Coconut Poached Salmon

It’s been 4 days of alone time for me. Okay let’s be real I haven’t been alone for very long in the last 4 days. I’m typically a pretty busy person and it seems while Anthony is away that hasn’t changed. I went to a Cabi clothes party (very cute clothes, but way too expensive for me. I’m a firm believer in buying cheap clothes so that I don’t have to keep them for years!), dinner with friends at The Crab Shack (I had the clam bake), more dinner with friends at Beale Street (pulled pork sandwich), and then helping friends move. I got home Saturday night (after helping with the move) and needed to cook something for just me. The itch to cook was there and when the itch happens I must cook (simply because it doesn’t happen often and I wouldn’t want to pass up the chance to blog something).




I was pretty intrigued with what I was going to be cooking, salmon poached in coconut milk. Anything coconut just makes the salivating start. Poaching is something I don’t do very often. I’ve poached eggs just the one time for this blog and I’ve poached chicken for a soup that I make a lot. But I’ve never poached fish. I’m totally in love with the concept! Poaching means (in The Hesitant Cook dictionary): Letting a protein boil/simmer in liquid of some type and it not getting all dried out.


This Rachael Ray recipe was pretty easy to follow. As is typical, I forgot to buy something, in this case a lime. Oh well you can’t expect me to be on top of everything all the time. I also did not make this entire recipe because I was not in the mood for watercress. There is a possibility that I will make this again next week with the watercress, although by then I might find another way to cook salmon (I have one fillet left in the house. If you have a good way for me to cook it let me know.) Back to the recipe, you boil the chicken broth until it reduces by half. At that point you add the coconut milk, lime juice (which I did have on hand), lime zest (which sadly I didn’t have) and basil. Add the salmon and poach it for about 10 minutes. I’m not good at telling when salmon is cooked and I figured it wouldn’t dry out using this method so I poached it for the full 10 minutes. Meanwhile I used some of this rice (I’m not ashamed, I can’t cook rice!) and added some coconut milk to it and heated it on the stove.


The salmon and rice were both done and plated when I remembered that I still had to make the sauce! Oops! Luckily I had heated the plate in the microwave so my food stayed warm. The watercress part of recipe was throwing me off track and I thought I was finished. I brought the poaching liquid to a boil, dissolved the cornstarch with cold water and added it to the liquid. I whisked it until it was thickened and then poured in onto the salmon and rice.


Final Product: 

    

          (sorry my pictures are going to be sad since 

                      Anthony has the good camera!)

This was delicious. I ate the whole thing and I didn’t even realize I was that hungry! The fish was very moist. There was a flavor to it that I can’t describe, sorry I tried to come up with the word while eating it but I couldn’t. It was salty and a little sweet. Poaching fish is the way to go! I was very impressed with how moist the salmon turned out. I’m an over cooker and typically my salmon is on the dry side. This method of cooking is going to be something that I do more often. I encourage everyone to try it out. Even non-cooks like me can do this!


Now if only I could figure out why my grocery bill was eighty dollars! I’m only one person this week, how in the world could I have bought $80 worth of groceries? No meat was bought, no cleaning products, no shampoos or anything like that. Also I only bought ingredients for 4 dinners. Thinking back on what I bought I still can’t fathom why my bill was so high. One portabella and one eggplant couldn’t have done so much damage. It baffles me. Completely. Looks like this weekend I am going to the public market for my vegetables and seeing if that makes a difference. I’ll post a blog about the experience and let you know what I discover!


Tomorrow's blog post:  Pineapple and Jalapeno Pizza



Weekend Cooking

Weekend cooking is much less rushed than weeknight cooking in our house. I decided to cook Saturday and Sunday. This doesn’t normally happen, because I would rather go taste delicious food elsewhere on the weekend rather than cook. Alas Anthony had his last two days of clinical so there was no time to go out for dinner. Since we had to stay in, I took on a challenge that I have been meaning to face for awhile now. That challenge was risotto. I’ve never cooked it before, because I’ve heard it’s hard to get it just right. I am not one to try anything hard in the kitchen. I like easy, fast, nothing too terrible can go wrong kind of recipes but the challenge was ON!


I have a Rachael Ray cookbook that only has vegetarian recipes in it and I found a risotto recipe in there. She also had a few variations of it and the one I chose to use was adding asparagus to the risotto. The recipe added a step I didn’t know you should do when making risotto and that is putting the broth in a separate pot on the stove and letting it simmer. That brings me to my next point about risotto, I had to use 4 separate pans/pots for this recipe. One for the broth, one to steam the asparagus, one to sauté the asparagus, and one for the rice! That would never work for a weeknight, so this should only be made when you have a lot of time to clean all the dishes! I believe this is a very traditional risotto recipe, you sauté onion in olive oil and butter. Then you add the Arborio rice and sauté for a few minutes. We added some wine once the rice was sautéed, it was not in the recipe but Anthony said it’s normally in risotto. Now we are at the point where you start adding the broth, start with a cup, keep stirring the rice and wait for the rice to soak the broth up.   

The recipe says to do this until half of the broth is used (3 cups), than taste the rice and if it needs more broth add it in gradually because you don’t want to overcook the rice. Overcook the rice? Is that possible? I used all of the broth and the rice was still a little bit crunchy. There wasn’t any broth left so I just had to call it quits. I stirred in the now sautéed (with garlic) asparagus and the parmigiano reggiano.

Final Product:

You know what? It really wasn’t all that bad for a first effort. I assumed it would be inedible. The flavor was good; it was just a bit crunchy. My idea for next time is to sauté the rice (before broth is added) for a little bit longer and to heat up more broth. This rice needs a lot of liquid! Those are my tips and I hope you will try to make risotto. It’s really nowhere near as hard and time consuming as people always say it is. You just have to have a little patience. I’m not known for my patience in any situation, but I managed to overcome that while making this risotto.


The other meal I cooked this weekend was, Tuscan Salmon with Rosemary Orzo. Not nearly as difficult and it’s pretty healthy. Once again I have a Wegman’s complaint. Don’t hate on me! Sometimes to make things easier I buy the frozen salmon club pack. There is a disclaimer if you follow the link that states: Although We Have Made Our Best Efforts to Remove All Bones, it is Possible That on Rare Occasions Small Bones May be Found. Would a rare occasion be at least 2-3 bones in every single piece that I serve? We find bones (okay it’s almost always in Anthony’s piece) every time we eat these frozen salmon fillets. That would not be a rare occasion since we eat salmon usually once a week. Wegman’s, you might need tighter quality control!!


Enough complaining…back to the cooking! There isn’t a ton of prep to be done, chopping an onion, cutting cherry tomatoes in half, slicing kalamata olives, chopping rosemary, basil, and parsley. Ok maybe there is a bit of prep to be done, but it was fast! Cook the orzo according to the package and sauté some onion and rosemary. Add the onion and rosemary to the orzo once it’s been strained. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and basil on the salmon, cook for 5 minutes each side or until done (and hopefully you will know when that is!). Take that out and cook up the vegetables (garlic, onion, tomato, and olives), this takes maybe a total of 8 minutes.

After that you take it off the heat and stir in the parsley and basil. Serve the salmon on the orzo and top with the veggie mixture.

Final Product:

Well my first mistake was forgetting to buy basil, so I used dried and that was a fine solution. The other problem I had (I always have this problem when cooking fish) was undercooking the salmon. I had it on much longer than 5 minutes a side, because they didn’t look completely cooked. Finally the salmon started burning so I took it out. Once we got to the table with the salmon, part of my fillet was undercooked. Yes, I know you can eat undercooked salmon (and I do with sushi all the time!), but as a fillet it freaks me out a little. So I just ate around it; it wasn’t a huge piece that was undercooked. This was a very good meal, minus the undercooked salmon. It tastes good and it's healthy. Try it out!


I’m proud of myself for staying in and cooking this weekend. It doesn’t happen often, but I feel healthier for it and also saved money! Since the weekend we haven’t had anything spectacular for dinner: egg salad sandwiches Monday night (had to use up some of the Easter eggs I dyed) and black bean and cheese quesadillas last night. I have been doing really well with not eating meat of any kind this week.  That will be turning around the next few nights. Tonight we will be having pork roll sandwiches for dinner (yes I will be posting pictures since they now have the actual rolls and not just the slices at Wegman’s) and Thursday night we are going to Brewtopia (a monthly beer tasting event) at Rohrbach’s. I will be making a vegetable coconut curry that I will share with you this weekend. Can’t wait, it sounds wonderful!

Easy Salmon Cakes

When planning this week’s menu I enlisted Anthony. I’m having trouble coming up with things to eat 5-6 days a week. It’s not the easiest thing to do. I like to have a balance of fish, meat, and no-meat dishes. So I can usually come up with 3-4 meals on my own and then I can’t find 1 or 2 more meals that sound appealing and fit into my balance structure. This week Anthony chose to make fried rice for dinner and he suggested that I make salmon cakes. Salmon anything usually sounds good to me and I found a recipe for salmon cakes on eatingwell.com. Sounds healthy to me!

One of the items I had to buy for the salmon cakes was 15 ounces of canned salmon. I’ve never bought canned salmon. When I’ve made salad and wanted salmon on it I bought it in a one of those pouch/bag type things. I wasn’t ready for what was going to greet me in a can of salmon. I assumed it would be a little like tuna fish. (On another note, I am not a fan of tuna fish, because I don’t really like tuna unless it’s in sushi.) This was NOTHING like tuna fish. The minute I opened it I was scared. The first thing I noticed was the skin on the fish. Ew. Then I noticed that there were bones!! Bones and skin, what the heck! Now skin is fine if I’m pan frying fish on the stove or grilling it. It is not okay if it needs to be removed in order for me to make patties out of it. So I started cleaning the skin off the fish. That was when I noticed the most horrifying item, the spinal cord!! This fish still had a spine people!! That is not okay. That will never be okay to me! I HAD to clean all the bones off this fish. I wasn’t eating any, that’s for sure. SO I pushed the bones off the fish with a knife, one vertebra at a time. I’m still uneasy about this whole experience. I will not be rushing out to buy more canned salmon anytime soon. I googled canned salmon later and found out that some people are actually eating it with the skin and bones still there. Apparently this is possible because it’s mostly cartilage. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to eat cartilage either. You should see how picky I am when eating chicken wings. Forget it! Eating bones is not an option people!

The rest of this was a breeze compared to that first step. In a skillet with oil, cook the chopped onion and celery until soft. Then take it off the heat and stir in the parsley. Next you add an egg and mustard to the salmon and mix that well. You then add the onion mix, breadcrumbs, and ground pepper and mix that well too. Form the mixture into 8 patties and put them in a skillet with some oil and cook the patties until their undersides are golden. Then flip them over onto a baking sheet and place in the oven at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes. .

Final Product:

The salmon came out pretty well. Both of us enjoyed the flavor of the cakes. They were more bready and dense than I typically like my seafood cakes. I’m a more seafood, less bread type of girl. I used a little less then a cup of breadcrumbs and the recipe calls for 1 3/4 cups. That is way too much and even what I put in was too much, so I would start with ½ a cup of breadcrumbs if you decide to try this recipe. It was nice having a salad for a side dish, instead of our usual starch. I also made Creamy Dill sauce to dip the salmon cakes into. That is just mayo, plain yogurt, scallions, dill, lemon juice, and black pepper. It wasn’t bad, though I don’t really love mayonnaise.

I’m not sure what I’m cooking next; depends on what I might be in the mood for. Maybe shrimp. I do love me some shrimp!

Grilled Salmon Bacon & Feta Packets with Kale Chips

Day 20-I hate admitting this, but my kitchen anxiety is back. Let’s try not to confuse the kitchen anxiety with the kitchen depression. Kitchen anxiety manifested itself again last night in the form of fear, lack of confidence, and feeling very overwhelmed. I had to cook 3 separate things last night, salmon, kale chips, and Rice-a-Roni. The minute I realized I had to cook 3 separate things all at once (even one as easy as Rice-a-Roni), I flipped out. Seriously there was a moment there where I thought I was going to have a complete meltdown. I was annoying myself, so I have no idea how Anthony tolerated me. I took a few deep breathes and berated myself a little before I started to cook. Tonight’s meal is Grilled Salmon, Bacon& Feta Packets and Kale Chips. The salmon is from an issue of EveryDay with Rachel Ray, it’s a 5 ingredient recipe.

I started with the kale chips. I have become very fascinated by these things. They have been featured on everyone’s blog except for mine. That’s why I had to try them out. I’ve used kale in a few recipes before and use to feed it to my rabbit. Kale is great for you and everyone should add it to their diet, as long as you can handle the bitter taste of it. The first thing you need to do is rinse the kale and tear it into chip sized pieces. Then you need to dry it, I used a salad spinner and I still couldn’t get it completely dry. Then you put it in a large bowl, sprinkle olive oil on it and massage the oil in the leaves. Then you make a spice mix of whatever you want. I used salt, garlic powder, and smoked paprika. You sprinkle the kale with the spice mixture and toss. Next put the kale in a single layer on a foil lined baking sheet. I had to do two batches. Your oven should be set to 350 degrees and you leave the kale in there for about 12 minutes or until it’s crispy.

Next I started the Rice-a-Roni, I was trying my best to time everything. The box says that this takes about 22 minutes to cook, plus time for boiling and sautéing. I figured if I start this while the first batch of kale is cooking that should work out okay. The first batch of kale finished and I prepped the next tray of kale. I needed some cooked and crumbled bacon (for the salmon) so I threw two pieces in the microwave. Then I got the salmon together. Take a square of foil and place the salmon on it. On top of each salmon fillet put 2 tablespoons of ranch dressing. Then you add the crumbled bacon, feta cheese and pepper to the top of the salmon. Fold the sides of the foil up and leave the top open. This recipe calls for putting the foil packets on the grill, but since the oven was already on and in use Anthony suggested I put it in there. So I popped the salmon and the kale chips in the oven with 10 minutes left on the timer for the Rice-a-Roni.

Things seemed to be going well, but after the 10 minutes were up, nothing was finished. The Rice-a-Roni was watery, the salmon was raw, and I knew the kale still needed a few minutes. After 2 more minutes I pulled the kale out. I raised the temperature to 400 degrees for the salmon. The Rice-a-Roni looked better so I turned the heat off of that. Anthony and I checked the salmon after a few minutes and it still wasn’t done, so we left it in about 5 minutes more. Finally dinner was ready and it really wasn’t as stressful as I thought it was going to be. I need to realize nothing bad is going to happen if not everything finishes at the same time.

Final Product:

Okay now I know why people rave about kale chips all the time. They are addictive! We almost ate the whole bowl! The mixture I made was way too salty, but since the kale chips are as addictive as regular chips we couldn’t stop eating them. Next time I think I’m going to do a cumin and curry mixture for them. I’m already planning on making another batch this weekend. Love them! Anthony has made the salmon recipe before on the grill. He said he has no idea why I had problems cooking it in the oven. Overall the taste was the same. Anthony said it could have used more bacon. But of course he would say that! One thing that really annoyed me (this is another Wegman’s rant) was that we both found some bones in the fish. That has never happened before and it confirms in my mind that Wegman’s is slipping.

I’m going to do some deep breathing exercises this afternoon at work. So that when I get home I don’t get another bout of kitchen anxiety. I hate feeling useless and overwhelmed! Next up BBQ Tacos!

Cooking quote of the day:

Cooking Rule... If at first you don't succeed, order pizza.
Anonymous

Grilled Salmon and Asparagus with Balsamic Butter

Day 10-If I didn’t feel an obligation to make myself a better cook, I would say it’s over. That I’ve given up. (I just let out a huge sigh. People at work are probably thinking what could be so hard in her life that she needs to sigh like that? If only they knew the truth!). Cooking is like a little gnat that I keep swatting at trying to keep it away, but it never ever goes away and it’s so dang annoying. I have never been as frazzled and out of it as I was last night when I was cooking dinner. I spent a good deal of time in the kitchen earlier in the day yesterday making four loaves of zucchini bread, which probably didn’t help my mood last night. I think I got a 15 minute break between when the last loaves came out of the oven and when I had to start cooking dinner. Um and speaking of the zucchini bread, why the hell did it take so long to bake? I feel like I messed up somehow, but I don’t see how that’s even possible. It definitely took over an hour to cook the bread. I do not remember it taking that long. Stupid bread, I should have known better then to cook dinner after that nonsense.

Yet here we are, Day 10. I’m a glutton for punishment. Torture is like a drug to me. The menu consisted of grilled salmon and asparagus with a balsamic vinegar butter reduction accompanied by creamy polenta. Why I thought that this recipe looked like something that I could manage I don’t know. I’ve never cooked salmon or polenta. I grabbed the only thing I saw in the Goya aisle at the grocery store that said yellow corn meal. Whether it was the right or wrong thing I still don’t know. The recipe for creamy polenta said to boil salted water and add the polenta. Then add 4 tablespoons of butter and cook 30 minutes. There is supposed to be cheese in this too, but apparently I didn’t write that part of the instructions down. Sigh.

The water boiled, I started adding the cup of polenta and in the process was getting burned by the bubbling scalding water. I had grabbed the first whisk I saw which was pretty tiny and that wasn’t the smartest move. So I’m screaming because it was hurting and Anthony comes in ands gets a bigger whisk and starts whisking wanting to know the next step. That step is adding the 4 tablespoons of butter, which I dropped in the pot without cutting it and Anthony said, “NO, you can’t just put a whole chunk in like that!” Then the butter is out of the pot and on the floor. Oops! We got new butter and put that in and then Anthony says it’s done! WHAT?! How can it be done when it’s supposed to take 30 minutes to cook? That’s why I started the polenta before doing ANYTHING else. Yet here we were with the polenta done and no instruction in the directions on when to add the cheese to it. Neither of us knew what to do with the polenta now. Anthony said it would turn into a gummy mess if we just stopped cooking it now, so I keep it on the stove a little longer.

As you can see, this dinner was a disaster from the beginning. Then there was the salmon and asparagus. Who in their right mind choices to pick a recipe with items being grilled when said person doesn’t know how to use the grill? Only me. Anthony had heated the grill for me, so I prepped the asparagus and threw it on the grill. Then I ran inside to deal with the reduction of balsamic vinegar, honey, and butter and prep the salmon. During that process I managed to burn the reduction a little. Too bad, because now I had to run out to the grill and turn the asparagus and put the salmon on. Sadly the asparagus already look as if they could be done, but I leave them alone for now because I have to finish the reduction and deal with the polenta. I add the cream cheese to the polenta, which looks thick and goopy. That’s not very appealing. I ran back out to the grill and realized I have no idea how to tell if salmon is done. So I grab Anthony and make him deal with it. He gets everything off the grill for me. Thank you Anthony!

Was dinner ruined? No. Anthony added some milk to the polenta and made it work. Everything else was cooked fine.

Final Product:

This is the only picture taken last night, because I was not a happy camper.

What are my thoughts on these recipes? I guess they are fine. I have no desire to make either one of them again. I’m over it.

Totals: 5 minutes prep, 10-15 minutes cooking time, 2 pots and a grill.

I’m desperate for tonight’s dinner to be a better experience. I can not have another frustrating night in the kitchen. I just won’t be able to handle the pressure. The other meals I will be cooking this week are: Mexican chicken, sausage curry couscous, something with gnocchi, and quinoa veggie paella. Now to decide which of these dishes will cause the least amount of madness in the kitchen tonight.

Creamy Polenta-adapted from Simply Recipes

Grilled Salmon and Asparagus with Balsamic Butter-adapted from Everyday with Rachael Ray