Seventy-seventh Post ~ Garlic Peach Salmon with Sweet "Dumpling" Squash

It's very hard to resist a friendly Wegman's staff member handing out yummy tempting treats.  I wasn't dressed up, but I felt a bit like I was trick-or-treating as I meandered from sample station to sample station.  I ended up with a loaf of apple cider bread with brie to spread over it for lunch tomorrow, and for dinner tonight, I got a great idea for squash.

Here's what you'll need for this fix-and-work meal (what I'd like to start calling the meals that you prep, stick in the oven, go back to work, and then return 30-45 minutes later to enjoy).

For the main dish:
~ Salmon fillet
~ Slice of peach
~ Brown sugar
~ Garlic clove (crushed)
~ Coarse-ground salt
~ EVOO
~ Herb of choice (thyme, naturally)

For the most autumnal side:
~ Squash of choice (I chose a "sweet dumpling" squash, which looked very much like a pumpkin if it were to shrink and cover itself with green and white stripes and speckles)
~ EVOO
~ Garlic clove (coarsely chopped)
~ Slice of onion (coarsely chopped)
~ Coarse-ground salt
~ Brown sugar (noticing a theme?)

Preheat the oven to 375.  Chop the squash (a process which is made worlds easier by piercing the gourd and microwaving for around 30 seconds) into bite-sized morsels.  I learned today from the friendly lady at the veggie sample stand that you can leave the skin on squash.  Extra nutrients = good to me.  Drizzle it with EVOO and grind a bit of salt over it.  Coarsely chop the garlic clove and onion.  Mix it all in and scatter some brown sugar and thyme over it.  Pop it in the oven.  It will take about 45 minutes to cook through.

In the mean time, prep the salmon so it can sit and soak in all the goodness.  It requires about 15 minutes to cook to my liking; add minutes if you like it done more.

In a foil "boat", place the salmon.  In a prep bowl, crush one clove of garlic and "mush" a piece of peach into it.  I say "mush" because I'm really not sure what the proper term is, here.  Squeeze it in your hand until all the juice runs into the bowl and the leftover fruit is kinda "preserve-y".  Into that, mix ample brown sugar.  Spoon it over the salmon fillet, press a sprig of thyme into it, and pop it in the oven at the appropriate time.

Savor the aromas!!!

In between, finish a paper, send emails, get your work lined up for the next day.

When you return, a luscious autumnal meal will be waiting for you!  I paired this meal with a Robert Mondavi Private Selection pinot noir.  My intent was to have a wine that was full-bodied enough to stand up to the salmon (hence a red) but fruity enought to not go too dry in the face of the brown sugar and sweet squash (hence a new world vintage).  My goal was realized.  This wine offered a palate-cleansing finish without ever being too dry, a fruitiness that accompanied rather than fought the sweet, savory meal (think cranberries next to a Thanksgiving turkey and yams) and an oakiness that gave the whole meal a decidedly rustic overtone.

Yours in the love of good food and wine,
AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Sixty-fifth Post ~ Salmon with Zesty Avocado-Peach Salsa

While searching for healthy yet filling summer dinner recipes, I happened upon a recipe for grilled salmon over mango salsa.

Now, I neither possess a grill nor a penchant for mangoes, so I decided to mix the original recipe up a little. And then I kinda got carried away "customizing" it to my personal tastes and preferences. So here's what I ended up needing for tonight's meal, when all was said and done:

(Note that I am preparing this for two, but if preparing it for one, I would make it exactly the same way but with one salmon fillet - I feel that the salsa would be wonderfully accompanied by tortilla chips for lunch the following day)

~ 1 or 2 salmon fillets (about 6 oz. each)

~ 1 large ripe Haas avocado

~ 2 peaches* (or one monster peach, which is what I ended up with!)

~ 2 roma tomatoes*

~ 1 jalapeño*

~ 1 lime

~ fresh cilantro

~ 1 can corn*

~ two scallions*

~ 1 clove of garlic

The asterisks indicate ingredients that I "customized" - I substituted peaches for mangoes, one and a half roma tomatoes for cherry tomatoes, a jalapeño that I seeded first rather than packing in all that heat, added a half a can of corn to give it a little more oomph, and scallions instead of onions, as they are a little milder in taste.

Set aside some time before you're actually going to bake the salmon. The salsa is best if it sits and melds for a bit. This dinner is quite easy to make, but it requires a bit of chopping, slicing and dicing. It is a task made much easier with the proper tools - in this case, a chef's knife, a paring knife, a peeling knife, and kitchen scissors, all direct from the beautiful knife set my dad gave me as a Christmas gift!

So time to get your get your slice 'n' dice on!

I started with the avocado.

:: PAUSE ::

Now here's a strange habit, but I'm going to share it with you, dear readers: my 60-second avocado hand treatment. Whenever I make anything with avocado, I end up with a ton of it on my hands. Instead of washing it off immediately, I rub the avocado all over my hands, then rinse it off under warm running water and towl my hands dry. It leaves my skin amazingly smooth. I also end up smelling a bit like an avocado, but there are trade-offs in life.

:: UNPAUSE ::

So after [ahem] dealing with the avocado, I diced up the peach, squeezing the juice out of the peel into the bowl. Next went the romas. I scooped out a little of the tomato "innards" first. I used my kitchen scissors to snip in a good handful of cilantro - which has to be one of my favorite fresh herbs next to thyme and basil. I added about half of a small can of corn, the scallions (which I snipped into the bowl rather than cut), a crushed clove of garlic, the juice of one lime, and the jalapeño.

:: PAUSE AGAIN ::

Sorry. But this merits saying. I have a medium-to-moderate spicy tolerance. I can eat jalapeños, but only in very small quantities - and I'm best if their seeded first. All the heat of a pepper resides in the seeds and inside pulp, so I scooped it out with the smaller end of a melon-baller (a trick I learned at one of Meg's Pampered Chef parties!) and then, with a very sharp paring knife, minced the bugger. Actually, I only added half of it to the salsa, reserving the other half in a prep bowl so that it could be added later by someone else who may have a higher spicier index than I...

And then I attempted to add the zest of lime. It turns out I lack a zester. I thought I had one; perhaps it was a dream. In any case, I decided to attempt to use a cheese grater. Remember what I had said about the right tools making a job really simple? Well, the wrong tool can really complicate things. Thankfully I was working over a prep bowl and NOT the salsa, as I ended up grating a good deal of my own knuckle along with the lime on my first pass down the grater. So there is no lime zest in this salsa. No blood, either.

:: UNPAUSE ::

So now you've got all your ingredients in the salsa - toss it a few times and then cover it tightly - trust me on this - and refrigerate it while you bake the salmon.

As previously mentioned, rather than grill the salmon, I opted to bake the fillets, which I had skinned by the helpful guy at Wegmans. I rubbed them with a juicy slice of peach and ground some salt over them and sprinkled on a bit of pepper before baking them for about 15 minutes. About halfway through the baking, I brushed them with some olive oil.

Serve the salmon atop an ample bed of salsa with a garnish of cilantro, if you so choose.

I served this meal with an amazingly refreshing sauvignon blanc from South Africa by Graham Beck. I got it on sale 50% off at Global Wine, my favorite wine shop (for reasons like that!). It was grassy, citrussy, and paired perfectly with the dish.

All in all, a successful meal!

Yours in the love of good food, wine, and the joy of customization,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.