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!

Poor Lady's Pho

I have recently become a member of a fabulous bulk retailer (who shall remain nameless) and took all three of my kids shopping there a couple of weeks ago.  We actually had a pretty good time, tooling around the store, trying samples and finding all of those "extras" that weren't on my original list.  One of the samples we stopped for was pre-made, frozen meatballs which were sold in either Pineapple-Teriyaki or Mango-Jalapeno flavor.  We opted for the pineapple version, since my kids aren't that big on spice, and stuck them in the freezer when we got home.  I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them until inspiration (in the form of cleaning out the fridge) struck. 

I had about 3/4 of a box of chicken stock in the fridge, along with a bunch of cilantro, a jalapeno and a few onions (from our garden!) that needed to be used up.  I asked my husband to grab a box of Thai rice noodles (wide, flat noodles, not unlike linguine) from the store and, when he got home, I set the frozen meatballs to simmer in the chicken stock (plus a cup or two of water).  After they came up to temp, I added soy sauce, hoisin sauce and the remnants of a bottle of vegan Worcestershire sauce to the stock, stirred it around and let it continue to bubble away.  I boiled the noodles as per the package directions and, when they were tender, I rinsed them in cold water and drained them thoroughly.  I washed the cilantro, sliced the jalapeno and onion and grabbed some Thai basil from our garden.  I added a couple of wedges of lemon (I didn't have any limes) and we were good to go.  Everyone got a serving of noodles and meatballs (some with more broth than others) and could top it as they saw fit.  The kids mostly went plain Jane (one of them adding a teeny squeeze of lemon), but my husband and I loaded up on herbs, peppers and onions.  It was super tasty and everyone ate (almost) all of their dinner.....but.  But, the next day, both my husband and I were feeling distinctly queasy.  Could it have been the meatballs?  Possibly.  The kids felt fine and, in fact, finished off the meatballs the next day for lunch.  As for me, I love any and all kinds of pho (even my fake, multi-ethnic version), but I could not stomach the thought of eating any more of that meal.  I don't think I will be buying those meatballs again.....

Goodbye, Winter Garden! You Were Delicious!

Yesterday, my husband and our daughters ripped out the winter garden that we had at our community garden plot.  The community garden happens to be at my local YMCA, so, while they did that, I was inside, having a nice little workout, which has left me very sore this morning.  Thank you, Body Pump!  It was funny because, as I was working my tail off (literally), I could see the three of them, out the window, working their tails off gardening.  After my class was finished and I had reclaimed my toddler from the nursery, we all went out to see the results of all of their hard work.  They had an enormous pile of onions of all shapes, sizes and varieties, as well as a couple dozen good sized carrots.  Sadly, most of our other plants either succumbed to the Texas heat (starting to become of the "hotter than hell" variety) or the bane of my gardening existence: bugs that I call "squash bores".  (I call them that because....that....is their name.)  Anyway, my once gorgeous artichoke plant was the latest, and perhaps most tragic, victim and had to be cut back to a mere shadow of its former self.  I hope that it will survive, but we shall have to see.  In any case, they planted some new munchables for the bugs - melons and cucumbers, specifically.  We loaded up the onions and carrots, took them home to clean and.....

A freaking hour later, I was finally finished cleaning the dirt off of all of my lovely veggies.  I really didn't know what I wanted to do with them (and the five new potatoes that they also dug up), so I made sure they weren't going to make a mess in my fridge or take up too much room and I let our dinner menu percolate in my head for a bit.  What I eventually came up with was this: a caramelized onion and new potato tart with white cheddar cheese, served with honey glazed carrots.  I sliced all of the onions into 1/8 inch slices and cooked them for about 20 minutes in olive oil on medium to medium high heat until they were completely soft and a lovely browned color.  I set them aside to cool, while I cooked the carrots, also sliced into 1/8 inch pieces.  I added them, another tablespoon of olive oil, salt, pepper and about 2 teaspoons of honey to a skillet with about 1/2 a cup of water.  I let them simmer, covered, in the water mixture until they were soft, then uncovered the pan and let the honey and oil caramelize and glaze the carrots. 

I found another yeast-less pizza crust recipe (2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2/3 cup water and 1/4 cup olive oil), so I whipped that out, pressed it into a rectangular shape, topped it with paper thin slices of potato (salted and peppered those), the caramelized onions and finished it off with about four ounces of shredded white cheddar cheese.  I baked the tart in a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes, until the cheese was melted and lightly browned in spots, and the potatoes were cooked through.

I wasn't expecting a thoroughly warm reception from the kids for this dinner (mainly because of the preponderance of onions, caramelized and hidden by cheese or no), but the girls ate it up!  They even came back for seconds!  Our son, on the other hand, usually a vegetarian by nature, refused to eat a single bite of the tart.  He ate a couple of carrots and steadfastly refused to eat anything else.  (This could have had more to do with the fact that, because dinner was running really late, we gave him his full cup of milk as an amuse bouche.)

Based on my general success, I left the dinner table last night feeling like a bit of a culinary bad-ass.  I mean, I literally took a pile of root vegetables that were dug up (from the ground!) in the morning and turned them into a tasty, satisfying vegetarian meal to feed our family of five for dinner that night.  I used ingredients that were in my pantry and fridge to round out the meal and (almost) everyone ate it!  See?  Culinary bad-ass. 

Last Day of School!

Wow!  Here we are, on the morning of the last day of school!  I said it on my Facebook page and I will say it again here: this is always a bittersweet time of year for me.  Even as much as I am looking forward to more time with my kids (which is saying something after a VERY difficult night last night - that is a different story altogether) and all the fun things that summer brings with it, I still look at the end of the school year as just that: an ending.  For us, it is the end of an era - one of my daughters will move on to a different elementary school next year, which will necessitate quite a number of changes in our daily routine, my little one will start preschool, not to mention the more obvious fact that they are all getting older and so am I....aaaaannnndddd I just veered into a Fleetwood Mac/Dixie Chicks (depending on your age) song. 

So, before I get too weepy, let me just say that the last day of school, for us at least, brings lots and lots of food treats.  The girls will each have classroom parties, which my son and I will attend, and which will be packed with snacks and drinks.  Then, as a way to distract my girls, who tend to be as maudlin as me on the last day of school, I promised that if they went easy on the junk at school, I would take them out to get burgers for lunch.  Finally, as is our "tradition", they were allowed to choose our dinner for the last day of school, which will be: shrimp (since my son can eat it now.  Yay!) with spicy ketchup (homemade cocktail sauce), cheese fondue (homemade because I decided I was too cheap to buy the ridiculously priced pre-made variety, imported from Switzerland) and chips and salsa (store bought).  I think....I think I just gave myself a stomach-ache reading our meals planned for the day.  Ah, well.  I have plenty of anti-acids in the medicine cabinet, and we will get back to a semi-normal eating routine tomorrow.  Tomorrow: FIRST DAY OF SUMMER VACATION! 

Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie

Yes, you read that right - Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie was FINALLY on the menu for dinner this week.  (I mean, it has been on the menu for, like, weeks now, but I FINALLY made it this week!)  This all started when a friend of mine shared some of her family's Easter tamales with us and my oldest claimed that tamales are her favorite food. (My youngest daughter then regaled us with the claim that she does NOT like tamales, but that is neither here nor there...for this post at least.  Obviously, we have to have some kind of intervention for her, because - WHO doesn't like tamales?!)  Anyway, the tamales were amazing - clearly homemade with a meat filling that practically fell apart and masa that was perfectly seasoned and moist.  We enjoyed them.  Thoroughly.  Of course, that brought up the question, again from my oldest: "Mommy, why don't you ever make tamales?"  I tried explaining to her the time consuming factor of making tamales, among other issues, then, when my excuses continued to fall upon deaf nine-year-old-tamale-craving ears, I took a look at one of my favorite cookbooks, "America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook".  Lo and behold, there was an "easy" recipe for Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie.  She seemed excited about this new recipe and a twist on traditional tamales, so I thought we would give it a try.

Now, I put the word easy in quotations for a reason: ATK recipes are typically not what I would classify as "easy", especially for a weeknight, family meal.  They typically involve ALOT of extra steps (and thus ALOT of extra dishes), so I tend to distill their recipes down into a more manageable and efficient procedure.  This recipe was no different - the intention is obviously to make this a one pot/skillet meal, but, if you are like me and forgot (AGAIN) to defrost the meat the night before, it becomes necessary to accomplish this in a different series of steps. 

The original recipe says to heat a skillet in a 400 degree oven until it is smoking hot and then to sear the chicken thighs in the skillet, thus quickly rendering their fat.  You then use part of the rendered fat to saute the vegetables, returning the meat to the sauce at the end to finish cooking in more of a braise method.  Like I said, I was defrosting my chicken thighs in a sinkful of water at 5 pm that day and I needed dinner on the table no later than 6:15 pm, so I changed things up a bit.  While said chicken was defrosting, I chopped all the veggies (onions from my garden, and the manky old poblano chiles - hey!  They did not have mold on them!  Don't judge. - plus garlic and cilantro to add towards the end of the cooking process.) I sauteed them in a scant tablespoon of olive oil until they started to soften, then added a bag of frozen, organic corn.  (Another substitution - the original recipe calls for fresh corn or for defrosted and patted dry frozen corn.  Duh - I didn't have time to pat the freaking corn dry.)  I then sprinkled about a tablespoon of flour over the top, cooked it for about 30 seconds and, once I had some nice color on the corn, I added the garlic, cooked until fragrant, then added the cilantro, a can of chopped green chiles, a can of white hominy (drained and rinsed) and about a cup and a half of chicken stock.  I brought all of that to a low simmer, thickened the sauce, then added about a cup of medium cheddar cheese, off the heat.  I poured all of that into a 9 x 13 inch casserole dish and stuck it in my microwave to keep warm until I was ready for it.  I wiped out the skillet, added a tiny bit of olive oil and sauteed the chicken thighs, which were, by this time, partially defrosted.  I rendered the fat of the skin and browned it on all sides before sticking it in the microwave (after removing my casserole dish) to finish cooking it (really to nuke the crap out of it - I don't mess around with undercooked chicken by any means).  While that was cooking, I made the "masa" topping - 3/4 cup each of flour and cornmeal, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 3/4 cup buttermilk, 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of butter, melted and cooled.  I shredded the nuclear chicken, mixed it in with the corn/pepper mixture in the casserole dish, dolloped the masa topping, spread it out and baked that sucker in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, until bubbly and nicely golden brown. 

The result: pretty tasty!  I definitely made it more complicated than the original recipe was supposed to be, but it worked.  It was very slightly spicy and the heat was more than tempered by the sweet corn bread topping.  The chicken was chewier than it should have been - especially considering that it was mostly supposed to be braised - but what are you going to do?  I had the leftovers for lunch the next day and I have to say - the flavors continued to develop and meld.  I think it might have been better the next day than it was the first time around.  I don't know if I will make the recipe again, especially since my tamale lover was not completely blown away by it, but it was a decent Wednesday night meal.  Everybody ate it, so, as you well know - that's a winner in my book! 

A Little of Everything and A Lot of Not Much

Today capped off what was an extraordinarily busy week for us.  My business had several bookings (I make and decorate cakes, by the way) for Friday, Saturday and today (Sunday) and I feel like my family literally ran from activity to activity beginning last Monday and ending around lunchtime today.  The title of the post really encapsulates what I have been feeling lately - in regards to both my personal self and my cooking.  Granted, last week was crazy, even by my typical standards (which anyone with kids will tell you means you are busy ALL.  THE.  TIME.).  I do a little of everything and a lot of....well....not a lot.  Last week, my "a lot of not a lot" was cooking.  I just didn't have the time.  I am sitting here, typing this blog post and thinking, "I actually don't remember what the hell I fed my family for dinners last week."  I mean, I remember that, by Friday, I was so physically and mentally exhausted that I caved in and bought us all Sonic hamburgers for dinner.  I know we had sandwiches at some point in the week and I believe I made tomato soup to go with some grilled cheese another day, but honestly, it is all blurred together.

I would like to say that this week will be different and I will not be running so much that I actually, literally, physically won't have time to put a decent dinner on the table, but I think that might be a lie.  Even though this week has a lighter schedule, there are still going to be some days that I am going to struggle to cook.  I have cut myself some serious slack the past few weeks by buying things like bread (because that was one of the first things to fall off of my lengthy to-do list) and diapers (we were cloth diapering exclusively, but have been waging an ongoing battle against diaper rash and my own laziness for quite a while).  I am going to continue to cut myself some slack in those areas this week and have chosen menu items like pork fried rice (a family favorite), pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches (a crock pot recipe that will yield quite a lot of leftovers, hopefully), pasta salad (because I like it and it is easy even if no one else will eat it) and tostadas (cheap and fast to put together towards the end of the week).  There is not a single inventive or interesting thing to be expected on our dinner table this week, but I am pretty sure *most of* the food will get eaten.