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 :-)