Cedar Planked Salmon and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

When I was in high school, I went on a rather memorable date to see Tom Petty in concert.  On the way to dinner, my date's car broke down and his parents had to pick us up and trade cars. :)  While the Tom Petty concert and the broken down car were very memorable, I just as vividly remember the meal we had at City Creek Grill, which is no longer in business.  Yes, leave it to me to remember a meal I had  almost 15 years ago!  I ordered Cedar Grilled Salmon with Garlic Mashed Potatoes.  It was so divine!  It is one of my favorite, simple meals to make.

Cedar Planked Salmon:

1 cedar plank

2 pieces of salmon brought to room temperature - I've found this makes the meat more juicy!

salt 

pepper

Soak cedar plank for at least an hour or longer if you can.

Preheat grill to medium heat.  You can use either gas or charcoal.

Salt and pepper the salmon to taste and place in the center of the cedar plank.  Cook on grill for approximately 10-12 minutes or until cooked through.  Be careful not to over cook as it will make the salmon chewy...I've done this plenty of times, so don't feel bad if you do too. In fact, I actually won't grill outdoors, that is something I have always left up to Alex. :)

Garlic Mashed Potatoes:

5 golden yukon potatoes, diced into 1 inch pieces - I left the skins on, but you can certainly peel them

4 tablespoons margarine or butter

1/2 cup milk

2 cloves garlic

Boil potatoes until soft, approximately 8-10 minutes.  Cut garlic into medium sized pieces so you have some good surface area, you want to steep the garlic to infuse the butter.  When the butter is melted, add the milk and keep warm until the potatoes are cooked through.  

Drain potatoes and mash.  Add the butter, milk and garlic mixture.  You can strain out the garlic if you want, but cooking it in the butter makes it nice and soft, but not too strong like roasted garlic.  Serve immediately.

Sorry, there are no pictures of the garlic mashed potatoes...the moment the food hit our plates all pictures were forgotten.  I'm serious.  We finished this meal in five minutes or less!  I'm pretty sure that is how quickly I finished this same meal before the Tom Petty concert....but that might have been because we didn't have a lot of time, due to the car breaking down.  

   

Pesto Salmon

I can't believe I haven't posted this recipe before now.  This is a recipe Alex turned me on to several years ago when we were first dating.  I used to be that girl who needed tarter sauce to stomach fish so the first time I had this recipe I felt like I was choking it down.  Now that my palate is more refined (LOL!!!) I LOVE this recipe!

I topped the salmon fillets with  my favorite pesto recipe and cooked them at 475F for about 15 minutes.  I know, you're wondering why I would cook the fish at such a high temperature.  I was cooking the salmon with the butternut squash from the previous post and wanted to make sure they finished cooking around the same time.  I REALLY enjoyed the way the salmon cooked at the high temperature.  Because it was so high it cooked the olive oil completely out of the pesto frying the salmon almost and leaving a yummy basil, garlic, pine nut and parmesan goodness  on top.  I LOVE when I find a new means of cooking something I LOVE!

Appetizers for BUNCO!

Never in my life did I ever think I would be the BUNCO type.  But when you move to a city where you don't know many people, you learn to expand your horizon's.  Thank goodness I did!  BUNCO really is a fun and mindless game and a GREAT way for the ladies to hang out on a Saturday night.

We have LOTS of salmon in our freezer...thank you, Costco...so I decided whatever I made was going to have salmon in it.  I opted for a variation on a smoked salmon cream cheese dip.  Alex and I smoked our own salmon with a stove top smoker my dad gave us.  LOVE this product!  Makes smoking salmon SO EASY!!!!

I have a ravioli maker that REALLY helps out for this dish.  You can do it without this item, but if you are challenged with sealing your 'pillows' like I am, you'll appreciate the ravioli maker.  I got mine at Williams Sonoma a couple of years ago.

Smoked Salmon Dip Pillows
8 oz smoked salmon
8 oz room temperature cream cheese
6 tablespoons green onions
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 egg + an extra egg for an egg wash
1 package frozen puff pastry

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Defrost puff pastry for 30 minutes.

Mix together smoked salmon, cream cheese, green onions heavy cream and egg until well combined and set aside.

Cut puff pastry into three pieces on the fold.  Roll out so it will fit over the ravioli 'pot'.  Fill each 'pot' with the salmon mixture, about a teaspoon in each. 

Roll out another piece of puff pastry for the top of the pillow.  Place the metal ravioli cutter on top and press down until pieces are separated.  You may need a ravioli cutter for this part.

Place pillows on a greased cookie sheet and brush with egg wash.  Cook for 12-14 minutes.  Serve immediately.  

These babies were a HIT at BUNCO!  And I won the most games for the night!  YEAH!!! 

Salmon and Couscous...who knew?

When I was growing up my dad got on a couscous kick and it totally creeped me out. It looked so grainy. No part of it appealed to me. As I got older and saw it more in cafes and restaurants I always remembered my dad eating it by the pan load. UG!

A month or two ago Alex brought some couscous home and told me we had to try it. I was pretty reluctant, but agreed. Surprise, surprise it was pretty dang good. Tonight we were wrangling for ideas of what to make. I wanted to BBQ and Alex wanted couscous. So we compromised. I got online and searched Salmon and Couscous and picked the first recipe that came up...it so happened to be a Food Network recipe by Bobby Deen of all people. Yes, his mother is Paula Deen, who is hell bent on giving everyone heart disease. Who would have thought he would be capable or allowed to create such a healthy recipe.

Salmon and Couscous:
Olive oil
4 (4-ounce) pieces salmon
Lime

The recipe calls to bake the salmon at 350F putting the lime juice and olive oil on top, but we grilled it and drizzled the lime juice over the top after it was done cooking.

Couscous:
2 1/4 cups water or chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons butter
10 ounces couscous
1 cup diced tomatoes - we used canned tomatoes rather than fresh
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup green onions

Combine water or chicken stock, salt and butter in a saucepan, over medium heat and bring to a boil. Stir in couscous. Add diced tomatoes, crumbled feta, and green onions. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for 5 minutes. Uncover, fluff with a fork, and serve hot or cold.

We also added pitted kalamata olives to the couscous and it was FABULOUS!

Alex wasn't so keen on the idea of the feta so I left it out until I was plating up my meal....so one picture is with feta and the other is without. :)

This is a GREAT light recipe. The additional ingredients in the couscous add some serious flavor to this dish. I usually like my salmon with a little tarter sauce....and even went as far to make some up...but didn't use it with this dish because the couscous was so AWESOME! Take the leap...try it out!

Pumpkin Mashed Potatoes and Salmon

My buddy Meg over at Megan's Munchies wanted to try out three pumpkin mashed potatoes recipes and I decided to try out what was behind web site number two. I was directed to Wise Food Ways for a pretty ambiguous recipe for Pumpkin Mashed Potatoes. I get nervous with ambiguous recipes because I always end of adding too much of something and ruin it...fortunately, tonight was not one of those nights. SUCCESS! These babies ROCKED!!! Thanks to my trusty pressure cooker, I fixed this up in 15 minutes!

I'm going to share with you how I made these potatoes and then you can hit the Wise Food Ways for the more ambiguous recipe. :)

Pumpkin Mashed Potatoes:
2 medium potatoes, peeled, washed and cut into big chunks
1 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into big chunks
1 15 oz can pureed pumpkin
1/2 stick of margarine, just kidding...I added a whole stick of margarine.

1 small box of cream

1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

plenty of salt and pepper

Procedure:
Cook potatoes in pressure cooker for 11 minutes according to pressure cooker directions. While potatoes are cooking, heat up margarine, cream and pumpkin over medium heat until margarine is melted and pumpkin is warmed through.Mash the vegetables with a potato masher, fork, or whisk and add butter and dairy and spices until you like the consistency and flavor.

I was worried I had destroyed the recipe because the consistency was a little 'wet'...but HOLY CRAP! It was like smooth pumpkin pie...almost. The sweet potatoes are a requirement for the consistency and taste on these potatoes. DAMN! I LOVE these potatoes!

The meat to this meal was smoked Salmon. My dad gave me a stove top smoker when Alex and I got married and it has quickly become a favorite kitchen tool. It is so silly easy to use!

The smoker is a metal box with a lid that slides on and off. In the smoker is a drip tray with a metal rack to put your meat on. I wrap my drip tray in tin foil so it is easy to clean and spray the rack with pam to keep the meat from sticking. On the very bottom of the smoker, sprinkle 1 tablespoon of alder wood chips (which conveniently came with the smoker). Put the drip tray on top of the wood chips, then the metal rack and place the salmon on the rack. Slide the lid over the top until 1 inch of space is open. Put smoker on stove top over medium heat. Once you see little wisps of smoke, slide the lid completely closed and cook for 22 minutes. The internal heat stays at 375 F while cooking...just in case you were curious.

The flavor of salmon smoked in a stove top smoker is AMAZING! It is such a subtle taste...it is so elegant. Very little smoke escapes into your house, so no worries on setting the smoke detector off. Just open a kitchen window a crack and you are good to go!

Deer Valley Picnic

The Utah Symphony did a tribute to the Beattles at Deer Valley this weekend and I was in charge of the food. Going to outdoor concerts can be a challenging food opportunity because you need to have food that will keep for the long drive, easily portable and yet still pure cusine yummy!

I chose to make pine nut and lemon orzo with salmon and sides of fresh peaches and strawberries, cheese and crackers and sparkling strawberry lemonade. I did it total Ina Garten style using individual meal containers, wine glasses and good silverware with linen napkins to make my guests feel special and it WORKED!

Pine Nut and Lemon Orzo:
From Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2008
4 cups uncooked orzo (rice-shaped pasta, about 1 1/2 pounds) - I just used 1-one pound box
2 tablespoons grated lemon rind
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil
3/4 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley - which I completely forgot to put into my recipe.
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted

Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting slat and fat. Drain. Combine rind, juice, salt and pepper in a large bowl. slowly add oil to juice mixture, sitrring constantly with a whisk. add pasta to juice mixture, toss to coast. Cool to room temperature. Stir in parsley and pine nuts.

I cooked three pieces of salmon with olive oil and a little bit of dried dill at 400 F for 10 minutes, let it cool and broke it into bite sized pieces and added it to the orzo.

The difficult part of this cusine picnic was the sparking strawberry lemonade. I wanted to have a fun special drink, but making this drink in the picnic arena was a little challenging. Especially because it rained on us most of the night.

I squeezed the juice of six lemons into a food processor with 6-7 frozen strawberries (they don't have to be frozen, I just had a bag of frozen strawberries) and a couple of packets of equal. Blend until smooth, put through a strainer to get all the strawberry seeds out....I of course forgot to do this, but you can learn from my mistake. I put this mixture into a twist on tupperware container so it would travel well. In a wine glass, combine 4 tablespoons of strawberry lemon mixture and add sparkling water.

We had a fantastic time despite the rain and tha fact that I forgot the battery to my camera when we got to Park City. This picture was taken with my cell phone!