Fast Salmon and Pasta

What happens when you have too much to do in a given day, but want to make something fresh, fast and easy for your family for dinner?  How about incorporating a little Omega-3 action into your diet with a serving of wild-caught Atlantic salmon?  Add some pasta and some veggies and this is almost a one pot meal!  This is one of my very favorite recipes because it has very few ingredients, can be thrown together in minutes and, now that my son can eat fish, is one of the only salmon recipes that everyone in the family will eat. 

For our family, I take about a pound of salmon with the pin bones removed (in our case it is wild-caught Atlantic salmon that I froze when I brought it home from the grocery store and is currently defrosting in the fridge; not ideal to freeze it, but what are you going to do?) and poach it in a skillet.  (Place the salmon, skin side down, in the skillet and add enough water to come about 1/2 way up the side of the fish.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and turn the heat on to medium or medium high.  Once bubbles start forming along the edges, turn the heat down so it stays at a very light simmer, cover and let the salmon cook until it is mostly opaque and flakes easily.)  While the salmon is cooking, bring a pot of  salted water to a full boil and cook a pound of farfalle (bow-tie) pasta.  (I am using a whole wheat pasta this evening.)  When the pasta just reaches al dente status, toss in a bag of frozen peas and let them come up to temp (you will know they are done when they turn a bright green and start floating to the top of the water).  Drain the pasta and peas, returning them to the same pot (only if you dislike washing extra dishes like me; if you like to scrub things in the sink, then by all means, put the pasta and peas into another serving dish).  Add about a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of grated lemon zest (you could add the juice of the lemon as well if you would like), and season with freshly ground black pepper.  Once the salmon is done, flake it into large chunks (leave the skin behind) and toss into the pasta and pea mixture, stirring carefully to combine (but not break the salmon up too much).  Finally, add the herb of your choice, thinly sliced into a chiffonade (fancy, Frenchy term for "ribbons").  I usually use mint because it complements the peas and the fish and provides a really bright counterpoint for the sour citrus of the lemon. 

The great thing about this recipe is that you can add anything you like to it.  Prefer asparagus to peas?  No problem - add it instead!  Don't like mint?  Add some basil or parsley!  You'd like some spice with your fish?  Well, slice up a jalepeno or toss in some crushed red pepper!  Maybe you like extra protein with an Asian flair?  Heck, add some shelled edamame and season with soy, teriyaki or hoisin sauce!  Don't like salmon?  Oh.   Hmmmm....well, that's just your loss, friend, but add another kind of fish instead - tilapia and trout are actually great alternatives. 

I love these kind of recipes: easy and easy to make your own.  That is what I love about cooking - getting to make your food suit your tastes.  Make it fun, people!  Cook something awesome tonight!

Let's Eat Some Fish!

As I have mentioned before, my youngest child has some severe food allergies.  As of right now, he is allergic to eggs (though he can eat them in baked goods such as cake and muffins), peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish.  The fish and the shellfish allergies are technically borderline as far as his doctor is concerned, and she has given approval for him to "challenge" the allergy by eating progressively larger amounts of the food in question while under her supervision in their office.  We did a "baked egg challenge" a little less than a year ago, in which he ate a single serving of white cake over the course of two or three hours (I have blocked the actual time out).  The staff monitored his vital signs throughout the process and, at the end of his time there, proclaimed him able to eat baked goods which contain three or fewer eggs.  The up side to the success of that particular challenge is also that it gives him a fair chance (75%) of outgrowing his egg allergy before the age of five.  Yay.

Tomorrow, I am taking him back to the allergist's office for his second food challenge: fish.  As per the doctor's instructions, I have sauteed a nice piece of wild-caught Alaskan cod (they require it to be a white fish) in a small amount of olive oil, with a sprinkling of gray sea salt and just a hint of fresh ground black pepper.  I have not cooked fish in our house since he was diagnosed with food allergies (specifically since the proteins in both fish and shellfish can become airborne, thus provoking an allergic reaction, even if he didn't actually ingest the food) and even that small amount of fish smelled really heavenly.  My oldest daughter, who loves all seafood, pestered me for some (uh...no, ma'am!) and even I had a little trouble keeping my paws off the flaky and delectably smelling fish. 

To be completely honest, I am a little nervous about this particular food challenge.  First of all, my son is now at the difficult age of almost two years old and he can be hard to control, even for very short periods of time.  I have a bag full of activities for him and, if all of that fails, I am sure the Netflix app on my phone will save my ass, but I am fully prepared for a very long, very exhausting morning.  We get this party started at 9 a.m., but even as good as I think the fish smells right now, I am not sure even I would want to eat cod that early in the day.  I am just hoping he is hungry enough by that point not to care what he is putting in his mouth, just as long as it is food of some kind.  I am also nervous because of the borderline status of this as an allergy.  I trust his doctor and I do not believe she would willingly jeopardize his health, but I can't help but remember the last time he had an anaphylactic reaction to a food that I fed him.  There is a very real possibility that we (primarily me, as I will be holding the fork and *probably* force feeding him a potential allergen) will provoke an allergic reaction of undetermined severity.  I know this is why we are doing the "challenge" under the doctor's supervision and that it will be a slow process (vvvvveeeeerrrrryyyy slow, actually) of consuming 4 ounces of fish, but I am still a little worried. 

Anyway, despite my fears of an allergic reaction and the certainty of matching wills with a very strong (physically, especially) and hard-headed toddler, I will be glad to put this particular challenge behind us. If we can mark just one of his allergenic foods off of our list, it will be a very good thing.  If we can get past this food, we can go on to a shellfish challenge next which is good because we all miss eating shrimp.  Wish us luck!