Salmon & Seasoned Summer Veggies

Happy Friday everyone!!!

If you don't know me well or at all you won't know this: I'm Catholic. Why do I mention this? Because I follow an old practice of abstaining from meat on Friday. So, Fridays usually mean fish or something vegan. Hence why I made salmon my protein tonight.

I've had a tiring day thanks to staying up too late last night for the Republican debate, so I wanted to do something yummy and easy. I try to eat a grain-free meal a day since I feel better when I do that. I had oatmeal this morning, wheat-free bread this afternoon, so tonight is the grain-free meal.

Anyways, these are all ingredients I had on hand, so I was able to whip it together quite quickly. I had received a free Blue Apron test meal from a friend, and one of the meals included roasted radishes. I had never even thought to roast radishes before, and it was delicious! So I decided to do it again in a different meal.

This meal serves 2, but I only cooked 1 salmon filet since it's just me, and salmon doesn't taste all that great reheated. I'll be saving the rest of the veggies for lunch tomorrow.

So, here is what I gathered at first:

A lot of yummy veggies with a touch of color which should be present at every meal....but as I was cleaning them I thought something was missing. Then I remembered.....

I still have a green pepper! There we go....lots of good colors now, and all summery veggies!

Here is the recipe:

2 skin-on salmon filets

1 small green pepper

1 small summer squash

4 small red potatoes (I didn't use the big ones in the pic. Those would work too!)

6-8 small radishes(or 4-6 large)

1/2 onion

2 cloves garlic

Spices for veggies: 

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp each basil, oregano, and rosemary

Salt to taste

Spices/flavors for salmon:

A few drops lemon juice on each

A sprinkle of onion powder

About 1 tsp dill weed(dried)

Dash of salt

 Prep: Quarter the potatoes and radishes. Heat a large skillet on medium-high with a tablespoon of olive oil. Chop the onion into large pieces and put into the skillet once hot. I forgot about garlic for the pic, but I quickly chopped it and threw it in with the onions. Stir frequently until the onions and garlic are fragrant

Once the onions and garlic start to smell good, put in the quartered radishes and potatoes. Stir to cover with the oil, then put in the spices and stir again. Turn the heat down to medium and cover.

While the vegetables start to cook, chop the green pepper into 1/2" pieces. Stir into the veggies in the skillet, and add salt to taste. Cover again. If you chop the veggies ahead of time, let them cook about 3 minutes before adding in the green pepper.

Turn the broiler on in your oven. While that heats up, cover a cookie sheet with tin foil. Lay the salmon skin side down. Sprinkle each filet with lemon juice, followed by the onion powder and dill weed. Let that sit. It will look like this:

While the broiler heats up, cut off the ends of the summer squash. Cut it in half, then in 1/2" wide half circles. Stir into the veggie skillet and cover. Why do you wait till now to put in the squash? It's a much more delicate veggie than the others. Your veggies should look like this now:

Cover again, let cook for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, put the salmon under the broiler. Cook for 4-5 minutes, until the salmon flakes easily. Stir the veggies together, then plate and serve. Here is your meal!

This sounds more complicated than it really is. You could easily cut up the veggies first, then cook in the order I described. This meal turned out really delicious. The spices give a lot of good flavor to the veggies, and everything is cooked well according to the type of veggie.

Let me know if this worked out for you in the comments! I hope you enjoy it!

Thirsty Thursday - London Lemonade

Well it's the eve of my favorite day of the week - Friday!! It's OK if I have a bad day on Thursday because I know that there's only one more day of work after that, and then I get my treasured weekend!

I want to do a cocktail of some sort every Thursday. Since having some health problems, I have had to give up my favorite wines and beers - so sad!! I'm hoping that maybe in the future I can drink them again, but for now they are off limits. Straight liquor, however, is not. There is so much you can combine to make delicious drinks, and I have a lot of fun mixing up new cocktail creations.

Since it was a rainy summer day, I wanted to make something refreshing yet weather appropriate. Since I have never been to London I cannot personally vouch for the weather there, but it is common knowledge that it rains a lot there. So, I decided to make London Lemonade! It's actually a super easy 3-ingredient recipe. Here it is:

1 part gin
1 part triple sec
1 part fresh-squeezed lemon juice

Shake or stir all 3 ingredients together with ice, and serve in your favorite cocktail glass!

I have a confession to make - I didn't have enough lemons on hand to do ALL fresh-squeezed lemon juice, but I did part of it fresh-squeezed, and it tastes delicious! It's on the tart side, but the triple sec has enough sugar to keep it from being a pucker drink.

Here is a picture of the final product:

The cocktail set I have is actually a vintage 1960's(I think) cocktail set that my sister bought for me at a bazaar. I love it! It's very "Mad Men" which makes it even better. And don't worry, I am not drinking ALL of this tonight. This drink keeps well, and I may even see if it can turn into a popsicle.

I hope you enjoy it. Cheers and cheerio!

Salads? Boring? Let me change your mind on that....

Here we go - my inaugural food blog post. What did I decide to make for my first food blog post?

Salad!! Yes.....a salad. before you groan and complain and maybe gag(i.e. "Ew, salad?? Salads are gross! Why would you start off with making a SALAD? Salads are boring, rabbit food," etc etc....) hear me out!

When you hear/read the word "salad" a few things may come to mind. If you're from the Midwest like I am, the word "salad" can also refer to a combination of marshmallow fluff, canned fruit of some sort, and cottage cheese!! Definitely far from healthy! But "salad" usually brings to mind the boring "side salad" offered at many restaurants, which is usually made of iceberg, tomato, cucumber, and whatever dressing you choose. If you're at a "fancy" restaurant, it will come with limpy spring greens instead of iceberg, and maybe have feta or cheddar on top. Sometimes it has onions.  Anyways, it's small, definitely boring, and does not have much flavor outside the dressing.

The key to making a good salad is this: use a variety of different ingredients that have different colors, textures, and flavors, use a flavorful meat or other protein(beans if you can have them), and top it off with a home-made dressing that has a lot of flavor as well. Once you make your own salad with fresh, tasty, crunchy ingredients you will definitely want to eat salad every day!!

Here is what I gathered/bought for my salad:

Rotisserie chicken(I NEVER buy this, but I was out of groceries, didn't have time to cook chicken, and it was too hot today to fire up the oven)
Romaine lettuce (Other options: Spinach, Boston Lettuce, Red Leaf Lettuce, Green Leaf lettuce, spring greens)
Radishes(about 5)
Green Onion
Green Pepper
Celery
Carrots
Cucumber(In the picture it is wrapped in a paper towel because I already started using it)
Kalamata olives(A handful)
Pickled Red Pepper(A Handful)

Dressing: Greek Dressing that I found on Pinterest. (Link: Greek Dressing So Good You Want to Drink It Straight)

This took me 30 minutes to prepare, but that included cleaning all of the ingredients, peeling them, and chopping them by hand. I am a very slow chopper because I am clumsy and have cut myself way too many times. If you are more confident in your knife skills this will go much faster for you.

Here is the finished product!

I used very little of the olives because they have a strong flavor. Same with the red pickled peppers. When I read the description, I somehow missed the word "Spicy." They aren't THAT spicy, but enough to be a surprise when I was expecting a sweet pepper. They are a perfect combination of sweet and spicy - I wish I could remember the name of them!

And there you have it. I will be posting many other types of food in the future, but I figured this is a good starter because it's actually really easy to put together, and a great first step in eating healthy! It's really filling, and full of nutrients and good fats. I have enough veggies and such leftover that I can make 3 more salads for lunches the rest of the week! Yay for multi-tasking meal prep!