Sockeye Salmon with Tomato and Onion Sauce

My doctors have advised me to eat more fish. I should try to replace red meat with fish whenever possible. Tonight I served sockeye salmon steaks pan fried and served with a tomato and onion sauce spiced with a little ground coriander and some fresh basil. I liked it. My wife not so much. She is not big on fish and so is very hard to please.

The recipe is quite simple: Sockeye salmon steaks pan fried in a hot, neutral tasting olive oil. Fry the fish for about three minutes per side, skin side down first. The thicker the steaks the longer the frying time. Generously salt and pepper while cooking.

While the fish is frying, in another pan, fry a quarter cup of chopped onion until translucent. Add about 12 ounces of chopped, fresh tomato to the cooked onion and then salt all. Sprinkle in some ground coriander. Taste to decide on the amount. I used about half a teaspoon. Immediately before serving, mix in about a dozen chopped fresh basil leaves

Meanwhile in another pot have some rice cooking. This dinner is served on a bed of basmati rice. In another pot, one with a steamer insert, cook enough broccoli for two. I found eight minutes steamed the brocoli perfectly. This will vary depending upon the amount of broccoli and the pot.

To serve, put down a bed of rice, top with a salmon steak and add some tomato/onion sauce. Put a slice of lemon and some broccoli, or other vegetable, on the side. Good luck. My wife often finds salmon has a fishy flavour. For that reason, she isn't fond of salmon. She did like the sauce, though.

Farro for a different kind of risotto

I bought a bottle of farro with dried porcini mushrooms at Homesense. I love that store for the interesting food items it carries - and at damn fine prices to boot.

Farro, often incorrectly called spelt, is an ancient grain. A little chewy with a slightly nutty flavour, farro cooks in about 30 to 45 minutes. As farro cooks, one adds preheated chicken broth a little at a time in a manner similar to that used when cooking risotto. (I should add that in Italy, my bottle of farro came from Italy, the confusion is so deep that the two terms, farro and spelt, are used interchangeably on the labels. The New York Times has a widely quoted article addressing the mix-up.)

With it being the end of summer in southwestern Ontario, I had to add fresh vegetables. To this end, I bought field tomatoes, zucchini, fresh mushrooms, garlic and flat-leaf parsley from a farmer's market. I also used some basil from my garden. And lastly, I chopped up one hot, Italian sausage with fennel and I fried it with the vegetables.

Ingredients

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 cup farro
1/4 cup dry white wine. I like a good box wine for cooking as it keeps.
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 cup of chopped fresh field tomato
1 garlic clove minced
A little olive oil
2/3 cup of chopped fresh mushrooms
2 3/4 cups of low-sodium chicken stock
1 hot Italian sausage coarsely chopped (Optional. Vegetarians can eliminate this.)

Directions

First, fry the fresh mushrooms, chopped into big chunks.When lightly browned, add a cup of hot chicken stock, a cup of farrow, a quarter cup of wine and bring all to a simmer. Simmer gently for five minutes or until the liquid is almost completely absorbed.

Add a quarter cup of hot chicken stock and keep the pan simmering. (I like to preheat the chicken stock so that adding it does not stop the simmering.) As the chicken stock is absorbed, add another quarter cup of chicken broth. This cannot be hurried. When all the chicken stock has been added and absorbed or reduced, the farro should be cooked. This may take from 30 to 45 minutes.

While the farro is cooking, cut the Italian sausage into large chunks and fry in a little olive oil in another frying pan - a larger, deeper frying pan. One with a tight-fitting lid is perfect. The lid keeps the heat in and minimizes splatter. When the sausage has clearly started to cook, add the zucchini slices and a little more olive oil if necessary. Don't let the zucchini completely cook. The zucchini should not cook so long it gets mushy.

Of course, vegetarians can omit the sausage and go right to cooking the zucchini. If you do this, start the cooking of the vegetables a little later. Like I said earlier, you don't want to have mushy veggies.

Add the minced garlic to the pan of fried zucchini, fry for about thirty seconds, don't burn the garlic, now, add the tomato chunks and simmer all gently.

Even though no tomato sauce has been added, the frying pan should have some tasty liquid gathering at the bottom of the pan. This is mostly juice from the tomatoes. If you have timed this right, the farro should be done as the tomato chunks begin to look cooked and the liquid has all but disappeared. Add the cooked farro, the parsley and the chopped basil. Toss, salt to taste and serve.

I added some fresh ground pepper some dried, hot pepper flakes at the table. My wife also added a little more salt. We both agreed that this was delicious.

If you are a vegetarian, you might consider adding some chopped fennel to this recipe. My sausage had fennel and it was a nice additional flavour.

Lemon Rotini with Lobster

Tonight's dinner was excellent. A little expensive but worth it. (I'm still romancing my wife and she loved the dinner.) The lobster was half a package of frozen VIP brand from Costco Canada. The asparagus came from Remark on Oxford Street in London and it was the usual product from Peru and not local. The season for local asparagus has passed.

This dinner was exceedingly easy to put together. I simply used my previous recipe for a lemon pasta and substituted lobster meat for the chicken.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

6 oz or 160 g of lobster meat (I use VIP frozen lobster meat I buy at Costco Canada)
3 Tbsp of olive oil
6 large mushrooms, each cut into eight, large, pie-shaped chunks
10 asparagus spears chopped into 1-inch sections
2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
1 Tbsp of freshly grated lemon zest - don't scrimp
5 Tbsp of no fat sour cream (I'm considering using 1% sour cream. This is very close nutritionally but the small amount of fat may add some flavour and texture.)
140 g of linguine - I find 70 g of dry linguine is enough per person while cutting the calories.
4 Tbsp of fresh squeezed lemon juice
4 Tbsp of fresh grated Parmesan cheese
At the table add a pinch of dried, crushed, hot-peppers, plus salt and pepper.

Preparation

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. While it's heating, heat the olive oil in a large, deep fry pan.

2. Add the mushrooms to the hot oil and drop the linguine into the boiling water. From this point, you have about eight minutes to get this dinner together. Stay focused.

3. With the mushrooms beginning to cook, add the asparagus to the fry pan. (I cheated and put mine in a microwave at high for 30 seconds. Don't do too much precooking. The asparagus should have good colour and a little crunch.) Stir all with a spoon or toss with a flipper as the mushrooms/asparagus cooks. You don't want this to burn. Stir the pasta occasionally to keep the linguine from sticking.

4. Add the minced garlic to the fry pan. After a minute add the sour cream. You don't want the garlic to burn. At the well drained lobster meat. I sprinkled a little lemon juice onto the meat five minutes before using. This is optional. Sprinkle the Tbsp of lemon zest over all and flip or stir all.

5. At this point, the pasta should be done. Drain and save a cup of pasta water just in case the dish seems a little dry. Add the pasta to the fry pan. Sprinkle the lemon juice over all and the grated Parmesan. Toss all and serve.

6. At the table, add a pinch of dried, crushed, hot-peppers, if desired, plus some salt and pepper. Have some extra grated Parmesan for adding at the table.

Linguine with lemon, chicken and mushrooms

Tonight's dinner was quite good and not expensive. The chicken was leftover from a rotisserie chicken bought at Costco a couple of days ago; the asparagus came from Thomas Bros. Market on highway 4 south of the city heading to St. Thomas.

Now, what to do with the leftover no fat sour cream. I hate waste.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

7 ounces of cooked, chicken (white meat if possible)
3 Tbsp of olive oil
6 large mushrooms, each cut into eight, large, pie-shaped chunks
10 asparagus spears chopped into 1-inch sections
2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
1 Tbsp of freshly grated lemon zest - don't scrimp
5 Tbsp of no fat sour cream (I'm considering using 1% sour cream. This is very close nutritionally but the small amount of fat may add some flavour and texture.)
140 g of linguine - I find 70 g of dry linguine is enough per person while cutting the calories.
4 Tbsp of fresh squeezed lemon juice
4 Tbsp of fresh grated Parmesan cheese
At the table add a pinch of dried, crushed, hot-peppers, plus salt and pepper.

Preparation

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. While it's heating, heat the olive oil in a large, deep fry pan.

2. Add the mushrooms to the hot oil and drop the linguine into the boiling water. From this point, you have about eight minutes to get this dinner together. Stay focused.

3. With the mushrooms beginning to cook, add the asparagus to the fry pan. (I cheated and put mine in a microwave at high for 30 seconds. Don't do too much precooking. The asparagus should have good colour and a little crunch.) Stir all with a spoon or toss with a flipper as the mushrooms/asparagus cooks. You don't want this to burn. Stir the pasta occasionally to keep the linguine from sticking.

4. Add the minced garlic to the fry pan. After a minute add the sour cream. You don't want the garlic to burn. Add the chunks of cooked chicken. Sprinkle the Tbsp of lemon zest over all and flip or stir all.

5. At this point, the pasta should be done. Drain and save a cup of pasta water just in case the dish seems a little dry. Add the pasta to the fry pan. Sprinkle the lemon juice over all and the grated Parmesan. Toss all and serve.

6. At the table, add a pinch of dried, crushed, hot-peppers, if desired, plus some salt and pepper. Have some extra grated Parmesan for adding at the table.

Grilled wild salmon with garlic, celery, cherries

There's no recipe with this post. I'm not flogging a recipe tonight. I'm simply doing some cheer-leading.

I discovered the fridge was fairly empty tonight and tonight was Canada Day. Oops. All the stores are closed. Even the grocery stores.

I found some frozen, wild salmon in the downstairs fridge, some sweet peppers in the upstairs fridge and decided to get imaginative.

I served the salmon on a bed of basmati rice -- I always have rice on hand -- and spooned a quickly fried mix of chopped cherries (not too sweet), celery, garlic and pistachios on top. It was amazingly good.

The lesson? Seniors can eat well and on a tight budget without serving gruel. Almost all the ingredients came from Costco and were priced well within our budget demands. Watch a few cooking shows, get past your fears and be creative.

Good luck!

Bella Sun Luci sun dried tomatoes

Bella Sun Luci sun dried tomatoes, the ones bagged without oil, are my favourite sun dried tomatoes. I find these are lighter than the ones packaged in oil. But if you like the ones in oil, Bella Sun Luci  makes these as well. In London this brand is available at Remark on Hyde Park just south of Oxford Street West.

I had opened this package and so the Bella Sun Luci brand name has been cut off the top. Oops.

Pan fried rainbow trout with a tarragon tomato sauce

Pan fried rainbow trout with a tomato - tarragon - garlic sauce served on basmati rice.

The frozen rainbow trout comes from Peru where it is an invasive species. This is one fish that can be consumed without guilt. It's delicious to eat and quick and easy to cook. Love it.

For this recipe, simply rinse the defrosted fillets in cold, running water, pat dry, salt and carefully place, skin side down, in a medium hot fry pan with a little hot olive oil. If you aren't concerned with cholesterol, a pat or two of butter adds flavour.

Although it is not demanded, I like squeezing some lemon juice over the flesh side, not the skin side, of the fillets before frying. Four, nor more than five, minutes of sizzling per side is enough. Don't overcook.

The rice is basmati. It is possibly my favourite. It makes a tasty and contrasting bed for the fish. Use a quarter cup of rice to half a cup of rapidly boiling water for each serving. After adding the rice to the boiling water, stir to break up any clumps, put a lid on the pot and turn the heat down to a low simmer. Check after fifteen minutes. You don't want the rice sticking to the pot. When done, only a few more minutes, put the lid on the pot and set aside. This is ready to serve.

The asparagus takes a minute on high in a microwave oven. If it's really fresh, don't worry about peeling except for possibly the bottom three inches of each stalk and only if the stalks appear thick and tough.

I pan-fried some cherry tomatoes in a small fry pan with a little olive oil to serve over the fish at the table. The tomatoes add bursts of flavour. I added some pistachios to the pan at the last moment. I wanted the nuts to be hot like the rest of the meal but I didn't want the nuts to burn. Heat the tomatoes and nuts after the fish has been flipped. With luck all will come together at the same moment.

The sauce was made from a couple of cloves of minced garlic, about an eighth of a cup of coarsely chopped sun dried tomatoes, a dozen halved cherry tomatoes, two ounces of milk and some chopped, fresh tarragon to taste. I used the leaves from about five small sprigs.

These sun dried tomatoes are really fine.

The chopped garlic sizzled for about thirty seconds in some hot olive oil at the bottom of a small pot. Before it could even turn golden, the chopped sun dried tomatoes were added. Everything was stirred to prevent food sticking to the pot.

After about a minute, I added the halved cherry tomatoes and kept stirring. The tomatoes began breaking down and all began to bubble. I added the milk and then blended all with my KitchenAid hand blender. Don't over blend. You want some chunkiness.

Finally, I added the chopped tarragon and turned down the heat. You must taste to determine if more tarragon or salt is needed.

I made the sauce earlier in the day and then reheated it at dinner time. The rice was put on the stove about fifteen minutes before the fish was slid into the fry pan. This made putting dinner together quite easy.

I waited until I had flipped over the fish, then I heated about ten cherry tomatoes in a little hot oil in a small fry pan. Shaking the pan kept the little tomatoes rolling and heating evenly. Before serving the rice, drop the pistachios into the pan with the cherry tomatoes.

Now assemble the meal. Spoon some rice onto each plate, lay a rainbow trout fillet onto the rice, drizzle a little sauce on each fillet, add the asparagus and finally spoon some hot, cherry tomatoes and pistachio nuts onto the fish. You may find you have to add some more salt and pepper at the table.

Ingredient List - for two

2 thawed rainbow trout fillets about six ounces each
1 lemon
Possibly 2 pats of butter depending upon dietary demands
olive oil, use your discretion as to amount
1/2 cup of dry, basmati rice
1 cup of cold water
8 stalks of asparagus
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/8th cup of sun dried tomatoes coarsely chopped
10 gm of pistachio nuts and if large, halved
2 dozen or so of cherry tomatoes - a dozen halved, the remainder left whole
2 oz. of 1% or 2% milk
5 small sprigs of tarragon - leaves only - coarsely chopped
salt and pepper