Spring Salmon with Rice and Asparagus

To me, salmon = SCARY.  Not like it's gonna attack me in my sleep kind of scary... but scary to cook.  I've only started eating fish within the past few years (yeah to changing tastes!).  I eat sushi a lot, but cooked fish is something I don't eat very often.  However, with the encouragement of my wonderful boyfriend we went down to one of our favorite farmer's markets (the cool thing to do in San Francisco) and picked up some fresh salmon.  After consulting with some of my handy cookbooks I decided to make up my own recipe.  I served it over some rice pilaf from Trader Joes.  And since we eat all the salmon but there was asparagus and pilaf left, I combined those and took it for a filling veggie lunch :-)

Spring Salmon with Roasted Asparagus 

Prep time + cooking time: 35mins.

1lb of Salmon filet (It was kind of a lot-- a little less would have been fine)

1 tsp olive oil

1 clove of garlic, mashed (I use Dorot frozen garlic...makes things really easy)

1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme (use parsley if you have it!  If you use fresh I would use 1 tsp)

a few drops of lemon juice (use a lemon squeeze-y if you have one)

salt, to taste

1/2 tsp of dijon mustard, optional

1 lb of Asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces.

1tsp of olive oil

Start by preheating the oven to 400 degrees.  Put your aspargus in a roasting pan, and roast for about 15-20 minutes, or until fork tender (but before it gets burnt!)

Take your salmon and put it on tin foil. Mix the oil, garlic, thyme, lemon juice, salt and mustard in a small bowl.  Brush both sides with half of the sauce.  Close the foil (like a packet) and place it on grill or grill pan (if you don't have either, then you can bake the salmon as well).  Using a grill pan, let the salmon sit for about 10 minutes per side, depending on how thick it is).

Once its cooked, place the salmon over the rice and serve with asparagus.  Use the rest of the sauce to put over the salmon to increase the tastiness.  

See? I'm not so scary after all :-)

Moo Shu Veggies.

A quick, easy weeknight meal that's pretty healthy! I made mine a vegetarian meal, but you could easily add chicken or perhaps beef.  

Moo Shu Veggies

Prep time + Cook time: <30 minutes   Serves 4

1 tsp toast sesame oil (olive oil would be fine if you don't have toasted sesame on hand)

1/2 small onion, sliced 

2-3 small zucchini, chopped in quarters and sliced into long, thin slices (making them similar to the slaw)

1 bag of broccoli slaw

Soy Sauce, to taste

Optional: 

Hosin Sauce

Hot Sauce

Rice

Tortilla Wrappers or moo shu wrappers, if you could find it (or make your own, it you have time!)

Start by heating the oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-low heat.  Once it heats up, add the onion and saute until soft.  At that point add zucchini and saute until it begins to soften.  Add a few drops of soy sauce.  Then add the bag of broccoli slaw and saute until they soften but are still crunchy.  

Serve over rice or with a small tortilla.

With tortilla and rice and hot sauce.

Beef Stroganoff.

Okay, so the stressors of a blog were clearly too much, and I decided I needed a break.  Or, I wasn't able to get motivated. Either way, I am back and committed to doing this!

Last night for dinner I made a variation of beef stroganoff.  To tell you the truth, I don't really know what makes beef stroganoff-y, but I know it involves a beef sauce over noodles.  So this is my take on it.  The sauce for this is adapted from a recipe the McNeely's made here.  To make this lighter, you could make this with ground turkey, and use chicken broth in place of the beef broth.

Beef Stroganoff
Total time (prep and cook) approx 40mins.


1lb of ground beef


2 tsp of whole wheat flour (can use regular if you don't have whole wheat on hand)
1 tsp of butter 
1 small onion, diced
8 oz of mushrooms, preferably Shiitake or Cremini, sliced


2 teaspoons of flour (may need slightly more)
1/4 cup of dry red wine (you can substitute beef broth if you don't have any on hand)
2 cups of beef broth (low sodium is best)


10oz egg noodles or other shaped pasta (I used a type called Gigli which looks like this)


Start by boiling water for your pasta.  Cook pasta according to directions as you work on the rest of the meal.


Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a flat skillet.  Add your beef and saute until no longer pink.  Remove from pan and drain any fat off the pan, but leave the brown bits.


Heat your butter in that pan over medium-low heat.  Once melted, add your onions, saute for a few minutes until they start to soften.  Add your mushrooms and saute them until they start to turn brown.  Once they look delicious and smell delicious, add your flour slowly, stirring to incorporate.  Then add your wine (or the same amount of broth, if you are not planning on including the wine).  Once that starts to be incorporated, add the stock slowly, stirring as you go.  Bring the mixture to a boil for about 5-10 minutes, until the liquid starts to reduce and the sauce starts to thicken. (If after this time the sauce does not thicken, you can try adding flour a little at a time to help it).


Once it has reduced, drop the heat and cooked ground beef back in.  Let it simmer for a few minutes to let the flavors all hang out together.  After that, break out the bowls, ladle in 1/4 of the pasta and 1/4 of the sauce, and enjoy! 

You know it looks good....

Chicken Cacciatore.

I don't know about you, but I LOVE the food network.  I could (and have...) watch it all day. So one show I have recently started watching was Worst Cooks in America.  Not because I feel like I am a bad cook, but its a great way to learn some cooking skills and get recipe ideas :-).  I tried to make this "easy" recipe that Anne made on her show.  I say that in quotes because it was harder than it looked!  

Here is the original recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/chicken-cacciatore-recipe2/index.html

Here is what I used:    (Serves 4)

• Olive oil, as needed
• 2 large bone-in chicken breasts
• Salt
• 1 large onions, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves (I use Dorot frozen garlic.  It is a super handy way to keep garlic around!)
• 2 medium zucchini, sliced.
• Approx half a 10 oz package cremini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
• 1 cups dry white wine
• 1 28 oz can of San Marzano Tomatoes, crushed (You can use other types, but this is my favorite) 
• 1 bundle thyme
• Sauteed Haricot Verts (I just used green beans, but if you can find Haricot Verts use those!)

Here is here instructions, with my notes (in parenthesis) (hehe). 

Coat a large, wide pot with olive oil and put over high heat. ((About 2 tbl of olive oil)) Season the chicken with salt to taste, and brown in the hot oil.  Once all the chicken is brown, remove it to a plate and discard most of the excess fat.  ((It took a while for my chicken to brown, and it stuck a little bit.  As long as it does burn, its okay that it sticks cause there will be enough liquid added later to get that off)

If needed to coat the bottom of the pan, add a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the onions and season with salt, to taste, and sweat over low heat for 8 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and sweat for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook until they are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, season with salt, to taste, and cook until they are soft. Add the white wine and reduce by half.  

Return the chicken to the pan and add the tomatoes; taste for seasoning. Add the thyme bundle. Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Partially cover the pot and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. Check the level of the sauce periodically during the cooking process and replenish it with water as needed; the level of liquid should be about even with the chicken.  ((Okay, this is the part that got hard-- my sauce didn't reduce!  I let it go for a while and then tried covering it more, less, etc but the sauce barely moved.  I let it sit for almost 40 min with no reduction before I realized it wasn't going anywhere.  Hmm)

Remove the chicken from the pot and serve it over green beans (recipe below). Taste the sauce for seasoning and adjust if needed. Skim the surface of the sauce if excessively greasy. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve. 

Haricot Verts:

1/2 lb (or of one bag, if thats easier) of green beans or haricot verts (french version of green beans), cleaned and cooked (if you have a bag thats goes in the microwave, but if you buy them fresh, place them in boiling water for 5 minutes or until they turn bright green and are still crispy)

1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed.

1 tbl of olive oil.  

Heat up olive oil in saute pan.  Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes (careful it doesn't burn!).  Add green beans and saute until coated.  Enjoy!

This took a while, but was SO delish.  Good thing there was a lot of sauce because I could have had it by itself (and kinda did).  MmmMMmm! Way worth the time and effort.  

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Here we go....

Hey world, its me.  As the description says, this is closest I will probably come to having my own cooking show, so I've got to make it count!  I love to bake and I am slowing brushing up on my cooking skills, so this is my place to catalogue my recipes so I can remember whats good and what needs work.  


Most of the recipes I have are adapted from various sources, but I am trying to be more original.  I try to keep things super healthy but delicious, so you might see some interesting ingredients being substituted, particularly in the baked goods.  


So let me know what you think!  Remember, I am still learning, so be gentle :-)