Better Broccoli and Sesame-Ginger Salmon

2 quarts of cut broccoli (two bundles from
the grocery store) plus the almond coating

Broccoli

A recent blog posting I read described a method for preparing broccoli where the writer described that that it was difficult to stop eating it because it was so delicious.  And his son ate a lot as well. Broccoli is an ok vegetable, I like it well enough but I don't love it.  I figured if a recipe could get his son to eat a lot of broccoli, it must be tasty, so I made it as well.

Coated broccoli, waiting for the oven.

It doesn't have an official name on the guy's blog, but I guess I would call it almond-crunch baked broccoli.  You cut up the broccoli florets and stems, toss them in two foamy egg whites.


Meanwhile, mix up some almond meal with spices.  When I went to pull out my almond meal, I didn't have the 1 cup specified, so I added some flax seed meal and hemp seeds. I also added garlic powder, paprika, and salt & pepper. Husband Jeff found it easier to mix the broccoli up with the egg whites and then the coating by dumping everything into a gallon zipper bag. 

Cooked broccoli

Toss it into a sprayed rimmed baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  It didn't seem done enough for us when they came out of the oven (a little too firm), but they sat for a bit while our fish cooked and they were much more to our liking.

Sesame-soy glaze

 

Salmon

To go with our almond-crunch broccoli, I made toasted sesame-ginger salmon.  I was too lazy to marinate the salmon since I had trouble just remembering to pull it out of the freezer to defrost, so I followed the writer's recommendation that you can skip the marinade and just make the glaze.  I used only half the amount of honey since I prefer more savory meat items.  I cooked the salmon under the broiler for 10 minutes and spooned the glaze on each piece as we put them on the plate.  It was so delicious!  The glaze has a perfect balance between salty and sweet, and it works great on salmon since it's such a strongly-flavored fish that it can stand up to it. 

Salmon

There was a tiny bit of glaze left, so I saved it and am planning to put it on buttered carrot coins later in the week.  I am definitely going to make this glaze again.

I would also love to try the almond coating on other things, I've used a similar coating for chicken breasts using Parmesan cheese, but it would be fun to make mozzarella stick in a similar manner using string cheese cut into bite-size pieces.  And a coconut shrimp using half unsweetened flake coconut and almond meal, and then dip in a spicy-sweet fruity sauce. 

Menu Plan: Week of Feburary 11

Monday - Baked potato soup

Tuesday - meeting friends for a margarita happy hour and Mexican food at Laredo's

Wednesday - Moroccan chicken in the slow cooker with pasta, honey-sesame carrot coins

Thursday - Valentine's Day picnic on the floor in our living room.  This is a tradition Jeff and I created when we first started dating and we've tried to continue it ever since.  We'll have Italian sandwiches (salami & ham with giardinera), hummus & crackers, and individual brownie/chocolate cakes made in the microwave.

Friday - going out to the Green Owl Cafe to use a Groupon that will expire soon.

Saturday - Asian meatloaf with a package of frozen veggies, rice, maybe kimbop (a Korean version of sushi, not raw)

Sunday -  chicken spaghetti casserole

Bringing Home More Than You Bargained For?

You're doing your part to help the environment, taking your reusable bags to the grocery store and big-box store. Sometimes even taking them to department stores to carry home other purchases like clothing.  But there might be something important that you don't want to be carrying around -- icky germs! 

This Huffington Post article describes a study connecting a spike in e. coli infections and reusable bags.  It comes from using the bags at the grocery store for things like meat and vegetables and then not washing the bags, contaminating your future food products.   Gross. 

If you need more encouragement to toss those bags in the washing machine, here's a Food Network article about food safety related to reusable grocery bags.  

I wash my bags occasionally, but I should probably do it more often.  I use rip-stop nylon Baggu bags and love them. I get many compliments on them when I'm at the store.  They're the same size and design as a standard plastic bag like you might get at Target or the grocery store. They come in so many great colors now, more than when I first bought mine.  And rather than stuffing them into a bag, they fold up compactly into their own little pouch, which is convenient so they fit into a smaller space.  Aside from buying them from the company, they're also available on Amazon.com if you want to take advantage of the free shipping deal.

And next time you buy reusable bags, make sure they're washable. If you're interested, there's currently a Groupon deal for a set of four nylon Envirosax reusable bags.  They supposedly hold the contents of two supermarket plastic bags.  One feature I appreciate is that there is a snap attached, so they roll down into a little bundle rather than going into a little pouch that is easy to lose.    

So go right now and throw your reusable bags in the laundry.  And maybe buy more so you can wash them after every use. 

Prep-ahead: Roasted Veggie Bowls with Quinoa

Roasted vegetables.

On Sunday I roasted some veggies for dinner later in the week.  I cut up sweet potatoes, onion, yellow squash, carrots, and the mushroom stems left over after making stuffed mushrooms.  I tossed everything with a little olive oil (and possibly salt, I don't remember) and roasted them for 45 minutes. 

On Wednesday I started up some quinoa in the rice cooker (same ratio as rice, 2:1 water to quinoa), and we discussed our flavor options.  We went with Asian, so I pulled out all the various sauces and flavorings from the fridge. 

Quinoa made in the rice cooker.

Husband Jeff used the last of the gochujang, a spicy Korean pepper paste.  Sonny D and I had chunjang, Korean black bean paste along with some soy sauce.  We also had hard-boiled eggs and tortilla chips with nacho cheese sauce.  We also ate a lot of Cutie clementines for dessert, they're so good!

Not pretty, but tasty.

There is a bit of roasted veggies and quinoa left over, so I'm going to have it for lunch today with mashed avocado and horseradish hummus.  It should be delicious, I can't wait.

Stuffed Mushrooms for Later

De-stemmed mushrooms, waiting for filling and freezing.

Creamy spinach filling for stuffed mushrooms.

On New Year's Eve we had friends over and I made stuffed mushrooms.  They were so tasty that I had to have more. Stuffed mushrooms are excellent savory snacks or add-ons for a meal when you need a little more food to round it out.  Plus if the filling isn't too rich, they can be pretty low in calories.

I bought two 8 oz. packages of whole mushrooms, gently pulled the stems out, and mixed up the cheesy spinach filling. I froze all of them so I can have them later.  To try to make them lighter, I skipped the goat cheese and replaced it with light cream cheese and two wedges of Laughing Cow garden veggie cheese.   I added fat-free feta, skipped the red peppers, and added a little dried lemon peel and sprinkle of cayenne, a little more salt & pepper.

I put them on a baking tray and put them in the freezer until they were solid, then moved them to a gallon freezer bag.  

I tasted the filling and it was delicious, I can't wait to bake them up. They're supposed to bake for 20 minutes, but I think I'll use the toaster oven to bake them since it's usually quicker.  And the nice thing is that Husband Jeff doesn't like mushrooms, so they're all mine.  Sonny D might want a taste, but luckily he's a slow eater, so I can hopefully finish them off before he wants more.

Cajun Sausage-Lentil Soup

On Sunday I prepped some food for later and made dinner.  I made a batch of stuffed mushrooms and froze them so I could pull some out whenever I want.  

Roasted Vegetables

This blog posting inspired me to roast vegetables for dinner on Wednesday.  I cut up sweet potatoes, onion, yellow squash, carrots, and added the leftover mushroom stems from my stuffed mushrooms.  I'm not sure what sort of flavor we'll use in our quinoa veggie bowls, I could make an Asian dressing out of miso and tahini sauce like the blog poster, or we could use Trader Joe's horseradish hummus since that's the container we've got open right now (yes, Sonny D likes horseradish hummus), or I could make something a little more Southwestern by adding cumin and chile powder.   Or maybe add some feta cheese, olive oil, and lemon juice and make it Mediterranean.  I've even got a jar of eggplant-garlic spread that would probably be excellent.  So many possibilities. 

Hot soup.  Check out those
bay leaves hanging out in the back.

Soup for Dinner

I tend to prefer simple foods for dinner on Sunday, usually this turns out to be soup and sandwiches.  This week, our Sunday dinner was kimchi jeon (an appetizer/snack kimchi pancake, not sweet like American pancakes), Cajun sausage-lentil soup, leftover frozen coconut rice to go in your soup or on the side, and freshly-made peanut butter cookies (from dough I had frozen previously).

I made the soup the way the poster did, with only two Cajun chicken sausages.  I added a can of tomato sauce for more depth of flavor instead of using all water.  I tasted the soup in the middle of cooking and determined it needed more flavor so I added a little Cajun seasoning.  Before serving I added some frozen chopped spinach instead of chard or kale.

It made a lot of soup -- 2 full servings for dinner, 2 lunch-size leftovers, and another full meal's worth that I froze.  

Verdict 

It's a good basic soup.  Since I haven't made this recipe before, I figured I'd mostly follow what it said, and it called for one cup of lentils.  I like lentils a lot but I don't cook dry lentils often to know how it will turn out, and it turns out this soup was loaded with lentils.  In the future I would be ok to make with the same amount, but 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup might be good next time. 

Next time I would definitely use four sausages, the meat was my favorite part.  And more vegetables might be nice.  

We grated fresh Parmesan cheese on our servings, that added just the right finishing touch.  Sonny D didn't even taste his, so I have no idea if he would eat it again. 

Menu plan: Week of February 4

Monday - frozen mandu (Korean potstickers), frozen beef meatballs with satay peanut sauce, frozen veggies stir-fried, frozen coconut rice (made with light coconut milk and unsweetened flake coconut), salad

Tuesday - today is national pancake day so we'll have pancakes (banana pancakes, if I can find the ripe bananas in my freezer), frozen turkey breakfast sausages, clementines, cottage cheese

Wednesday - roasted veggie bowls with quinoa (I roasted sweet potatoes, onion, mushrooms, yellow squash, carrots on Sunday afternoon)

Thursday - chicken packets in the pressure cooker (Mexican for Husband Jeff and I, probably Italian for Sunny D), salads, butternut squash

Friday - pepperoni pizza grilled cheese sandwiches with pizza sauce to dip them in, salads, broccoli with cheese sauce

Saturday - salmon, almond roasted broccoli

Sunday - middle eastern takeout with friends plus leftover creamy tomato-basil soup and peanut butter cookies (I froze raw cookie dough, bake for fresh cookies)