strawberry balsamic glazed salmon

I’ve been really disappointed with my Pinterest finds lately. I mean, the recipes that I end up making are ok – perfectly edible, but just missing something. I guess I have high expectations, but to be honest, I was beginning to lose faith in my beloved Pinterest.

Then, this little salmon gem popped up on my feed. I paired that bad boy with a Paleo green bean recipe I saw on a blog, and instantly all was right with the world. Best part? Pretty freakin easy!

So I’m gonna break it down into the salmon and the beans, obviously they can and should be going together at the same time, but everyone has a different kitchen multitasking comfort level, and as long as your prep is completed before the stove turns on, you should be good to go.

So, ROASTED SALMON WITH STRAWBERRY BALSAMIC GLAZE!

For the glaze, you will need:

- About one cup of strawberries, chopped
- 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 4 tbsp water
- 4 tbsp honey

And same salt, pepper, and 2 salmon fillets. Or, like me, you can buy a big one and do a complete hack job breaking it down into two pieces. Its cool – I only left about a third of the bottom of one side attached to the skin.

So get out a decent sized sauce pan, and bring the vinegar, water and berries to a boil. Let that simmer and reduce by half. I honestly was running around the kitchen a bit like a mad woman last night (because my almost 8 month old puppy has decided to start peeing everywhere), so I’m at a loss for an exact time. Errrr 7ish minutes? Whatever.






Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400. Put the fillets on a foil lined baking sheet, salt and pepper em, and stick em in the over for 10-15 mins. I think mine got 12.

Once the glaze has reduced, add the honey. Reduce some more. Maybe another 4-5 minutes on the stove.






At this point, you can either mash the mixture up manually, or be lazy like me, and puree it in your Magic Bullet. Your choice. When the salmon is ready to serve, drizzle the yummy sticky goodness all over those bad boys.

Now, the green beans. Specifically, COCONUT-ALMOND GREEN BEANS. You like the caps thing I’m doing?

For the beans, you will need:

- Green beans (duh) – however many you plan to eat, I guess I made like 2-3 handfuls worth? Very scientific, I know, but yeah, trim them before hand
- ½ cup coconut milk
- Slivered almonds (about a tbsp)
- 1/3 onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, diced
- Coriander
- Cumin
- Paprika
- Red pepper flakes (optional)
- Lime juice






Heat some oil in a pan and sauté the almonds for a few minutes, watching them closely. Remove once they start to brown. In the same pan, sauté the onions, garlic, cumin, coriander and paprika (and red pepper if you're adding it) for about 4-5 minutes, until the onions are translucent and starting to barelyyyyy brown. As for the amount of spices, I dunno, do it to taste. I did about 2-3 wrist flicks from each container. I’m uber helpful, I know.






Add the coconut milk and the green beans and make sure everything is thoroughly mixed. Bring the mixture to a simmer, then cover the pan and let cook for 6-8 mins, depending on how crunchy you like your beans. Remove the cover, and let the mixture cook down a bit more, about 1-2 mins. Remove from heat, stir in the almonds and couple of squirts of lime juice.

Now, you can plate everything all pretty and stuff or just dump it on the plate. I went with a mixture of the two. I did garnish the salmon with some chopped strawberries, though. They were a nice touch and added some freshness to the dish.






Enjoy!

when the boy's away, the girl will play... in the kitchen

As much as I hate it when my fiancé is away (cue cheesy romcom soundtrack!), it gives me a chance to play around with recipes I normally wouldn't touch because I know he'd just roll his eyes at my experimentation and cook up some mac n cheese for himself while I'm left to sulk at the counter, just me and my experiment.

Sob story and run-on sentence aside, I decided to play around with some fresh cauliflower I picked up at the farmer's market on Wednesday. And get a little pseudo paleo while I was at it.

Hold the phone, you say! Paleo? What the eff!? Long story short... The Paleo Diet encourages us to eat as our Paleolithic ancestors did - aka meats, nuts, fruit, veggies... And that's about it. No dairy, no processed crap. Mostly is focuses on fresh, whole food. Which I can get behind. However, I need me some cheese and the occasional sammich. So instead of going hardcore paleo, I try to avoid as much processed crap as possible, and not eat pasta 7x a week. As a runner, I believe in the power of the starch!

Anyway, my pseudo-paleo cauliflower experiment was.... DRUM ROLLLLL.... cauliflower pizza crust!

Now, this was straight up an experiment that actually turned out ok, but there are a few tweaks I will make for next time to make it even better. I shall detail these as I go.

Alright, for the crust:

- 1 head of cauliflower, chopped into florets
- 1 cup shredded mozz (I used low fat)
- 1 egg
- garlic powder and Italian seasoning to taste

Preheat oven to 450 first.

Then chop up those florets and throw em in a food processor:





Blitz the hell out of them until they resemble couscous, like so:





Throw the faux couscous in a microwave safe container and cook for 8 mins. The water in the cauliflower will cook it naturally.

Tip: since you will end up with more cauliflower than you need, may I suggest a tupperware for nuking? If only to reduce your dirty dishes (I HATE DIRTY DISHES). Whatever you don't use can be thrown in the fridge for later.

Alright, in a bowl mix one egg, 1 cup mozz, and 1 cup cauliflower. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray and dump the goopy mixture on it.





Yummmm, right?

Get a little dirty here, and use your fingers to create a pizza shape.





Pop that bad boy in the oven for 15 mins, but WATCH IT CLOSELY. I did not and mine burned around the edges.

Meanwhile....

Toppings! I decided to do my fave summer pizza, since it was all 85 degrees in march and such yesterday - zucchini corn pizza with cilantro! I did not have fresh cilantro, so I cheated





Nor did I have limes. A squirt of lime juice would have been nice. ANYWAY...

Slice some zucchini super thin (the amount is a matter of personal taste), and throw it in a bowl with olive oil, corn kernels (fresh are better, but I used frozen). If you are cheating like me, toss the cilantro paste in too.

Chop up some red onions, or if you have none, like me, shallots will do. Or yellow onions. Whatever.





Once the crust is lightly golden brown, sprinkle your toppings on the pizza. Throw some shredded parmesan on top, along with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes - all to taste. (have you noticed my disdain for measuring shit?)

Preheat your broiler (I went with the "LO" setting), and pop the tray back in the oven for a few minutes - just enough for the cheese to melt.

(Tip - where I went wrong on this one is expecting the shallots to soften under the broiler. They did, but not enough. If I do these toppings on faux crust again, I will most def soften them up in some olive oil, first. If you do these toppings on regular pizza crust, no need to pre-soften.)

Alright, next take the pizza out and dollop some goat cheese all over. The original recipe called for feta, but feta freaks me out for some reason. It's, like, not cheese. So goat cheese it is. You still get the tang that everyone says feta has, without the creepy texture.

Also, I sliced up half an avocado and put that on top, too. Why? Because everything is better with avocado. And because the burned parts stuck to the tray and the whole thing kinda fell apart when I put it on a plate, so the avocado slices hid the damage for photo ops.





VOILA!

As you can see, I let some pretty good burnage occur. I would recommend erring on the side of caution during the first round in the oven, bc the broiling will crisp up everything some more, which is what brought the edges to burned beyond being edible.

THAT SAID... how did it taste?

Ok, so this is definitely a fork and knife pizza, because the crust is not thick enough to support a ton of toppings. However, I surprisingly enjoyed it. The goat cheese was awesome, the crust had a little melty-cheese taste to it, and overall it was a perfectly acceptable vehicle for pizza toppings. It in no way replaces a perfect, carbolicious pizza crust, but if you're looking for a super healthy way to shovel some cheese and veggies in your mouth, this ain't a bad way to do it.

I bet any array of toppings would be awesome. Next time I may go for my old standby of pesto, fresh mozz and diced maters. And avocado too, I'm sure. Maybe a little drizzle of balsamic? I don't know, I just don't know if I'll have enough time.