With a fridge full of beautiful ears of bi-sweet corn, I am on a bit of a corn kick. I am always in search of meals that I think can be made the night ahead and eaten for lunch the next day, and this one fit the bill. I modified the original recipe for this Crab Corn and Tomato Salad (from Cooking Light of course) to work as a lunch meal.
Ingredients:
Grated lemon rind from 2 lemons
Lemon juice from 2 lemons
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup fresh corn kernels (about 1 ears)
2 tablespoons thinly sliced basil leaves
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped red onion
1/2 pound lump crab meat, shell pieces removed
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
To make the dressing, combine the zest, lemon juice, olive oil, honey, and Dijon mustard. Season with salt and pepper. Stir well with a whisk until the olive oil is incorporated. To make the Crab Corn and Tomato Salad, add the corn, basil, bell pepper, red onion, crab meat, and tomatoes to the dressing. Toss gently to coat.
I love citrus with any kind of seafood. Lemon brightens the dish overall and works so well with the crab and tomatoes. Because I let it sit overnight, the citrus flavor really had time to soak in. This is really a great make-ahead meal!
Earlier this week, I wrote a post reviewing Cooking Light’s new App. I have been playing around with the app for about a week and kept coming back to this Mango Shrimp Kebab recipe. The colors are amazing, and it sounded so delicious! I cut the recipe in half (makes 2 servings) but kept the original recipe mostly intact.
Ingredients:
3/4 pounds large peeled and deveined shrimp
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 large red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 mango, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 small red onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
Juice and zest of 1 lime, cut into wedges
Cooking spray
Preheat your grill to medium-high heat. Prepare your mango, pepper, and onion.
Thread shrimp, bell pepper, mango, and onion alternately onto 4 skewers. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and lime zest. Note: the original recipe did not include zest. But I thought it might be an easy addition to the flavors, you’re using a lime anyways!
Coat the grill with cooking spray. Place the skewers on the grill rack and cook for 2 minutes on each side, or until shrimp are cooked (Mine took closer to 3-4 minutes per side, I blame my little indoor grill. If using a normal grill, 2 minutes on each side should be plenty.)
Serve with lime wedges. Squeeze the wedges over kebabs before eating.
Before I go on, I want to give special thanks to my “Sous Chef” and friend Ericka for helping me out. I am pretty darn scared of knives and cutting slippery fruit stresses me out quite a bit, so I am forever grateful to Ericka for her amazing mango-chopping skills.
We made this along with the Corn with Lime and Chipotle, also suggested by the app. And I couldn’t be happier with the results. The pairing was perfect! We actually ended up using some of the leftover chipotle butter mix on some of the shrimp, just to try it out.
shrimp with chipotle butter
Ericka thought maybe marinating the shrimp in a jerk marinade before adding to the skewers would really bump this recipe up a notch and I agree. However, the original recipe is delicious on its own, and quite simple and fast to make. Look out for my post on the Corn, these two really should be eaten together!
The ingredients were wonderful together, sweet, tangy and fresh. Ericka kept referring to getting a piece of each ingredient in one bite “the perfect bite” and I have to agree with her.
Do not forget to squeeze the lime over the skewers before enjoying. The citrus adds a whole new dimension to this already delicious dish.
This weekend, I realized I was running low on tomato sauce in my freezer, so I whipped up a new batch to hopefully last me a couple months. I was left with an extra can of diced tomatoes and I also had some leftover capellini pasta from my Capellini with Clams and Saffron dish. Gourmet had a really delicious sounding recipe that incorporated both of these ingredients. The recipe is so quick, it is perfect for a week night dinner.
Ingredients:
1tablespoon olive oil
8 already cooked shrimp, deveined with the tails still attached, thawed
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup sweet (red) vermouth
1 (14- to 15-oz) can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup heavy cream
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
1/2 a box of capellini
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon fresh chopped parsley, optional
The original recipe is linked above. I had already-cooked shrimp in my freezer (I meant to buy raw shrimp and misread the label, sigh) so I had to alter the recipe to make up for the precooked shrimp. My shrimp still had the tails attached because I think those are more attractive. Feel free to use whatever form of shrimp you’d like.
Start by thawing your shrimp. I just ran them under cold water for 3 minutes and allowed to dry in a colander.
Cook pasta according to directions. Drain and set aside. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the minced garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and vermouth. and stir to combine. I left in the tomato juice from the diced tomatoes. You can drain the tomatoes before adding for a more chunky sauce. Heat until simmering.
Add cream and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for about 1 minute. Add in lemon juice.
Top the pasta with 2 shrimp per serving and spoon the broth over the pasta. Add the chopped parsley on top.
The sauce had a nice sweetness to it, but I think it could be further enhanced with a pinch of crushed red pepper to add a bit of heat. I regret not having fresh shrimp for this dish because the shrimp were relatively forgettable in my version. I like that my sauce was a little thinner than the original. I think this would be great (without the shrimp) as a reheated lunch after the pasta has had time to sit in the sauce.
I am a huge Top Chef fan. So much that my parents bought me the Top Chef cookbook a few years back. However, when I moved, I stored it away and completely forgot about it. I recently found the cookbook again and came across Ilan’s dish: Fideos with Clams and Saffron. My CSA share this week came with broccoli, cauliflower and onion so I thought this would be a perfect way to use these ingredients. Note: I switched up the way this recipe was cooked, used less cream, and added onions and Parmesan. Otherwise, the recipe is pretty close to the original printed version.
Yes. Another salmon recipe. I can’t help it, I love the stuff. And when you are able to purchase a salmon fillet that looks as gorgeous as this one did, you have no choice but to keep it simple and let the natural delicious salmon flavor shine through. This recipe takes less than 20 minutes, and can be made even more quickly if you make the basil oil the day before.
Ingredients (serves 4):
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound salmon fillet, skin still on
Salt and pepper, to taste
Basil oil
1/2 cup fresh basil, firmly packed
1/4 cup olive oil
I had some left over goat cheese from my Orecchiette with Swiss Chard, Red Peppers and Goat Cheese dish. When I was looking for recipes, I came across this one for Shrimp Tomato Basil Linguine with Warm Goat Cheese Rounds from Cooking Light. I had no clue how seafood and goat cheese would be together, but was willing to find out!
I wanted to challenge myself this weekend, so I decided to try to make paella. I don’t own a paella pan, and I honestly have no idea how to cook paella, so this should be quite the experience. I used a mixture of a recipe from Tyler Florence and one from Cooking Light, keeping my personal taste in mind.
Ingredients:
2 Spanish chorizo sausages, thickly sliced
1 Spanish onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons parsley (fresh if you have it)
1 (15-ounce) can whole tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 cups rice, whatever you have (long, short, doesn’t matter)
2 quarts plus 2 cups water
1/3 cup flour
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon saffron threads
1 (8-ounce) bottles clam juice
1 dozen littleneck clams, scrubbed
2 pounds mussels, debearded and scrubbed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup sweet peas, frozen and thawed (optional)
Lemon wedges, for serving (optional)
Begin by cleaning and de-bearding the mussels. I couldn’t handle doing this, so thankfully my boyfriend was willing to help.
That wiry-looking thing on the right side of the mussel, that’s the beard. To remove, pull towards the hinge part of the mussel and tug.
yuck
The beards won’t hurt you if you eat them, but they don’t look particularly appetizing. Scrub the mussels to remove any gook that might be left on them. Discard any mussels that are open or cracked. Do the same with the clams. Put the clams and mussels in a mixture of 2 quarts water and 1/3 cup flour for 20 minutes. This helps to remove any sand that may still be in the mussels and clams.
Add the chicken broth, 2 cups water, 1 cup white wine, clam juice and saffron to a pot over medium heat. Simmer, without boiling, then reduce to low to keep warm.
Heat a tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. Place the cut chorizo in the pan and cook until browned. Remove and set aside.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the chopped onions, garlic and parsley. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and paprika and cook for 5-10 minutes until fragrant.
Add the rice, stirring to coat the rice.
Pour in the saffron broth, simmering for 10 minutes.
Add chorizo, clams and mussels, tucking the clams and mussels into the rice.
Cook for 15 minutes without stirring, until the rice is fluffy and you can smell the rice at the bottom beginning to toast. (This is known as socarrat… paella is supposed to have a toasted bottom.)
Remove from heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes (it will be really, really hot). Serve with lemon wedges and peas if desired. Season with salt and pepper if needed.
I have to give myself a little pat on the back for this one (as well as my boyfriend for his wonderful de-bearding skills). Although I was craving a bit more saffron taste, this dish really turned out well overall. It is quite a bit of work, but it produces a whole lot of food, at least 8 servings. As always, don’t eat any clams or mussels that don’t open. A bunch of my clams didn’t open, kind of a bummer. I also think the next time I make this, I would reserve the liquid from the tomatoes and add that in as well for a little extra flavor.
Are you ready for the easiest salmon recipe, perhaps ever? The name says it all: maple-soy glazed salmon. You just use equal parts maple syrup and reduced sodium soy sauce.
Ingredients:
2 pieces of 5 oz salmon fillets, skin on
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free)
salt and pepper, to taste
Combine the maple syrup and soy sauce.
Top the salmon fillets with salt and pepper.
Drizzle the maple-soy mixture equally over the salmon.
I bought my salmon from a supermarket in Wilmington that inexplicably only had salmon without the skin. What the heck? Normally, I would just grill the salmon, skin side up for 2-3 minutes and then flip the salmon, skin side down and cook until done. Because we had to take into account the whole no-skin issue, we wrapped the salmon in tin foil and popped it on the grill for a good 10 to 15 minutes. (Special thanks to Kevin and Tim for doing the actual grilling part!)
It still turned out great! The sauce caramelizes a bit, adding some sweetness to the salmon. I really wish it could have been straight on the grill to add some charring but it was not to be. Sigh. If anyone gets the chance to actually try it this way, please let me know how it turns out!
There was a restaurant near my college that served Sauteed Salmon with a Blackberry Butter Sauce and Red Bliss Potatoes. I loved this dish so much, I’m pretty sure I went once a week to eat it while they offered this dinner.
I had a bunch of raspberries and blackberries left over from the Berry Sangria and Berries with Lemon Mint Syrup, so I thought I’d attempt to recreate the recipe, adapting it into this Sauteed Salmon with Berry Butter Sauce and Roasted Potatoes.
Ingredients for Salmon
2 eight ounce salmon fillets, with the skin still on
I’m still working through my mint and came across this recipe on My Recipes. Chimichurri is normally made with parsley and oregano and is used as a marinade on meat. However, this recipe incorporates mint, making the chimichurri seafood-friendly.
I was so excited to receive mint in my CSA this week. That emotion was quickly replaced by panic, what the heck can I make to actually use up all of this mint? I do have a dessert or two in the mix, but I wanted to include it in some dinners that were a little more rare than lamb with a mint sauce. Naturally, my love of salmon made choosing this recipe a no brainer.
Ingredients:
Lemon zest from one lemon
Fresh lemon juice from 1/2 a lemon
1/4 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
1/8 teaspoon plus 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon finely minced shallot (about one shallot)
I have quite a bit of parsley from my CSA share. I mistakenly bought a bunch of parsley two days before also, oops. I don’t want to waste it, so I looked for a recipe that included pesto (an easy way to use a lot of parsley). Cooking Light had a great-sounding recipe for salmon skewers with lemon-parsley pesto over orzo.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/8 cup fresh basil leaves
1/8 cup capers, drained
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 smaller garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 pound skinless, boneless salmon fillets, cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
2 cups hot cooked orzo
Preheat your grill. Boil water for the orzo and cook as directed on the package. Drain, mix with 1/4 teaspoon salt, and set aside. Combine the first 7 ingredients (up to garlic) in a food processor (I used a magic bullet).
Add 1 tablespoon oil to the mixture and process until smooth.
Not all that smooth..
Set the pesto aside. Cut the salmon into 1 inch pieces.
Thread fish evenly on two skewers. Brush fish with remaining 1 tablespoon oil and sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Coat the grill with cooking spray. Place skewers on grill and cook for 1 minute on each side, or until desired degree of doneness.
Remove from grill and wrap loosely in foil to keep warm. Add orzo to a bowl. Place skewers on orzo and top with the pesto.
Whew. I used way too big of a piece of garlic. Definitely make sure to use one of the smaller ones; you aren’t cooking the garlic so it really retains its flavor. Past my new ability to ward of vampires, the other flavors were really nice. If you have a food processor, I’d suggest using that over a magic bullet. I wish the pesto was a bit more chopped up. I ended up mixing the pesto into the orzo, flaking the salmon, and adding a bit more lemon. Really delicious!
I found a recipe on My Recipes for Seared Scallops with Garlic-Parsley Butter. It even includes my other favorite ingredient: mushrooms. And, even better, the recipe is served over a mashed potato puree! I think they might have written this recipe just for me.
Ingredients:
6 oz of larger sized scallops
Salt and Pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons minced spring garlic
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1 package shiitake mushrooms, rinsed, stemmed, and thinly sliced
1/2 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons canned crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons dry white wine
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Ingredients for Yukon Gold potato puree:
1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons whipping cream
Salt and Pepper
Bring 2 to 3 quarts water to a boil. Peel the potatoes and cut into 1-inch pieces.
Add potatoes to the pot and cook until tender when pierced, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain and put in a bowl.
Mash the potatoes with 1/4 cup chicken broth, 2 tablespoons whipping cream, salt and pepper to taste. I just used a fork, but a potato masher would have really sped up the process. Set aside.
Rinse the scallops and pat dry.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Prepare your mushrooms. Remove the stems and discard. Thinly slice the caps.
Mince the shallot and green garlic. Green garlic is also known as spring garlic. It happened to be part of my CSA share, so if you just have normal garlic, that will work just fine.
Heat a saute pan over medium-high heat. Add scallops to the pan and cook, flipping the scallops once until browned on both sides and opaque, about 4 minutes total.
Transfer the scallops to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.
Add 1/2 tablespoon butter, garlic, and shallot to the saute pan.
When the butter is melted, add the mushrooms.
Stir often until mushrooms are browned, about 5 minutes.
Add remaining 2 tablespoons butter, chicken broth, parsley, tomatoes, white wine, and lemon juice.
Bring to a boil and cook for 1 to 2 minutes.
Add the potato puree to a bowl. Top with the scallops and spoon mushrooms and sauce over the scallops.
Oh this was so so good. I don’t know how this recipe managed to get so many of my favorite ingredients into one dish and still make it taste good, but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier on a Monday night. Yum.
I was hoping to make Sole Meunière, but the supermarket decided otherwise. (Not only did they not have sole, they had no idea what it was). I substituted flounder, but if you can find sole, go for that instead. I found this classic recipe from Bon Appetit and I’m pretty sure I’ve made this recipe on many occasions and had no idea it had such a spiffy name. “Meunière” just means “miller’s wife.” So to cook something “a la meunière” means to cook it after first dredging it in flour. The sauce is really easy (and again, I’m pretty sure I’ve made it a million times before) and is made of brown butter, chopped parsley and lemon. Despite how easy the recipe is, this makes one tasty dish.
Ingredients for fish:
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 flounder fillets (get Pacific sole if you can)
Salt
Pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
Ingredients for sauce:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Lemon wedges
Pour flour into a shallow bowl. Rinse fish and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper to taste.
Dredge fish on both sides with flour shaking off excess flour.
Heat olive oil in a saute pan big enough to fit all the fish. Add butter and swirl to coat. It should bubble up a bit. When it stops bubbling, add fish and cook until golden on bottom, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Turn fish over (carefully, it’s a pretty delicate fish), and cook until golden on bottom, about 1 to 2 minutes.
Place fish in tin foil and wrap loosely to keep warm.
Pour out excess drippings from the saute pan and wipe down with paper towels. Chop the parsley (as finely as you like).
I did a pretty rough chop
Heat the saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the butter for the sauce and cook until it begins to brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in parsley and lemon juice. It may splatter a bit, so be prepared for that. Spoon over the fish and serve with lemon wedges.
Who doesn’t enjoy a recipe that takes 10 to 15 minutes, and only requires 8 ingredients (including salt, pepper, and olive oil)? On top of that, it really is tasty. The fish crisps up nicely in the butter which adds a nice texture. This would be good with a light salad or a side of rice.
This recipe is a result of me buying a bunch of ingredient for other recipes and then forgetting to look up anything for a salmon recipe. I rummaged through my fridge and came up with a few ingredients I figured would taste good together.
Ingredients:
1 lb salmon
1 lemon, zested and squeezed
1 tablespoon freshly chopped dill
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and Pepper, to taste
There are two lemons, but I only used one
Zest the lemons into a bowl. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice of the lemon into the bowl. Add the melted butter and mix.
Add the tablespoon of dill and mix.
Heat one tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. Season the salmon with salt and pepper.
Pour the lemon-butter-dill mixture over the salmon.
Add the salmon to the pan skin-side up. Cook for 2 minutes or until the salmon has a nice brown sear. Flip and cook until the salmon is cooked though and flakes easily.
So this recipe isn’t a breakthrough way to cook salmon. But it is tasty, a bit different than your normal salmon dish, and happily quick. I am a big fan of lemon zest, it really lets the lemony flavor shine through the butter and dill.
