Salmon

This is something I threw together one night for supper when I wasn't feeling up to making what was on my menu plan, but wasn't quite ready to stoop to takeout. While it came out pretty well, I would toss the vegetables with a little olive oil and minced garlic next time.




Twelve ounce piece of salmon fillet, skinned and boned with the skinny end tucked under, smeared with a little pesto and placed on a bed of frozen asparagus and halved grape tomatoes. Baked for 20 minutes at 450°F.

Simple and delicious.

(I skin salmon by putting it, skin side down, in a very hot skillet and sear the skin for a minute or two. Removed from the skillet, the skin peels right off and you have the added bonus of being halfway to that decadent snack, crispy salmon skin. Just throw the salmon skin back in the hot skillet, less crispy side down, until it is thoroughly crisped).

Finicky About Fennel

Monday, I made Eatingwell's "Seared Salmon with White Beans" for supper and learned something important -- neither The Husband nor I particularly enjoy the taste of cooked fennel bulb. I've cooked with fennel seeds before and find the raw green fronds pretty tasty (kinda-sorta like dill), but the bulb? Off-putting. It's a sad thing, because this dish was otherwise delicious. I will certainly make this recipe again, but I will omit the fennel bulb or replace it with very thin slices of leek.


Ingredients: salmon fillet, fennel bulb, white beans, diced cherry tomatoes, fennel seed, Dijon mustard, white wine.

The fennel mixture was very simple to prepare -- simply heat a little olive oil in a skillet and cook the thinly sliced (I ran mine through my food processor to get wafer-thin pieces) fennel until it starts to brown, then stir in white beans, diced tomatoes, and white wine. Cook everything until the tomato starts to go smooshy, then remove from heat, throw in some chopped fennel fronds, a splodge of Dijon mustard, and some fresh cracked pepper. Cover and pop into a warm oven while you cook the salmon.

I usually bake salmon, but this recipe's method bears repeating as yields very crispy salmon -- an interesting texture change. Just heat a little olive oil in another skillet until the oil is all shimmery. Add two 4-oz pieces of salmon salmon, skinned side up, to the skillet and cook until you can see the edges have gone golden brown. Turn the salmon over, cover and remove from the heat -- the residual heat will cook the salmon through (took about 8 min for mine, but they were very thick pieces). Serve the salmon on the fennel mixture.