Salmon in Lemon Brodetto with Pea Puree

Here's another salmon recipe I tried many weeks ago. I used to just bake my salmon in the oven, but I like it so much pan-fried. I like the crispiness of the fried filet portion. I like my salmon well done, so this may appear overcooked to some. I remember this recipe had a lot of steps, but it was quite good. It tastes similar to the one with the pasta I just made today. If you must have some rice with it like me, then you can make it with the herbed rice pasta featured below. Both went well together.

Original recipe from Food Network:

Ingredients
Lemon Brodetto:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, diced
2 lemons, juiced
1 lemon, zested
2 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves

Pea Puree:
2 cups frozen peas, thawed (about 10 ounces)
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Salmon:
1/4 cup olive oil
4 (4 to 6-ounce) pieces salmon
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions
To make the Lemon Brodetto, warm the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots and saute until tender, about 7 minutes. Add the lemon juice, zest, and broth. Bring to a simmer, and keep warm, covered, over low heat.

To make the Pea Puree, combine the peas, mint, garlic, salt, and pepper in a food processor and puree. With the machine running, add the olive oil in a steady drizzle. Transfer the pea puree to a small bowl and stir in the Parmesan. Set aside.

To make the Salmon, warm the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over high heat. Season the salmon pieces with salt and pepper. Sear the salmon until a golden crust forms, about 4 to 5 minutes on the first side. Flip the fish and continue cooking until medium-rare, about 2 minutes more depending on the thickness of the fish.

To assemble the dish, add the tablespoon chopped mint to the Lemon Brodetto and divide between 4 shallow dishes. Place a large spoonful of Pea Puree into the center of each bowl. Place a salmon piece atop each mound of Pea Puree. Serve immediately.

Herbed Basmati Rice:
Original recipe from Foodnetwork



Ingredients
1 cup uncooked long-grain (white) basmati rice (recommended: Texmati)
1 3/4 cups water
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons minced fresh curly parsley leaves
1 tablespoon minced fresh dill leaves
1 tablespoon minced fresh scallions, white and green parts
Pinch freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Combine the rice, 1 3/4 cups water, the salt, and butter in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce the heat to low, stir once, and simmer, covered tightly, for 15 minutes. (I need to pull the pot half off the burner to keep it from boiling over.) Turn off the heat and allow the rice to sit covered for 5 minutes. Add the parsley, dill, scallions, and pepper. Fluff with a fork, and serve warm.

Pumpkin Bars

I've been meaning to make my own pumpkin bars since every fall season. I always buy the ones sold at Festival Foods that's made by Taste of Scandinavia. Their bars are so good. I am happy to have tried this recipe from Paula Dean and it's so good. My husband loves it. I put in a little more sugar in the frosting to duplicate the one from ToS and it taste about the same. The hubby said he actually likes this recipe better because the cake portion is not as sweet, just perfect.

Original Recipe from Food Network:
Ingredients

Bars:
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
15-ounce can pumpkin
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Icing:
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.


Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.


To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

Double Broccoli Quinoa

Happy new year! One of my new year resolutions is to eat more vegetables. I found a great new blog that focuses on natural and vegetarian foods. I don't think I will ever become a vegetarian, but I like the first recipe that I tried from the website already. I had three more planned last week, but couldn't find all the ingredients. I will try again this week. I had to go to Whole Foods to get the rest of the ingredients. Have you ever been to Whole Foods? I just love it. I've never been in love with a grocery store before. I am usually into clothing or home decorating stores, but a grocery store? Everything at Whole Foods is just so pretty. Except for the narrow aisles, I love how fresh everything looks. Bakery, veggies to meat looks good there. I would buy all my food there if only they were closer to where I live and if only it wasn't so expensive there. The first time I went there I spent around $50 on maybe three items. I think I bought fish oil and other vitamins though. Today, I spent about $25 on 4 items. Still a lot.

Anyway, I have discovered a new food that I like. It's called quinoa and it's really good for you because of its fiber and protein content. I never really bothered to research why white rice is not good for you, but I guess the reason is because a lot of its nutrients have been stripped away. If you were to eat rice in its natural or wild form, then it would be better for you. Oh well, I'm Asian and white rice will always be a part of my diet. It's not like it's going to kill you if you eat it anyway. Quinoa could be a substitute for rice as it has more nutrients and will fill you up more by just eating less of it than a bowl of rice. It kind of has a nutty flavor to it too. Even my one year old likes it. :)

The original recipe is adapted from 101 Cookbooks. I originally made it per the recipe, but found that I liked more cooked broccoli in it instead of the pesto, so this adapted recipe only makes half of the pesto the original recipe would make. The original recipe only calls for half of the pesto anyway, so I wouldn't waste the broccoli to make more pesto unless of course you don't like broccoli.

Serves 4 - 6

Ingredients:

3 cups cooked quinoa*
5 cups raw broccoli, cut into small florets and stems
1 medium garlic clove
1/2 cup sliced or slivered almonds, toasted
2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Optional toppings: fire oil (optional)**, sliced avocado

Method:

Heat the quinoa and set aside.

Now barely cook the broccoli by pouring 3/4 cup water into a large pot and bringing it to a simmer. Add a big pinch of salt and stir in the broccoli. Cover and cook for a minute, just long enough to take the raw edge off. Transfer the broccoli to a strainer and run under cold water until it stops cooking. Set aside.

To make the broccoli pesto puree one cup of the cooked broccoli, the garlic, 1/4 cup of the almonds, Parmesan, salt, and lemon juice in a food processor. Drizzle in the olive oil and cream and pulse until smooth.

Just before serving, toss the quinoa and remaining broccoli florets with the broccoli pesto. Taste and adjust if needed, you might want to add bit more salt or an added squeeze of lemon juice. Turn out onto a serving platter and top with the remaining almonds, a drizzle of the chile oil, and some sliced avocado or any of the other optional toppings.

*To cook quinoa: rinse one cup of quinoa in a fine-meshed strainer. In a medium saucepan heat the quinoa, two cups of water (or broth if you like), and a few big pinches of salt until boiling. Reduce heat and simmer until water is absorbed and quinoa fluffs up, about 15 minutes. Quinoa is done when you can see the curlique in each grain, and it is tender with a bit of pop to each bite. Drain any extra water and set aside.

**To make the red chile oil: You'll need 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil and 1 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes. If you can, make the chile oil a day or so ahead of time by heating the olive oil in a small saucepan for a couple minutes - until it is about as hot as you would need it to saute some onions, but not so hot that it smokes or smells acrid or burned. Turn off the heat and stir in the crushed red pepper flakes. Set aside and let cool, then store in refrigerator. Bring to room temp again before using.

Meatloaf

I made this a while back, but just never posted it. Maybe it's because I'm not the biggest fan of meatloaf. I decided to just make it for my husband since he likes it. This recipe was good, but it didn't change my mind about loving meatloaf. I like meatballs, but for some reason I don't like meatloaf. They're similar, but not exactly the same. I guess I would give this recipe of 3. Not great, but not bad either. The sauce or relish for the meatloaf is different though. Much different than your regular ketchup. I actually liked that part of the recipe. The potatoes I've made before (from scratch of course) and the beans were just drizzled with olive oil, seasoned with S&P, then baked in the oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes until tender but still crisp.

Recipe from Food Network.

Lemon and Garlic Roast Chicken

I made this for dinner tonight and it was quite good. I would rate this a 4 out of 5. Few recipes will get a 5 so 4 is still pretty good. I didn't change anything to this recipe and followed it pretty much exactly. The chicken turned out very moist and tender. It was quite lemony, garlicky and thymey. You get it...the flavors were good. It tastes similar to the rotisserie chicken that you would find at the stores, except it's all home made. I didn't make the gravy though. Once you pop this in the oven, your house will smell delicious. :) Next time, I would make this with some roasted potatoes, carrots and onions (all in the same pan with the chicken).

Recipe courtesy of Ina Garten from Food Network:

Steak Tacos

I love the steak tacos from Chipotle. I usually just order the crispy tacos with steak, three different kinds of salsa, and lettuce. Nothing else. They used to serve four, but now only serve three for the same price. I still eat it once in a while. I wasn't attempting to make the same taco from Chipotle, but I had some beef sirloin in hand, so I made some tacos and fresh salsa for the other night. I love salsa! It's even better when it's super hot and spicy. Yum.

Steak Tacos
Recipe courtesy of Ellie Krieger of Food Network

Chicken Fried Steak with Homemade Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Chicken (or country) fried steak is one of my favorite comfort foods. It's what I usually order when I go to a Perkins or Denny's. I have made CFS before from a different recipe and that was good, but I like this recipe better. The breading turned out better and the seasonings were perfect. The only thing is that my steak turned out really hard and the breading fell off at the end of cooking. I have used cubed steak from the grocery stores before and that seemed to work fine, so next time I'll just do that again. Also, I would skip the bacon. It was just another step. My gravy didn't turn out white like they had in the video, but it was still good. I decided to make some mashed potatoes with this too. That turned out good as well. Even though everything was good despite the toughness in the steak, I probably won't make this again. It was too much work and grease for something that looks to be so simple. I did take step by step photos, but too lazy to post them now.

Blueberry Cobbler

I made this on Sunday. It's good, but it was very mushy or soggy. I used blueberries instead of blackberries, so maybe that's why. Next time I would only use one cup of blueberries. I especially loved the sugar on top when it was cooked. The crust was crunchy and sweet. Tasted great with a glass of orange juice.

Yummy Lasagna

I love The Pioneer Woman's blog. I have tried three of her recipes so far and they have been really good. Here is the lasagna I made from her recipe and I must say it was really good! The only thing I would do a little different next time is add less meat. It was a little too meaty for me and not enough tomatoes. Otherwise, this is the best lasagna I've ever made even though this is probably just the 2nd or 3rd time I've made lasagna. ;D I didn't take a good picture of this because it's winter in MN now and it gets dark after 4. I made this for dinner last night and didn't take a good picture, but take my word for it, it's good! It tastes just as good as a leftover too.