Sriracha Salmon with Summer Squash Hash

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I like anything I can get on the table for my family in under 30 minutes that is healthy, real food. Salmon almost always fits that bill because it cooks quickly and needs very little adornment to make it special. This dish is no exception and is a really great addition to any week night warrior’s repertoire. Add my summer squash hash and it’s a full, healthy, very yummy meal with leftovers for lunch the next day.

Ingredients

For the salmon:

  • 2 pounds salmon cut into 4-6 oz pieces
  • 1 lime
  • 1 T Sriracha hot sauce
  • 2 T brown sugar
  • 1 t sea salt
  • 2-3 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish

For the Summer Squash Hash:

  • 2 cups cooked rice (brown is our fave)
  • 3-4 summer squash (zucchini or yellow squash) cut small or julienned
  • 1 T butter
  • S&P or salt and lemon pepper or garlic salt or … ?

Directions

Heat oven to 425. Start your rice cooking. Heat water on the stove or turn on the rice cooker and get it going. Then prep your summer squash. We use the mandoline on the fine grate setting and turn over 4 squash in just a few minutes. This is a good time to slice the green onions as well.

Next, cover a baking sheet with parchment or foil and place the salmon pieces on top. Zest the lime over it. Then combine the lime juice, Sriracha, brown sugar and sea salt together in a small bowl. Drizzle over the salmon and place in the oven for 16 minutes. We found this is the perfect cook time for us, but if you have very thin salmon or like it more rare, you should probably check after 10 minutes.

Now, use the next 16 minutes to cook your summer squash and finish up your rice. Heat 1 T butter in a fry pan and add the summer squash. Saute for 8-10 minutes until a bit soft. Don’t move it around too much, you want to move some moisture and start to get it a little brown if you can. Season with your desired spices and combine with the rice.

Sprinkle green onions over salmon and serve atop your delicious hash. Enjoy!

 

2014-10-20 18.31.22Notes: we do not find this to be a particularly spicy dish, despite containing Sriracha. The fattiness of the salmon seems to cut it nicely. Also, hash is equally delicious deconstructed (with rice and squash not touching) if you happen to have picky eaters.

 

Coconut Curry Lobster Bisque


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This is a recipe I’m posting at least half for my own record keeping as anything else. I still have some lingering questions about the recipe and I don’t have great photos, but I’ll share what I’ve got and try to update the next time we make it. But man, it’s too good to lose!

Backstory: Last week we went to Sweet Tomatoes as an atta-boy for Ben who had been struggling a bit with behavior at school and is now happily doing amazingly well, literally OFF-THE-CHARTS. Sweet Tomatoes (this is a salad, soup, pasta buffet with some baked goods and soft-serve ice cream thrown in) is a perennial favorite restaurant of the kids and Matt and I like it, but in a sort of we’ll put up with it for your sake kind of way. It’s generally not too innovative or interesting, but everyone can find something they like and it’s reasonably healthy if you’re careful with how much and what you pick.

So we got our salads and ate those and then Ben begged to go get mac ‘n’ cheese and I accompanied him, served his pasta for him and sent him back to the table. Then I wandered over to the soup bar where they had the usual array of 6 soups. They always have a bunch of the same ol’ but then have some seasonal offering … and this time, it was Lobster Curry Bisque. The seasonal soups are very largely hit or miss, but I almost always try them and this one was … OMG. Amazing. It was all I could do not to go back for seconds, thirds, fourths and bribe the people to send me home with the absurdly large vat of the stuff.

It was all the yummy stuff about regular lobster bisque but with coconut and curry flavors and just so so so good. It was kind of like a mixture between Tom Kha (a thai soup with a lovely coconut base) and regular ol’ lobster bisque. Awesome. I was already planning a return trip for this week when I realized that we were on the LAST DAY of the soup special. Disaster. Only if the soup is a huge hit do you ever see it again and even then, it could be easily a full year!

So I did what any sensible person would do. I googled. And I came up with the delightful recipe for Coconut Curry Lobster Bisque by a Ms. Natalie Paramore. I’d never been to her site before, but she showed a pretty good method and so I decided I’d give it a whirl. And just a couple of days later, I stuck it on the menu for Sunday night … along with another tried and tested soup (Beef Barley with Mushrooms) just in case.

Acquiring the ingredients was a bit more hassle than normal and included a trip to an Asian grocery store. But happily, an H-Mart has just cropped up on one of my more frequently traveled paths and Ben in tow, we were able to get lemon grass, lemon thyme, coconut milk and coconut cream powder (as well as some other Asian grocery store treats) while Tabby was testing for her orange belt on Saturday.

So Sunday was the regular crazy Nichols affair. We had a swim birthday party in the morning that we followed up with lunch with friends and then we met up with other friends back at our house shortly after that to do a little crafting (they wanted to make a CO pallet flag as well). They’d offered to bring dinner (after I’d already menu planned and done most of the shopping) but since I had something in the works, I said I’d just go ahead with that.

So while the wife was working with Matt on the pallet flag, I was in the kitchen cooking it up … and watching some football. I basically followed the original recipe with some modifications:

Ingredients

  • 4 Lobster tails (I forgot to see what weight I used, but they were small and I’m betting they totaled in the 3.5 lb range)
  • 6 cups water
  • kosher salt
  • 4 cups chicken stock
  • 2 stalks lemon grass
  • 2 sprigs lemon thyme
  • 1 T peppercorns
  • 3 teeny onions
  • 9 cloves garlic
  • 3 T red curry paste
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 1/4 C coconut cream powder
  • 1 lime
  • cilantro for garnish

Directions 

As I said, this was all a bit on the experimental side. To my knowledge, I’d never even cooked lobster before, but what the heck! I’ll try anything.

So first step was to steam the lobster. I placed them in my soup pot with the water and about 2 tsp of kosher salt. Then, as the recipe directed, I brought them to a boil and covered to steam for 12 minutes. While that was in the works, as suggested, I chopped up the veggies. Lemon grass is no joke! It was crazy hard to cut and I ended up more or less sawing it with my serrated bread knife. Since the recipe said we’d be blending these things up, I just did the rough chop.

After the 12 minutes had elapsed, I removed the lobsters to a plate to let them cool. Once they were cool enough to handle, I dug out all the meat. I did this over the plate to capture the juices and dumped the juices and meat back into the soup pot. Then I added the chicken stock, lemon grass, lemon thyme, peppercorns, onions and garlic back to the pot and set it to boil for 45 minutes to make the stock.

Though this step was obviously not difficult, it is what would keep me from making this on a weeknight. In this case it worked out beautifully because I could prep everything for my other soup while the stock formed.

Once the stock was done, I strained it back into another pot as the recipe called for and here’s where it got a bit jinky. The author said to remove the whole ingredients and the lobster tail shells, but then it clearly showed those things being blended up and had referenced this fact before. Not wanting to lose out on any flavor, I opted to just remove the lobster tail shells and blend with my immersion blender. That technique works wonderfully on many of the soups I make, but the crazy lemon grass was really resistant and it was clear that ingredient would not blend nicely into soupiness. It just more or less ground it up. Therefore, I decided to run it back through the strainer once more. I was very happy with this move because it was clear that this fiborous stuff did not belong in there. I ended up squeezing it out to get all the liquid back out.

From there, the finish was easy. Stir in some curry paste (I just did a bit over half the jar, an estimated 3 T) and the can of coconut milk. The author had suggested that coconut cream was preferable but even at the Asian grocery store, there was none to be had. So I picked up the powder. The directions said to make it by putting the whole packet in a cup of water. But rather than do that, I stirred in about a 1/4 cup into the soup for just a little extra creamy. Next time I’d like to order the coconut cream off Amazon to see what difference it makes. Then I stirred in the lobster and squeezed lime over the whole thing and served it up!

 

All 10 of our guests (my dad and sister had joined us by this point) agreed – it was amazing. The kids all gamely tried it and ate at least half of their bowls. Any leftovers the adults were glad to bat clean-up on.

Work wise, this was honestly very manageable. I would guestimate that my hands-on time was around 1 hour and then add in the cook time around 1 hour. As I said, the only hard part was the uncertainty in straining the soup. I think I would be much quicker making it next time around, probably cutting my hands-on time to 30-40 min.

One might wonder though, how it compares to its Sweet Tomatoes inspiration. The answer is … quite a bit different, but possibly even better. The main difference was the texture. Sweet Tomatoes’ was much more thick creamy and this was definitely thinner, but still creamy. This had more the consistency of a thai coconut soup (Tom Kha). The flavors in this were a bit more subtle as well. You tasted everything, all at once, and nothing overpowered anything else. Lobster, coconut, curry, citrus.

To top it all off, the Broncos won, Payton captured the TD pass record, our friends have their very own CO pallet flag and we all had a very lovely evening.

 

Buffalo Shrimp Po’ Boys

buffaloshrimppoboyThese po’ boys originally came to me via Mother Thyme. Buffalo?! Shrimp?!? Sandwich?!? Yep, you got me. I had to bite.

I have no idea what the original recipe says. When I went to find the link, I didn’t even bother to look, because it’s now in my brain the way I make it and that’s what I’m sharing with you.

Ingredients

  • shrimp! peeled and defrosted – however many your family will eat and/or will provide adequate leftovers
  • buffalo sauce – maybe a cup or so? you need it for basting on the grill and drizzling on the sandwich – WE USE (and love!) FRANK’S
  • blue cheese crumbles
  • baby arugula
  • bread! You can use what you like, but in my opinion, crusty is good. Ciabatta has been really good for this, but you could use french bread, possibly bollio, or something else you prefer
  • butter
  • garlic salt
  • onion powder

Directions

Heat grill to medium. Prepare shrimp by peeling and defrosting as necessary. Thread on to skewers and brush with buffalo sauce. Prepare bread by splitting in the middle and cutting into sandwich size pieces if necessary. Then spread/brush with butter and sprinkle with garlic salt and onion powder.

Bring prepared shrimp skewers and bread to the grill. Grill shrimp skewers until they have changed color properly, about 2-3 min per side. Depending on the configuration of your grill, you can grill the bread at the same time, or you can do it once the shrimp are done. Go buttered side down and about 5 min if it’s on an upper rack (this is what we use) or only a minute or so if it’s on the main grilling surface.

To assemble, layer arugula and a skewer and a half or so of shrimp on top of the grilled bread. Sprinkle with blue cheese crumbles and drizzle on more buffalo sauce, then add the top bread.

 

We’ve made these two or three times now and they are almost universally a big hit, at least with adults. The kids are wary of the spicy buffalo, so we leave that off for them and just give the shrimp a little S&P. They come together VERY quickly and I like that you don’t have to heat up the oven or stove to make them. They are a great picnic food and we’ve served them with our apple/cucumber slaw.

Shrimp Curry with Snow Peas

We are getting real close to the end of March! But happily, I’ve been quite good about working my way through Moosewood’s Simple Suppers and we’ve done 5/8 recipes from the book so far (though I haven’t posted one of them). This weekend and next week I’ll wrap up the rest and then it’s on to the Thai Street Food cookbook.

Tuesday night, we made the tasty little curry pictured above. Like everything from this book, it went together very fast. I didn’t think to time this one, but I would bet it was on the table in under 30 minutes. Our rice cooker actually took longer to cook the rice than I did to make the curry. These recipes have all been very doable on a weeknight, which I love. Love. LOVE.

Shrimp Curry with Snow Peas

adapted from Moosewood Simple Suppers

  • 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
  • 5 oz snow peas, cut in half diagonally
  • 1 lg onion, sliced thin (I dice mine as I detest stringy things in my stirfrys)
  • 2 C chopped tomatoes
  • 2 red bell peppers chopped into bite sized pieces
  • 1 T oil
  • 2 T curry powder
  • 14 oz can coconut milk (look for lite – taste is good and way healthier)
  • juice of one lime
  • 1/4 C chopped thai basil, sweet basil or cilantro
  • 1/2 t salt

Heat oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. Add onion and peppers and cook about 5 minutes or until they start to soften and the onions turn translucent. Add the shrimp and curry powder and stir well to prevent sticking. Add the snow peas and tomatoes and cook for a few minutes until the shrimp have started to turn pink. Add the coconut milk, lime juice, salt and chopped basil and bring to a simmer. Turn shrimp to cook to even pinkness. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over rice or maybe noodles.

I loved the way this looked and smelled while it was cooking. Such vibrant colors! When we first served it, it seemed a bit bland, but just a hint more salt really brought out all the flavors and Matt and I both enjoyed it a lot. The kids? Not quite as much … they chowed down on the shrimp and snow peas and liked the sauce, but they were a bit suspicious of the peppers and onions. Tabby is convinced that pepper=hot right now. OY.

Po’ Boy Sandwiches

We have been having a great time trying out the recipes from Moosewood Simple Suppers. This one was one I probably wouldn’t have tried on my own, but a friend from work who I first pointed towards Moosewood cookbooks, tried this one out and was raving, so I gave it a go. It was like so many things Moosewood. Simple, but so so tasty.

Po’ Boy Sandwiches

  • 4-6 filets of firm white fish (we used tilapia)
  • 1/4 C corn meal
  • 1 T butter or olive oil
  • 1 tsp old bay or other seafood seasoning
  • 4-6 rolls
  • mayo and ketchup or tartar sauce
  • lettuce and tomatoes
  • thinly sliced onions

Directions

Mix together the cornmeal and seasoning. Pat dry the fish fillets and dredge them in the cornmeal mixture. Heat the butter or olive oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. Place the fish in the skillet in a single layer and cook for about three minutes per side flipping only once, until cooked through and flaking when piereced with a fork.

Serve the fish on the rolls spread with tartar sauce or a mixture of mayo and ketchup. Garnish with lettuce, tomatoes and onions. We had our homemade pickles on the side and these would be great with some potato chips or something similar.

Everyone in the family loved this, though only Matt and I ate these as sandwiches. The kids just dug into the fillets and the two extra I’d made for leftovers wound up in happy little bellies.

Salmon Tagine


It would be an understatement to say that this was my best photographic work, or even good. Honestly, by the time I “plated” dinner last night, I was done. We spent ALL weekend sanding and polying the pieces of Ben’s bed. And we’re still not done. Probably not even that close. I was achey and grumpy and I didn’t even really want to cook. But we had to eat, so I did. This is why I buy ingredients. I won’t let them go bad and so I find myself in the kitchen even when I don’t want to making dinner.

This Salmon Tagine was the second recipe we tried from Zone Meals in Minutes. I can’t say it was a pretty meal. I probably could have done more with styling, but it was somewhat in the slop category as far as looks go. Luckily the taste was good. My favorite part was the cooked spinach with walnut sauce. YUM. I would have that anytime and it wasn’t too hard to make (though I always blanch a bit at the thought of cleaning the food processor). The salmon was yummy, despite the fact that I overcooked it – things got hectic. But I’m not sure it was so yummy I’d feel compelled to make it again. I really LOVE our Chicken Tagine recipe. This one was a bit more meh. I was tempted to post just the spinach, but I will post the whole since it make a complete Zoned meal (4 4-block meals) with my suggestions for improvement.

The kids and Matt all liked the salmon well enough which is a pretty good endorsement since it was over-cooked. But personally, I thought the spinach was the star.

Ingredients

  • 30 walnut halves, lightly toasted (i.e. rattle them around in a dry frying pan on med-high heat for a few minutes – watch like a hawk so they don’t burn)
  • ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons dried dill
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
  • ½ to 1 teaspoon hot sauce
  • 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 ½ cups minced onion
  • 2/3 cup water or chicken stock or broth
  • ¼ cup raisins
  • 12 whole, dried apricots, quartered
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • ½ teaspoon ground cumin
  • ¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
  • 1 cinnamon stick (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon)
  • 1 teaspoon peeled, minced fresh ginger root
  • salt
  • two 1-pound bags washed, stemmed, trimmed spinach leaves
  • 4 cups thinly sliced mushrooms

Directions

Place walnuts, vinegar, dill, garlic and hot sauce in food processor and process until smoothish. In a large fry pan, saute onions in olive oil until tender, about 5-7 minutes. Add apricots, raisins, minced garlic, ginger and spices with broth or water and then top with salmon. Bring to a low boil and simmer until salmon is done, approx 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a half cup of water (or leftover broth!) in a dutch oven or stock pan. Add spinach and mushrooms and steam until tender, about 5 minutes. Drain if necessary and toss with walnut sauce.

Serve salmon fillets topped with tagine sauce, and spinach on the side.

 

Salmon Rice Bowls

When we lived in Nashville, we frequented a little place off of Division St., right near Vanderbilt called Ken’s Sushi. It’s definitely not the fanciest place but it has good pretty cheap eats and my favorite Japanese entree I’ve ever had, Sakegohan. It’s a rice bowl with seaweed and salmon and some sauce. I’ve never seen it anywhere else and so I have only get to have the super yummy salmon bowl when we got back to Nashville and managed to make it to Ken’s.

So when I saw the salmon rice bowl idea featured on Dinner a Love Story, I was more than a little intrigued. So we tried it out – well our own version anyway – and while it isn’t EXACTLY a Sakegohan, it’s darn good – a keeper.

Continue reading “Salmon Rice Bowls”

Fish Tacos

 


A looooong time ago, bloggy buddy Kjersten, who I got to MEET just a couple of weeks ago, wanted to know more about my fish tacos. I am happy to spill!

 

The fish I use in fish tacos is one of two things: either white fish from the freezer section at Target. Yes, that sounds sketchy, but it’s great fish and it comes in individual fillet portions, ready to cook up as desired (I get their salmon too). The other source I use is (don’t laugh) fish sticks. Fish sticks require just slightly less prep/thought and I keep a bag of them in the freezer (Target again) to have on hand. I honestly cannot say I like one more than the other … both good, just depends what you’re in the mood for. The fish sticks somehow seem more like comfort food. My kids eat both and don’t whine about either.

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To make the white fish, I heat the oven to about 400, put the fillets on a baking tray and cook them for a couple of minutes to start the de-frosting. Spices stick better when they’re not bricks.

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Then we sprinkle on garlic salt and chili-lime seasoning (my mom brought that back from Mexico, but I’m told you can get it in the grocery store too, spice or Hispanic foods aisle). This is what we use, but others simply opt for salt and pepper sometimes with olive oil, which is very tasty as well.

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Then I continue to broil them until they’re flaky as fish should be. To assemble, we use small flour tortillas, beans, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, sour cream, etc. etc. and a squeeze of lime. The lime is particularly important to me and to Tabby as well (go figure). … we serve Ben’s in the same manner, just deconstructed a bit.

 

Salad Nicoise

from: Matt & Jess

Ingredients
pasta (you choose what type)
pesto
chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
garlic
S&P
olive oil
parmesan (duh)

Directions
Get the water going for your pasta (salt!). Heat olive oil in a big ol' skillet and add the garlic. While that gets going, salt and pepper your chicken. Toss the chicken in and cook, turning every once in a while, but making sure to get nice browning on it. This helps chicken to not taste so much like chicken.

Put in the pasta ASAP and get that cooked. Mix the cooked pasta, chicken and pesto all together. You shouldn't need to heat the pesto unless your pasta's gotten cold. In which case you should probably heat the pasta too. Top it all off with a mini snowstorm of parmesan. Dang it's good.

from: http://phemomenon.blogspot.com/

Ingredients
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup lime juice (about 2 large limes)
2 teaspoons to 1 Tablespoon chili powder
2 large cloves of garlic, finely minced or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 2 large breasts), cooked and shredded
12 corn tortillas
2 cups of Mexican cheese blend, shredded (1 small bag usually is 2 cups)
1 14-oz can of green enchilada sauce (mild or medium, to your taste)
1/2 to 3/4 cup of heavy cream
nonstick cooking spray
1 Tablespoon of chopped cilantro, to garnish

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place the cooked and shredded chicken in a medium sized bowl. Set aside. In a small bowl, place the honey, lime juice, chili powder and minced garlic or garlic powder. Whisk together thoroughly to combine. Pour this mixture over the chicken and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to marinate while you prepare the tortillas, 30 minutes or up to 1 hour, in the refrigerator.

Heat a large griddle till a drop of water skitters across (about 350 degrees F). Spray the surface with non-stick cooking spray or a oil it with a little bit of canola oil in between each round of tortillas. Heat tortillas about 20 seconds on each side till warm and flexible and some golden brown spots have appeared. Remove the tortillas from the griddle and keep them between a couple of paper towels until ready to use.

Spray the sides and bottom of a 9×13-inch baking dish lightly with cooking spray. In a medium bowl combine the enchilada sauce and the heavy cream. Spread about 1/2 cup of the mixture in the bottom of the oiled baking dish. Add a large spoonful (about 2 tablespoons) of the chicken mixture to the center of each tortilla in a line. Cover the chicken with a large tablespoon (or big pinch) of cheese, then roll the tortilla up from one side to make a rolled enchilada – it will be more of an over lap on the seam side that rolled tightly. Place the enchilada seam side down in the baking dish starting at one end with the long edge parallel to the longest side of the pan so that you end up with two columns of six enchiladas each.

Repeat with the remaining chicken, cheese and tortillas. You will use about 1 1/2 cups of the cheese for the filling and set the remainder aside for topping the enchiladas in the pan. Add the remaining marinade mixture to the enchilada sauce and cream mixture, if desired. Pour this mixture over the top of all the enchiladas. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Bake the enchiladas for 30 to 35 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbly and starting to brown on top. Serve with sour cream, black beans, and rice or a green salad for a great meal.

from: Donna Hay Modern Classics

Ingredients
12 baby new potatoes, halved
10 oz green beans, trimmed and halved
14 oz ahi tuna steaks
olive oil for brushing
5 oz baby spinach leaves
2 tomatoes, sliced into wedges
2/3 cup black olives, halved (I used niçoise olives!)
salt & pepper
2 hard boiled eggs, quartered

Dressing
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp sherry or red wine vinegar
2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
salt & pepper

Directions
Place the potatoes in a saucepan of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes or until almost soft. Add the beans and cook for 2 more minutes, until the beans and potatoes are tender. Drain and cool under running cold water. Next, brush the tuna with a little olive oil and sprinkle with some salt and pepper. Grill (outdoors or on a grill pan inside) for 1-2 minutes on each side, or until the tuna is seared nicely but still rare inside. Set aside for five minutes and then slice.

To make the dressing, place the oil, vinegar, mustard, parsley, in a bowl with a little salt and pepper. Whisk to combine. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.

Place the spinach, tomatoes, olives, potatoes, beans, eggs slices and dressing in a big bowl. Toss to combine. Then, place the tuna slices on top, along with the egg quarters. Serve immediately.

Quick Shrimp Scampi

from: Parenting

Ingredients
1 lb shelled and deveined large shrimp (thawed if frozen)
2 tsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp jarred chopped garlic
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 tsp butter
Two 8.8-oz packages microwavable rice

Directions
Rinse shrimp and pat dry with paper towel. Heat oil in skillet, add shrimp, and let cook over medium heat for a minute or two until the underside turns pink. Turn shrimp over and cook an additional minute. Add garlic and lemon juice, and heat through.

Meanwhile, cook rice according to package directions. Serve 1 cup rice with a quarter of the shrimp.

Nutritional Info (1 cup rice, 1/4 of the shrimp)
321 calories, 7 g fat (1 g saturated), 193 mg sodium, 171 mg cholesterol