Grilled Mustardy Salmon

My summer officially began Friday morning around 10:45.  I celebrated by making a stop at the salon, watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy, and reuniting with my old friend, white wine.  Yesterday I spent the day driving home, making a quick stop in Iowa City to pick up some salmon, and then sat around and watched my mom cook dinner.  

I insisted on using the grill since I don't have the opportunity to grill in Minneapolis, and I also insisted on using some kind of mustardy sauce.  My mom happily obliged and dug out this tasty recipe for the fish.  

2 tbsp chopped fresh dill

2 tbsp whole-grain dijon mustard

1 tsp grated lemon rind

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground red pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 lb. salmon filet 

Here lies our Coho salmon sans the skin that my mom skillfully sliced off.  

Combine the first six ingredients in a bowl.  Add a little oil if it's too thick.  Brush it on the fish and fire up your grill.  Or oven.  Or microwave.  Not. 

Grill it on each side for maybe 3-4 minutes.  It was deeeeeeelicious.  

Sushi Night

Friday night was the first of what will hopefully be several sushi nights.  It involved me and two South Dakota boys rolling and rolling and rolling and then eating and eating and eating.  Yes, South Dakota boys like sushi.  These aren't small town South Dakota boys, though.  They come from the 4th largest city in the state!  Population: 20,000.  Not that I can judge, considering I'm from small town Iowa, but my hometown boasts 2 sushi joints and 7,000 more people.  

My mom and I took a sushi-making class about 4 years ago, and I think I've actually made it once since then.  My skills are a little rusty, but that's of little importance.  It requires minimal skills to make edible sushi, and that's all we were going for.  

The possible fillings for sushi are endless.  I wandered around two grocery stores for way too long contemplating what to get, and here's what I ended up with:

Shrimp

Cucumber

Avocado

Asparagus

Jalepeno

Kohlrabi

Cream cheese

Other things you'll need:

Sushi rice

Rice vinegar

Sugar

Salt

Nori

Wasabi

Soy sauce

Rolling mats

Bowls of water

First things first: the rice.  Make sure you buy sushi rice.  It's shorter than standard white rice, which makes it starchier and ultimately stickier.   If you're lucky enough to have a rice cooker, good for you.  If you're like me and only have a lowly little hand-me-down saucepan, that will work as well.  I've found that when I make rice in a saucepan I never need to cook it as long as it suggests on the package.  I don't know if it's my gas stove or if that's just what happens in the absence of a rice cooker.  

Cook the rice according to the directions on the package, then add a little rice vinegar, sugar, and salt.  I started with 2 cups of rice and added 1/3 cup vinegar, 2 tbsp sugar, and 2 tbsp salt.  

Like humans, shrimp like to spoon.  Awwwwww.

Like tanning addicted humans, shrimp like to cook.  

Like humans who cut themselves, cucumbers like to be sliced.  Too far?  Peel the cucumber, cut out some of the seeds, and slice it length-wise.  

Place a sheet of nori on a rolling mat, and grab a handful of rice.  

Spread the rice over the nori, leaving the top and bottom edges uncovered.  

We had all of our ingredients lined up and ready to go.  And some brown bananas and sweet potatoes gather around to watch the show.

Place the fillings in the middle of the roll, and don't go too crazy with it.  Less is more.  This one had cucumber, kohlrabi, jalepeno, and shrimp. 

Here's Matt carefully slicing a roll.  It helps if the knife is a little wet.  

I think this one has cucumber, jalepeno, avocado, and cream cheese.  

A whole roll.  

Nate loves the sushi party.  

Note the bowl of water sitting on the counter.  As Nate says, "Water is a sushi-maker's best friend."  It keeps the rice from sticking to your hands and keeps the knife wet when it's slicing time.  

Mixing wasabi and soy sauce is serious business. 

I spy asparagus.  

Salade Niçoise

I recently returned from a spring break trip to Florida to build a Habitat for Huge Manatees, and I had a serious craving for healthy food.  Two twenty-four hour drives led to a lot of not-so-healthy eating.  We knew we had a problem when on day two we found ourselves in line for McDonald's breakfast complaining that the McDonald's we went to for breakfast the day before was so much faster.  I don't typically eat fast food unless it comes in the form of a Jimmy John's sandwich or Chipotle salads, so it was pretty sad that in a one-week period I ate McDonald's twice, Taco Bell, and Wendy's.  I also had my first Chik-fil-a experience.  And then there were the conch fritters, fried calamari, and fried alligator.  Those were all in one sitting.  I'm kind of surprised my heart is still beating.  

This is my friend Elizabeth and I on what I believe was our second trip to McD's.  We were waiting for Matt to come pick us up after he opted for Burger King breakfast.  And he calls me high maintenance...

We planned our driving so we could spend the first night in Nashville and enjoy some barbeque.  The people at our hotel recommended Jack's in downtown Nashville, and I enthusiastically second that recommendation.  


I got the pulled pork plate with mac n' cheese and coleslaw.  I now want to move to Nashville.  I could definitely eat barbeque every day for the rest of my life (okay, I would also require frequent doses of Mexican food), listen to live country music, and buy a bedazzler.  From our two hours spent in downtown Nashville, we learned that a bedazzler is a must.  I should also probably invest in more denim and dig out all of my camo clothes from my Carhartt-loving phase of high school.  Yes, we saw bedazzled jean jackets and a bedazzled camo baseball hat.  I love Nashville.  

Enough with the fried food and bedazzling (btw, blogger recognizes "bedazzling" as a word, but not "bedazzler").  I promised you something healthy.  I realize this isn't the most original recipe, but it is delicious and worth making.  

Ingredients (makes 2 entree salads):

2 tuna steaks

2 eggs

1 cup green beans

15-20 cherry or grape tomatoes

8 small potatoes

1/4 cup olives (Niçoise or a mix)

1 tbsp capers

Mixed greens

2-3 tbsp dijon mustard

2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar

4-6 tbsp olive oil

Start out by hard boiling the eggs.  I took this picture because I though the freakishly large egg was funny.  It's like the queen bee of the carton.  

These are the potatoes I used.  You could also use small new potatoes.  

I boiled more than necessary so I could have some leftovers.  Boil them until a fork goes into them without much resistance.  

Snap off the ends of the beans, and break them into about 1" pieces.  Rinse the tomatoes.  

Peel the eggs once they're cooked.  

Then slice them.  I took more pictures than necessary because I got some new plates and bowls earlier in the day, and I was excited to take some pictures with them.  My clumsy boyfriend broke one of my new plates a month ago, so I had to go to Pier 1 to replace it.  When I got there I found out that the store is closing so all of the dishes were 10% off (or 20% off if your cashier makes a mistake and he decides it's easier to just let it be), so I picked up a few new bowls and plates.  

Here are the capers hanging out with their big brothers, the olives.  

Rinse the greens. 

Rub the tuna steaks with a little olive oil, and sprinkle them with salt and pepper.  

Cook the tuna in a pan or on your trusty George Foreman for 5-8 minutes.  

While the fish is cooking, make the dressing.  My mom gave me this handy dressing bottle, so I mixed it up in there.  It says champagne vinegar, but I used red wine instead.  Whatever kind of vinegar you have sitting around should be fine.  

Give it a shake, and you're good to go. 

Here's the tuna sitting on one of my new salad plates.  Lovely, aren't they?

Pile up some greens, pour on a little dressing, and arrange the remaining ingredients on top.  If you have some leftovers you can pile them into a baguette, pour yourself a glass of wine, and pretend that you're in France.  Bon apetit! 

Crab Artichoke Dip

After experiencing two restaurant versions of hot crab dip, I decided to make my own.  Back in December Matt and I had some tasty crab & spinach dip at Stella's Fish Cafe, and earlier this week we had crab & artichoke dip at A1A Ale Works in St. Augustine, Florida.  I basically did what I would for spinach & artichoke dip, but I used crab instead of spinach.  

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen artichoke hearts, thawed

1-8oz. package cream cheese

1/2 cup sour cream

1-6oz. can crab

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan

1 tsp. celery seed

See that milk?  Didn't use it.  I thought I might need a little liquid, but once everything was mixed together the milk wasn't necessary.  

Thaw the artichoke hearts.  If you're using canned ones, drain them well and squeeze out extra moisture. 

Combine the artichoke hearts, cream cheese, and sour cream in a food processor.  Add in some salt and freshly ground pepper as well.  

Pulse until it looks something like this.  It doesn't take long.  

Drain the crab, and make sure there aren't any nasty bits in there.  

Stir the crab into the cream cheese mixture. 

At this point I decided to add a little celery seed.  Chives would also be nice, but I didn't have any on hand.   

Along with the celery seed, add about 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.  

Scoop the mixture into a greased dish.

Top with remaining Parmesan and breadcrumbs.  

Bake at 325 until bubbly.  

Serve with crackers, crusty bread, or chips.  

Mussels with Garlic Butter

To start out our Valentine's dinner, I decided to make mussels.  The last time I had them was almost a year ago at Hopleaf in Chicago, and Matt had never(!!) had them before.  I was pleasantly surprised by how inexpensive mussels were - about $6/lb.  I guess when I comes down to it there's not that much edible matter in them, but I still thought that was a pretty good deal.  

I looked up a bunch of different recipes, and I settled on a simple one with a lot of positive reviews.  You can find the recipe here.  Since there were only two of us, I ended up cutting most of it by a third.  All of the amounts below will be the amounts I used.

Begin by chopping 1/4 cup shallots, mincing 2 cloves of garlic, and chopping about a tablespoon of parsley.  

Squeeze about 3/4 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, and get about 1/4 teaspoon lemon peel.  My lemon peel was more like lemon mush.  Oh well.  

Rinse and scrub the mussels.  I bought 1 pound, and it was plenty for the two of us.  

Place the mussels in a heavy pot, cover them, and cook them on high for about 5 minutes until they open.  Give the pot an occasional shake during that time.  

Here's what they look like when they've opened up.  Lookin' good.  

The actual recipe tells you to drain the mussels and reserve the liquid before transferring them to a bowl, but I only ended up with about a tablespoon of liquid.  Did I miss something?  Was I supposed to put some liquid in with them during the initial five minutes?  I'm still not sure about that one.  Oh, and be sure to throw out any that don't open.  You don't want to mess around with any bad seeds.

Cover the bowl loosely with foil so the mussels stay warm while you prepare the sauce.  

Melt about 3-1/2 tablespoons of butter in your pot over medium-high heat.  

Add the shallots and garlic to the butter and cook for a few minutes until tender.  

I decided to add a little white wine at this point because I realized how little liquid I had, and I really wanted more.  I probably added between 1/2 cup and 1 cup.  

Add the lemon juice, lemon peel, and reserved liquid.  Bring to a boil.  I decided to thrown in the mussels for a minute or so to warm them back up and cook them with the sauce.  I also added the parsley, but you can also save it to sprinkle on at the end.  Should you decide to follow the actual recipe, just pour the sauce over the mussels once it comes to a boil instead of throwing the mussels into the pot.  

Serve with crusty bread to soak up the sauce.  

I'm still not sure how I feel about this recipe.  The mussels were pretty good and very meaty, but I've definitely had better.  I was kind of hoping for a greater amount of liquid, so I might add more wine next time.  Making the sauce first and then cooking the mussels in it might help them soak up more flavor, too.  Maybe my lackluster review is due to the fact that I had the flu at the time, and shellfish is probably not the best cure.  I think I'll do a little more research before I make another attempt.  They make for pretty pictures, though!