Recipe: Lemon Chive Seared Salmon with Lemon Soy Broccoli and Cinnamon Batsami Rice

Hi gang,

This is an exciting post for me.  It's been a busy couple of seasons around my life.  Lots of jobs, travel, snot, and random activity has kept me out of the kitchen more than I like.  As a result, I've also been a lot less healthy than I like.  But everything is getting back on track.  I've had time to chop and prepare on the go salad lunches.  I got in four full work-outs this week (and didn't die, which frankly surprises me), and now, I HAVE TIME TO COOK!!!!!  Like, make a real dinner, in my kitchen, including sauteing shit, cook.  It made me so happy to cook a meal.  It made me more happy that it turned out healthy and delicious.

First the ingredients: 

Lemon Chive Seared Salmon
1 14-16 oz salmon filet
1/4 cup chives
2 lemons
salt
pepper
1-2 TSP butter

Lemon Soy Broccoli
2 cups broccoli
1/2 lemon (juice)
2 tsp soy sauce
sesame seeds

Cinnamon Batsami Rice
1 cup batsami rice (uncooked)
1/2 cup yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
1 TSP butter
1 TBSP cinnamon

Let's begin with the salmon.

Evenly season the filet with the salt, pepper, and chives, squeeze the juice of half of one lemon over the salmon, slice the remaining half and place on top of the filet.  Let sit for 30 minutes.

If you tilt your head and squint, it's a face.  

Next, we sear the salmon.  Evenly line your pan with butter (you won't need much, 1-2 tsp) and turn the heat on high.  Sear the salmon, skin side down for 4-5 minutes (depending on thickness), flip and sear for an additional 4-5 minutes.  I also squeeze a little more lemon juice into the pan once the salmon is flipped.  A lot of recipes/chefs will tell you not to flip, but this method works well for me.  It helps me evenly cook the fish, without it getting overdone or being raw in the middle (both have happened to me in the past).  This piece of fish was really thick in the middle and it turned out perfectly.  Medium in the middle, not overdone on the edges.  Happy salmon!

While your salmon is sitting in lemon & chive land.  Let's prepare our sides.  First up, is broccoli. 

I love steamed broccoli and this is one of my favorite broccoli recipes.  Steam your broccoli until soft, but still firm.  For me, this was approximately a 5 minute steam.  Move to a bowl and let cool.  Toss in the juice from one half of a lemon, 2 TSP of low sodium soy sauce, and mix well.  Top with 1 TBSP of sesame seeds.  Be careful not to use too much soy sauce.  Broccoli absorbs flavors so well, too much soy sauce and you'll lose all the other flavors.

Lastly, let's look at our rice.  Saute your onions & garlic until soft, but not browned.  Boil 1 cup of batsami rice and let cool for 3-5 minutes.  Mix in your onions & garlic, add 1 TSP of butter and 1 TBSP of cinnamon and mix well.

I felt like I overused the cinnamon, or perhaps needed an additional flavor.  I also considered the possibility that this dish just didn't match the other flavors of the meal.  I feel it might go better with a savory meal and this plate was more citrus-centric.  However, my man loved it exactly as prepared.  

The finished plate:

...and a cat with salmon fever:

Give me that fish or I will kill you slowly

So that's it.  The meal was delicious, our plates empty, my cats pissed that I didn't share.  

Thanks for reading!  Hope you like the recipes!

Melissa

A Not-So-Average Tuesday Evening

Greeting Mom & Jaime (nobody else reads this, let's be honest),

Tonight I begin my official Thanksgiving prep.  Including:

1. Cubing french bread for the sausage, apple & leek stuffing I am making.

2. Chopping leeks, celery, carrots & onions, which combined make a glorious smelling bowl of veggies.  Also, they will be used in the stuffing and some will be cooked with the turkey.  The word you're looking for is "Savory" or maybe "Delicious" or now maybe "Shut up Melissa".

3. Crushing graham crackers for therapy and cheesecake crust, because I'm making this: Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake.  Except I'm leaving the pecans out of the mix, just in case there are any anti-nuts in the crowd.  I made the same dessert last year and it was awesome.

I have 13 people confirmed for my place on Thursday, a couple of maybes and at least one person who will just show up because they saw it on Facebook.  Game on folks. Game. On.

Peace & Poultry,
Mel

Time for the First Face Stuffing Recipe!

I love playing in my kitchen.  Experimenting with new recipes is a great outlet for me and one of my favorite hobbies!  At times, these experiments have hurt me, deeply.  Other times, recipes work so well that I nod my head and have an internal moment of annoyingly extreme satisfaction with myself.

This dinner was one of those moments.  I took inspiration for this meal from two places: one, the inventory of available ingredients in my kitchen and two, the marinade from this delicious recipe: Peruvian Grilled Chicken.  I called this dinner, Shredded Peruvian Chicken with Black Beans (creative, I know).

The ingredients I had: One rotisserie chicken, two cans of black beans, avocado, lime, tomato, onion, green pepper, cheese and garlic.  In addition, I have a nicely stocked spice cabinet, which always helps.

This stuff makes other stuff better

The aforementioned rotisserie chicken was shredded and I applied the Peruvian marinade, doctoring it to the amount of shredded chicken I had in front of me.  It came out (roughly) as follows:

1 rotisserie chicken (shredded)

3 cloves of garlic (diced)

Juice of one lime

2 TBSP of soy sauce

1 TBSP olive oil

1 TBSP cumin

½ TBSP paprika

1 TSP red pepper

Sea salt & Black pepper (which, I never measure)

I mixed that up and let it sit in my fridge for 45 minutes.   Then I simmered the chicken with 1 diced roma tomato and 1/2 of a red onion.  I added a little water to the pan so it didn’t stick.  This aided the simmering and didn’t take away any of the marinade’s flavor.

Chicken, looking good

While the chicken was marinating, I drank a beer and also worked on the black beans.  The key ingredient here was cinnamon.  Maybe that’s something everyone knew and never told me, but holy crap, cinnamon with black beans is awesomeness.  I cooked the black beans as follows:

2 cans of black beans (rinsed)

1 diced green pepper

½ diced red onion

Juice of one lime

1 TSP cumin

1 TSP cinnamon

Sea salt & Black pepper (again, not measured.  Just don’t go crazy with the S&P shakers and you’ll be fine.  I promise).

When the beans were ready, I took the chicken out of the fridge so everything would cook/be ready at the same time.  The beans & chicken simmered away in their respective pot & pan for about 30 minutes.  Just long enough to warm up and for all the flavors to mix lovingly together.

I plated this goodness with sliced avocado and bread and added a sprinkling of queso fresco to the beans.  The last thing I did was squeeze a little more lime juice over the whole plate (minus the bread).  I love limes.  It is my opinion that they make everything better.  Veggies, meats, salads, vodka, Corona….all better because of lime.

The finished product, which disappeared alarmingly fast

And there we have it – a dinner made cheaply with minimal prep and delicious results.  In fact, the left overs the next day were even better.  I think marinating all night allowed both dishes to become super heroes to my taste buds.

Have some favorite quick, easy & delicious dinners of your own?  Tell me about them.  You can share here.  This is a safe place.   If you happen to try either of the above recipes, let me know what you think.  Thanks for reading!