Grilled salmon, smashed taters, and popeye weed

I got a big frozen salmon from the store. It had the skin on even. I have not grilled salmon before so gave it a whirl.

And served it with some mashed potatoes and spinach. I didn’t want the spinach juice contaminating the salmon, so made a protective barrier.

This was the first grilling of the season so I had to clean up the grill. I think this is maybe the fifth time I’ve used the grill in two years. After the fish was thawed, I put it on a pre-heated medium grill. Stuff I read said to grease the grill but I had no idea how to do that with a hot grill so used a soaked paper towel. I put it skin side down and cooked it with the grill top open for about 10 minutes. I sprayed the meat side with some spray, sprinkled salt and pepper, and flipped it. The skin made it very easy to flip and keep together. Cooked it for another 10 minutes.

It was cooked well. I like mine closer to medium. Not bad though. Next time, I’ll cook it for less time or maybe move it to the top shelf with the lid closed.

Fish, paprika potatoes, garlic green beans and orange slices

Dinner: May 19, 2008

• Frozen potato flake crusted fish

  School started today so I need to do quick. And I still haven’t planned ahead well, yet. At least I didn’t have cereal This baked for about 20ish minutes. It was ok. A little greasier than I wanted since it was baked. I would rather have had spiced baked fish. Must add it to my shopping list!

• Garlic green beans

  Still have a few cans left of green beans on sale. I love canned green beans. Another item I prefer canned is spinach unless it’s raw. These canned beans were cheaper per pound than fresh or frozen. I really stocked up. I had some garlic that wanted to be used (aka: getting old) so thinly sliced a few heads. After heating extra-virgin olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-ish, I added the garlic and lightly browned it. Then I added the drained can of green beans, some pepper and tossed it around till the green beans were hot. Tasted much better than plain ol’ nuked green beans but I should have used less olive oil. I didn’t use much but guess less next time. I probably used maybe 1 tablespoon.

• Paprika potatoes

  Had a can of sliced potatoes. Drained. Melted a pat of butter in a skillet. Added potatoes. Sprinkled paprika on it with a heavy hand. Warmed it up. Nom! See a pattern here? Canned stuff. Frozen stuff. Yes, but it tasted good.

• Orange slices

  My addition of fruit. I bought a couple of navel oranges this past weekend to make a spinach-orange salad. Since I had no fruit today — tsk tsk — I decided to add the orange to my meal. Since I was going to take a photo, I split it into sections. It was good. It seems I forgot how to peel an orange. Practice I should!

Hot to trot tilapia, nummy mushrooms and mean green beans

Since I noticed a chicken pattern, I decided to go for another meat. I took photos but tried a different way of importing from the camera. It seems one should increase the autosleep mode on the camera when importing to iPhoto. Ah well! Live and learn. Better to have just lost a few photos of the meal than a bunch of zoo pix! But I couldn’t leave this post without some sort of imagery, so behold the cat! He didn’t get any tilapia and that’s his sad face.

Dinner: April 28, 2008

• Blackened Tilapia
  I cooked it straight from frozen and wish I hadn’t. I also used olive oil instead of vegetable oil and wished I hadn’t. Since I used a non-stick pan, I cooked it at medium to get the ‘blackened’ look and then turned it down to finish cooking while I had tended to the other pans. I didn’t use celery seed or the lemon and doubled up on black pepper instead of using white.
• Last Minute Mushrooms
  I didn’t use the white mushrooms that I bought so tossed this new recipe in with the mix. They tasted fantastic! But how can you go wrong when butter is involved?
• Garlic Green Beans
  Another awesome new recipe that’s going in regular rotation! I love green beans and usually serve them dry or with some paprika. But the olive oil and garlic was awesome. Next time, I think I’ll do it in a saucepan instead of a skillet to save room on the stove.
• 5-Cheese toast
  I heard my name coming from the freezer and there it was! These heat up beautifully in the toaster oven.
• Strawberries
  Sliced some strawberries up for plate presentation. I liked the sweet to help with the heat of the fish.