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



Poaching Eggs and Frozen Meals

Wednesday night's meal, sliders with chipotle mayo and potato wedges while good, does not rate its own blog post. Besides, Anthony made the burgers and we didn’t take pictures of anything except for the chipotle mayo. Sliders are cool and trendy so I like them. Anthony doesn’t seem to really see the point of them, which I can understand. You can have 3 little burgers or one regular sized burger, there really isn’t much of a difference. I just think sliders are cute and fun. They also remind me of White Castle, which is my all time favorite! I’ll even eat the frozen White Castle burgers, since there are no White Castles in Rochester.

I’m very excited for my upcoming poaching an egg challenge. I’ve never seen it done and have never even thought about trying it before, so this should be interesting. I have some older eggs in the fridge which I’m going to use to practice on and then I’m going to buy new eggs and hopefully have a perfect edible one to offer to Anthony. I might be excited about making a poached egg, but I can not eat one. The pain that I would experience after eating an egg would ruin the whole event for me.

Another item I would like to discuss is frozen meals such as Smart Ones, Lean Cuisine, and Healthy Choice. Typically if there are no leftovers or something else more exciting to eat, I will bring a frozen meal for lunch. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve actually eaten a frozen meal and liked it. The one I had today Lean Cuisine Spa Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean which is grilled white meat chicken, zucchini, tomatoes, and whole wheat pasta in a tomato sauce. I should have known better then to buy this when I saw whole wheat pasta. The pasta was blah at best, the sauce was watery, I don’t even remember seeing zucchini in there. Looking at the reviews on the website, 4 stars, I’m shocked. Someone even mentioned you can’t tell it’s whole wheat pasta! What? It tasted like doughy cardboard; that is NOT how pasta should taste. They also mentioned that it had so much flavor. Just looking at it I knew it didn’t and doused it with Frank’s Red Hot. The meal was so hopeless the hot sauce didn’t make a dent in its lack of taste. Have these people lost their taste buds? I could not even finish eating it. Yuck!

Why can’t these frozen meals taste better? I just don’t understand why they are never good. Typically the only way I can eat them is with a ton of hot sauce. Eating lunch is a pain in the butt. I need to stay clear of these frozen meals, does anyone have any tasty, healthy, cheap ideas for lunches? Oh and remember that these need to be easy and quick to make too. I’m already cooking dinner daily and that’s about all the intense cooking I can take in a day. Please comment below. I need all the ideas I can get!