Sweet and soy grilled salmon & flowers to make my apartment a home

Well, now I have tons of stuff to blab about. I am debating if I should break all of this up into separate posts? Yes, yes I should.

OK. Now. I do want to talk a bit about what’s the deal with how I changed my blog theme (and ask for your opinion, although it’s not done yet so I guess that doesn’t matter…) and announce that I did indeed graduate last weekend and I managed not to trip across the stage or forget to bring my name card or some other Kelly-like embarrassing thing, in addition to lots of other mushy crap about how much I love everyone who’s been reading my silly blog over the past semester and told me how much they enjoy it. I also want to talk about where this blog is going now that my independent study is over (I got an A, in case you were wondering, and even though it’s “over” I am thinking I may following in Jacquie’s footsteps and try to print up my most relevant posts up and bind them together. I might be good to show future potential employers, no? I can’t quit you, blog!)

Anyhow, all of that can wait because I made this delicious salmon dinner for a friend and I Thursday and holy crap. Ah-mazing.

Let’s discuss.

I decided I wanted to go all out and get that most sustainable salmon available at Whole Foods (Wild King Alaskan, $24/lb.), which in my humble opinion, tastes the absolute best. I ended up buying two 1-inch (at the thickest) fillets for $17.

Here’s what I did.

Sweet & Soy Grilled Salmon with Avocado, Capers, and Red Onion

Combine in a bowl the following:

• 1/4 c. olive oil (exact amounts don’t really mater, you might need more if you are marinating larger fillets)
• a few T. of soy sauce (I don’t know how much, I just poured the rest of the bottle in)
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• Juice of 2 lemons
• a dash or seven of garlic powder, depending on how much you love garlic

Yeah so swirl all that stuff around and plop your salmon fillets in and if you are super fancy and have a brush, coat them with the marinade. Then cover the bowl and pop in the refrigerator. Mine marinated for about 7 hours, but I am sure you could do for much less time, probably even 3-4 hours would suffice.

Then, slice up some avocado and some red onion and tomatoes (if you want) and drain some capers. Whatever you love on salad. You could also do a couple hard-boiled eggs using Jaden’s method (from the Steamy Kitchen) that makes the egg somewhere in between soft-and hard-boiled. I opted to leave the egg out. I initially was going to use Jaden’s recipe for a grilled salmon sandwich but then decided to use a marinade for the salmon…and then never actually made the dressing and I also made a salad instead of a sandwich…so really my dinner ended up totally different and I’m not sure why I am even referencing that recipe aside from the fact that it made me think to use capers, which I never have cooked with before.

By the way, I should also mention that my parents got me three new K. Sabatier knives as a graduation present, and they are fantastic. I have never had nice knives and it feels so nice to be able to actually slice through food without applying pressure. Fabulous. (When you begin asking for things like food processors and knives for presents, does that make you officially old? Yikes.)

I also bought myself a new eco-friendly skilet at Target the other day, which made me laugh because I never would have thought that a skillet could be not eco-friendly but hey, I guess that’s just the direction we are heading and I dig this pan a lot. I made eggs the next morning without a speck of cooking spray and it just slid around the pan like in an infomerical, it was hilarious.

Back to the salmon. You then heat up a skillet to medium-high and set your fillets on it. I ended up grilling the salmon for about 3 minutes each side, but it obviously will depend on how thick your fillet is.

Yes, mom, that’s a band-aid on my thumb. Yes, it’s from the knife. Yes, I will be more careful next time. Yes, I know those knives “could CUT OFF my finger.”

Definitely don’t overcook the fillet. If you have any feeling it might be done, take it off and take a good look at the center–with salmon you don’t really want the rare-ness you might go for with a tuna steak, but it should still be rather pink. Also, about halfway through cooking, throw your onion slices and capers in with the skillet (I much prefer grilled onion over raw.)

Once everything is ready, you plate it all up and voila! We found the salad didn’t really need “dressing” especially if you let the salmon marinate for as long as I did, because it was sooooo juicy and the onions had collected that marinade as well. But do what you like. I suppose you could do a drizzle of honey-dijon or some such over the lettuce if you prefer.

By the way, we drank a Pinot Noir with dinner which was a great pair. Pinot Noir’s are a bit more smooth and sweet, which went well with the hints of brown sugar sweetness in the salmon. (This is me trying to sounds like a foodie. Or a wino that doesn’t know wine, either/or.)

That meal tasted like you would pay at least $25 for it in a restaurant (maybe even more because of the fact that it was Alaskan King salmon, which is the priciest.) But when it came down to it, not including the wine, it  cost about half that to buy all the ingredients. And it was so so worth it. It just melted in your mouth. The best part, for me, is you could almost feel good about eating it knowing that it didn’t have the added dyes and hadn’t been raised in a confined space being fed tons of antibiotics, etc. I’ll spare the nasty details for here.

OK. So not to be all jumbly, but I do want to give you a glimpse into last weekend, in a post later on today or tomorrow in case anyone cares (I’m mainly thinking of relatives…)

…and next up, what I am looking forward to doing today (and hopefully for the rest of my life!)…Yoga! =)

It feels good to be back.

My weekend: a haircut, veggie roasting, and I think I need to get checked for narcolepsy

I feel like all I did this weekend was sleep. And it’s not that I avoided work, it’s just that every time I got into doing work, I fell asleep! I swear I’m not lazy! I’m narcoleptic! I didn’t get out, barely, aside from a trip to the farmers market and the hair dresser on Sunday

Which, speaking of the hairdresser. I sort of got a little bang going on now. Before and after shot? Yes, please.

Before: Drab, boring, lifeless hair. Boy, do I look sad!

After! WOW, what a difference! I’m smiling!

Sure, now you are thinking. -I mean, Kel, it doesn’t really look all that different. All you did was change the Photobooth setting that you took the picture on.  -UM. actually, there is a pile of my hair on the floor of Mimosa in D.C. that can prove that isn’t true.

By the way, it was my first time there, and I approve, if you live in D.C. and are looking for a place to get your hair and nails did. English isn’t their first language, but they know what they are doing. Prices are very fair, too.

To be honest, before this weekend, I don’t even know the last time I had my hair cut. Stuff grows like a weed. And, I am beginning to realize the ridiculousness of me showing you pictures of my new bangs, which literally consist of 3-5 strands of my hair. And also my hair is tucked behind my ears in the ‘before’ picture and you can’t see the length difference in the ‘after’, solidifying the pointlessness. Moving on to food….!

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This weekend, all I wanted to do was roast veggies.I had brussel sprouts from the AU farmers market so on Saturday night (yes, Saturday night *sigh*) I just nipped off what little stem there was, coated them in EVOO, salt, pepper, and chopped up garlic, baked them on a cookie sheet for like 20 minutes. They were little guys and didn’t take long. The garlic gets pretty charred by the time the brussels are done though. Which doesn’t effect the rest, but does leave some clean-up. If you don’t mind that, have at it. Hey, you can even buy one of these babies and really feel like a housewife while you’re scrubbing pans: (ps I want one).

Also, direct quote from Jen in regards to these bowls from Anthropologie:

“Those bowls make cooking fun again!” So true.

Can I just say that the remainder of the food shots from this night don’t appear appetizing but I swear to you, the food was great.

That’s naan and then some onion/egg scramble thing. Listen, I could eat some variation of eggs for breakfast and dinner every day for the rest of my life I think sometimes. I could go vegan if not for eggs. PS, those brussel sprouts look burnt, but they aren’t. They are delicious.

Yesterday I went to the farmers market and bought this loaf of peasant wheat for $5. It’s literally the size of a three-year-old. Let’s see if it lasts me a week.

I just think that Kale looks like mini crocodiles in a photo. Anyone else? I’m a weirdo? OK, then.

Then I made kale chips for the first time. I don’t know which blogger to shout out for this one, so I will choose Jacquie because she let me try her’s the other day and I was sold. Basically you rub EVOO all up in those pieces of Tuscan kale you got at the market and you grind some course salt and pepper on there and lay them so they all have their own space, and you bake at 350 for about 10-12 minutes. Jacquie sprinkles on some nutritional yeast to give it a cheesey edge. I didn’t have any and still found the kale chips to be about as addictive as Stacy’s pita chips and Sabra hummus (which is very addictive.) I ate a pan’s worth straight out the oven. Luckily I had enough for two more batches.

There must be some chemical reaction that happens with kale when you bake it that makes it so delicious. Like crack, people.

Then the parsnips got jealous of all the veggie roasting, so I peeled and sliced them up real thin as well.

I’ve got veggie chips of all sorts to get me through the week.

OK, I had half a glass of wine Sunday night, and only because I thought it would be great with my dinner of kale chips—which it was. And actually I felt much more sleepy before the wine, surprisingly.

But on that note, what do you do when you can’t keep your eyes open despite getting enough rest? I am a perpetual napper lately!! But I don’t like to use caffeine because I just feel like that will take me down the road to a very expensive habit.

I think from now on when I feel the eyelids getting heavy I’m going to (attempt to) do some push-ups. To get the blood flowing. I need to tone up anyhow, in preparation for this dress I tried on but haven’t bought yet because it’s a billion dollars and I think my Mac is about to crap out any day now.

SIGH.

ALSO–Any kale chip lovers out there ever make ahead? Does it work out? Mine aren’t crispy today and I am sad. I had them in a plastic bag, but I guess it wasn’t air-tight. Suggestions?