Mustard Dill Salmon

I never used to be much of a salmon fan, occasionally I would buy some of those frozen salmon fillets, and figured that was as good as it was going to get. Now living in Vancouver, there is such an abundance of good salmon to be found, that I'll sometimes find myself eating it once a week at least. And that's not counting the smoked salmon. During the summer months, the local farmer's markets are a great place to get salmon fillets. When buying salmon, you want to buy wild not farmed, and frozen not 'fresh'. I put 'fresh' in quotation marks because all salmon (unless you catch it yourself or buy it from a fisherman on a boat while he's fishing) is previously frozen. Much seafood is, and often times frozen at sea. So, while you may think the refrigerated salmon is fresher, it's most probably just been thawed, and if you do buy it, you better eat it that day. We try and buy our salmon at the Farmer's Market, right out of the freezer, and boy is it tasty. I love it bbq'd on skewers, just roasted, cooked and made into salmon cakes. The following recipe is so easy, there are barely any ingredients required.




Mustard Dill Salmon
- 1 piece of salmon
- Olive oil
- Dijon mustard
- salt and pepper
- chopped fresh dill





Place salmon on parchment lined baking sheet. Rub salmon with olive oil. Mix together in a small bowl as much mustard, salt, pepper and fresh dill as you need to cover the fish. Coat salmon. Cook in 375 oven for 12 - 15 minutes or until salmon flakes easily and is cooked through. Serve with rice or potatoes and a salad.

Father's Day Lamb

This year my parents were in town for Father's Day. Rather than going out for dinner, Brent and I decided to make dinner for my parents at our place. One of my dad's favorite meals is lamb, and I boldly decided to try my hand at it. Needless to say, I was very nervous as I've never made lamb before, and have always heard that while it may not be difficult, if it is not cooked properly it can be less forgiving than other meats. While searching through my cookbooks I found a recipe for Herb-Roasted Lamb in Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Family Style. The recipe looked fairly easy, roast the lamb on potatoes.

So off we headed to Granville Island (which also happens to be one of my dad's favorite places to visit while in Vancouver) to purchase what we needed for dinner.
One of the great things about Ina Garten's recipe is that she includes in it the instructions to give the butcher. So I just marched myself over to Tenderland Meats and told the guy at the counter: 'I need a 6-pound leg of lamb, remove the leg bone but leave the shank intact'. That's a bonus of talking to an actual butcher, they got my leg of lamb ready for me and I was ready to go.


As we were trying to decide what green veggie to get for dinner, I spotted some fiddleheads, and decided, why not try my hand at these. Luckily I was able to text a co-worker who is a bit of a fiddlehead aficionado, and he gave me the instructions:

Fiddleheads - Steam or boil for 20 minutes. Pan fry in a bit of butter, garlic and sea salt. Splash some lemon or vinegar on at the end. So good!

Back to the lamb, it was surprisingly easy to prepare, and another great thing about the recipe is that you roast the lamb on the potatoes, so once that's in the oven, half of your meal is complete. Pair with a nice salad to start, some greens, and there you go. For dessert we had some home made ice cream with fresh strawberries.

Herb-Roasted Lamb (from Ina Garten)
- 12 large unpeeled garlic cloves, divided
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves (you need fresh rosemary!!!)
- Sea Salt and Pepper
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 1 6-lb boneless leg of lamb, trimmed and tied
- 4-5 lbs small unpeeled potatoes (16-20)
- 2 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and place rack in the lower third of the oven.
Peel 6 of the cloves of garlic and place them in the bowl of a food processor with the steel blade. Add rosemary, 1 tbsp salt, 1 tsp pepper and butter. Process until garlic and rosemary are finely minced. Coat the top and sides of the lamb with rosemary mixture. Allow to sit at room temperature for 30 mins to an hour.

Toss the potatoes and remaining unpeeled garlic in a bowl with the olive oil. Sprinkle with salt. Place in the bottom of a large roasting pan. Place the lamb on top of the potatoes and roast for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the internal temperature of the lamb is 135 degrees for rare, or 145 degrees for medium. Remove from oven and put lamb on a platter; cover tightly with aluminum foil, allow to rest for 20 minutes. Slice and serve with potatoes.

Risotto with Green Veggies

This weekend we biked over to the Kitsilano Farmer's Market on Sunday, because we missed the West End one on Saturday. While at the market I found some english peas. I love these and could seriously just shell and eat them for a snack. I then saw some asparagus, and decided to make a risotto for dinner. When I got home I noticed the kale growing on the balcony was getting pretty bushy, so I grabbed some of that for the risotto as well.

Risotto with Asparagus, Peas and Kale
- 1 1/4 cups vegetable broth and 1 1/2 cups water, heated and kept warm

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 1 onion, finely diced
- 10 asparagus spears, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
- 1 clove garlic, finely diced
- 1 cup arborio (short grain) rice
- 1/4 cup white wine (or vegetable broth if you're stuck)
- 1 cup shelled, fresh english peas
- 1 cup chopped kale
- 1/2 cup parmesan
- juice of 1/2 lemon

In a medium saucepan, saute onino and garlic in olive oil over medium-low heat. Add rice, stirring to coat. Pour in wine, cook stirring until no liquid remains, around 2 minutes.

Begin adding the broth mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until most of the liquid is absorbed before adding more broth. This will use up about 2 1/2 cups of the broth. Once you have added the last half cup of broth, add asparagus. Continue stirring until most of the liquid is absorbed. This slow cooking process can take up to 20 minutes, so be patient, it is worth it.

Add peas, kale and the rest of the broth (about 1/4 cup). Cook stirring for about 3 minutes. Stir in lemon juice and about 3/4 of the cheese. Serve sprinkled with remaining cheese.

White Tomatoes

This weekend marked the return of the West End Farmer's Market in Vancouver. This year we had looked into joining a CSA (a Community Supported Agriculture program), which basically boils down to receiving a box of produce every week from a local farm throughout the summer. You pay up front and you don't know what you are going to get week to week. I liked the idea of being challenged with a box of produce every week, and having the opportunity to create new and exciting dishes out of what came my way. However, after examining the program, it wasn't the best fit for us, partially because we don't have a car to pick it up, and also because we will be away for several different weekends over the course of the summer. That being said, I promised myself that instead, we would shop more often at the Farmer's Markets, and I would start taking chances on produce that I had never cooked with before. So here I am in the Farmer's Market at a tomato stall, and there are all these different varieties of Heirloom tomatoes. I love tomatoes, but I have to admit I've never really ventured past cherry, grape, roma and beefsteak tomatoes. So there were these white tomatoes and it said they were low in acid, and good for pasta sauce. The result was surprisingly refreshing.


Pasta with White Tomato and Sausage
- 2 Italian Sausages, cooked and sliced
- 1 small onion, finely diced
- 2 - 3 cloves garlic, finely diced
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 5 medium white Heirloom Tomatoes
- 2-3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 2 -3 tsp capers
- salt and pepper

Heat oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add onion and garlic, saute for five minutes or until onion is softened. Chop tomatoes and add to skillet along with juices. Add salt and pepper, simmer on low for about 15 minutes. While sauce is simmering boil water for pasta, and throw together a salad.

While pasta cooks (I used broad egg noodles), add sausage to sauce and heat through. Drain pasta, add lemon juice and capers to sauce. Toss with pasta.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

I've never been a really huge fan of Chicken Cordon Bleu, probably because the only time I've had it has been of the frozen variety, and most likely cooked in the microwave. However, Brent had been getting after me to make Chicken Cordon Bleu for awhile now. So I finally caved and decided to try my hand at it. I didn't think I'd be satisfied with a simple chicken with ham and swiss cheese, so I looked around on a few sites and settled on adapting a recipe of Tyler Florence's from Food Network's website. The combination of prosciutto and Gruyere cheese, as well as a herbed bread crumb crust really takes this recipe up a notch.

Chicken Cordon Blue
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 8 thing slices of prosciutto
- 1/2 cup Gruyere, grated
- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 cup regular or panko bread crumbs
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 2 eggs, beaten

Lay the chicken breasts between 2 pieces of plastic wrap or wax paper. Pound to 1/4 inch thickness with a meat mallet. Remove top sheet of wrap. Lay 2 slices of prosciutto on chicken, sprinkle a quarter of the cheese over the prosciutto. Tuck in the sides of the chicken and roll up tightly. Seal both ends tight to form a nice log (this part takes some practice and is hard to explain).

Season the flour with salt and pepper. Mix the bread crumbs with the thyme, garlic, salt, pepper and melted butter.

Dust the chicken with the flour, dip in the egg, and coat in bread crumbs. Place on rack on baking pan. Bake for 20 - 25 mimnutes until browned and cooked through. I served it with sauteed Swiss Chard and a Cauliflower Bake.


These were awesome the next day too, and I will definitely make them again.

San Francisco Delights

Hello internet followers. I have been m.i.a. because I have been doing a bit of traveling. Nothing too extravagant, Tucson, Arizona for a family wedding, and then this past weekend Brent and I spent four days in San Francisco. And that, my friends, is what this post is all about.

San Francisco was an amazing city, and I would definitely recommend it to everyone who is looking for somewhere to visit. You've got history, landscape, shopping, people watching, and food, oh the food. Unfortunately I didn't end up taking as many pictures of my meals as I had planned, because frankly when the food comes to your table, sometimes you just want to eat it. That being said, I thought I would mention a few places that were fantastic.

Midi
This restaurant was located in our hotel, and our first night we arrived and checked in around 7:30, so decided to check it out. What a treat. We started with a couple of drinks and the artisan cheese platter. Everything went really well together, and the presentation was great. For dinner Brent had the grilled hanger steak and I had the braised spring lamb. Both meals were fabulous. Funny note, the waiter asked Brent if he wanted fries with his steak, even though that's not how it was served, the waiter was just concerned because 'there's no starch with your entree'. We both found that kind of funny. We finished up the meal with some dessert, unfortunately I can't remember what it was, but it was also great.

Pier Market
This restaurant is located in Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf, one of the biggest touristy spots in San Francisco. However, following our trip to Alcatraz we decided to check out this tourist area, and all I wanted was some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Touting that their New England Clam Chowder was voted best in Fisherman's Wharf, I decided to check it out myself. Let's just say, it was so good that I was digging into the bowl at the end, and even returned the next day for another cup of chowder.

Catch
This seafood restaurant was recommended by a friend and colleague who also happens to be a bit of a foodie (having previously been a restaurateur). I was anxious to see if it would meet my expectations. And meet my expectations it did. We started the night off the best possible way, with some beer and fresh oysters on the half shell. Next we had the grilled artichokes with lemon pepper aioli. These were so good that I will definitely be trying to imitate them this summer on the grill. For our mains Brent opted for the classic Fish and Chips, and I chose the seafood grill, which was three types of fish grilled, Mahi mahi, salmon and another whitefish. All of the food was great, although the portion was a little bit large, but we did have two appetizers. The service was great, and we finished again with a dessert, I believe it was creme brulee. Interesting tid bit about this restaurant, it is the same building where Harvey Milk had his Castro Camera shop in 1978.

Sears Fine Foods
The first few days we were in San Francisco I saw this restaurant and didn't really think anything of it, probably being from Canada and associating Sears with the department store, I was picturing the restaurant inside Zellers or something. However, when reading different books in our hotel room looking for places to eat, this one kept coming up as a San Francisco Tradition. So, on our last day as we were looking for somewhere we could get breakfast at noon on a Monday, we came across the signs. Now I don't know about you, but it seems as though they really want you to know they are there.

Once inside I felt like we were transported to a diner from years gone by. We both had to try the World Famous Little Pancakes, and believe me they were awesome!

I can't wait to get back to San Francisco sometime and try out the many restaurants I missed. It was a great vacation, and such a quick flight from Vancouver. Don't forget to bring back some of the Ghirardelli chocolates for your friends!

Chicken Enchiladas

These enchiladas are great to make if you have leftover chicken or turkey. Or you can just cook up some chicken for them, as I did tonight. For the chicken I trimmed three chicken breast halves and placed on parchment lined baking sheet. I rubbed them lightly with olive oil, then sprinkled with salt, pepper and chili powder, and baked in 350 oven for about 25 minutes, until no longer pink inside.

Chicken Enchiladas (adapted from a Canadian Living recipe)
- 3-4 cups cooked chicken, cut up
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 4-6 mushrooms, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 cups each shredded cheddar and monterey jack cheese
- 1 cup sour cream
- 3 cups salsa (or one full jar)
- 8 large tortillas

In pan over medium heat, saute onion, garlic and mushrooms in one tbsp vegetable oil until no moisture remains, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in chicken, beans, 1 cup each of both cheeses and sour cream.

Lay one tortilla on work surface. Spoon about 3/4 cup of filling into center. Fold tortilla over filling, on each side and then roll up. Place seam side down in greased 13x9 inch glass pan.



Continue with remaining tortilla's. Pour salsa over entire dish. Cover tightly with tin foil and bake in 350 oven for 35 minutes or until piping hot. Uncover and sprinkle remaining cheeses on top, bake uncovered for an additional 10 minutes. Let cool for about 5 minutes before digging in.

Enjoy!