Salmon with Plum & Mango Salsa.

These last couple of weeks have been busy! I've been cooking, but not writing. Time get caught up. This was tonight's dinner - an easy preparation that keeps your kitchen cool and is a great combination of warm fish and cool salsa. Enjoy! (Please ignore the funky formatting below. Blogger is not behaving tonight...)

Plum & Mango Salsa

• 2 plums, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup coarsely chopped mango
• 2 T chopped cilantro
• ¼ cup chopped green onion
• 1 tsp rice vinegar
• ¼ tsp sea salt

Grilled Salmon

• salmon filets, skin on
• olive oil
• salt

Gently toss salsa ingredients together and chill until ready to serve.

For grilled salmon, heat grill to a medium high to high temperature.  Drizzle olive oil over salmon and sprinkle lightly with salt. Place fish skin side down on grill and close cover.  Cook for 4 to 5  minutes. As soon as you see the fat start to bubble out of the fish, turn the fish over and cook one more minute (to get nice grill marks!).  The skin should peel off easily – and is often easy to do right on the grill.  Peel away skin and remove fish from grill.

Serve with salsa and enjoy.

Best Burgers.

This is a simple and flavorful hamburger recipe. Since I use lean ground beef, the recipe adds additional ingredients to make sure the burger is full of flavor.

• 2 pounds ground beef, 90% lean
• 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp seasoning blend with or without salt, such as Morton's Nature's Seasons (salt) or Mrs. Dash (no salt)
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp dried parsley

In a medium bowl, use hands to mix ingredients into beef.  When thoroughly mixed, form 6 to 8 patties. For burgers cooked to "medium", grill over high heat for 3-4 minutes, flip, and cook another 4-5 minutes.

Cinnamon Rolls.

These cinnamon rolls are simply amazing.  The Baker Chick gets credit for my inspiration on this one.  Her pictures were enough to convince me to experiment with a few recipes and this is where I ended up.  The recipe takes an hour and a half to two hours from start to finish.  It's a little fussy - but the rolls called to me and after a couple of tries and some adaptations, I’ve decided they’re worth the investment in time.

There are four distinct parts to this recipe: the dough, the filling, the browned butter for the filling, and the frosting.

Part I: The Dough

• 3/4 cup 2% milk
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 package yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 egg

Heat the milk until it just starts to bubble.  Remove from heat and add butter, stirring until it melts completely.  Cool to about 120 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together 2 cups of flour, sugar and salt.  When milk/butter mixture is cooled, add yeast to it and stir.  Then, add the milk mixture, egg, and water to the dry ingredients.  Mix with hand mixer until smooth.  Stir in remaining 1 ¼ cups of flour, ¼ cup at a time.  Dough will be stiff so mixing by hand is your best choice at this point.  When dough starts to pull together, turn it onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes.  Cover dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.

Part II: The Filling

• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

Mix brown sugar and cinnamon together and set aside.

Part III: The Browned Butter

• 1/2 cup butter, sliced

Heat a heavy skillet on medium heat. Add butter and allow it to melt, stirring frequently.  Once melted, the butter will start to foam up. Watch and continue to stir. When the foam subsides, brown specks will start to form on the bottom of the pan.  As soon as this happens, remove from heat to stop further cooking.  [Watching the butter closely will avoid burning it.  If it burns, start over. Browned butter gives a rich, nutty flavor; burned butter tastes, well, burned.]

While the butter cools a bit, roll dough on a lightly floured surface into a 9 x 13 rectangle.  Use a pastry brush to spread butter generously over dough.  Sprinkle brown sugar & cinnamon evenly on dough and press it in gently using fingers.  Roll dough into a cylinder, starting on a long edge.  Pinch the seam to close it securely.  Using a sharp knife, cut the rolled dough into 12 equal size pieces and place in a 9x13 baking dish. Drizzle any remaining butter over the top.  Cover and let the rolls rise in a warm place until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Once rolls have doubled in size, bake in a 375 degree oven for 18 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remove from oven and spread with frosting.

Part IV: The Frosting

• 2 Tbsp softened butter
• 4 oz cream cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Use hand mixer to mix together butter and cream cheese until creamy. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and mix until smooth.  Spread on warm rolls and enjoy!

Caprese BLT & Avocado Salad.

I love BLT sandwiches and decided to transfer my favorite ingredients to a salad, jazz it up a little with fresh mozzarella, avocado and tomatillo, and top with homemade croutons and buttermilk ranch dressing. Mmmmm… This is a salad that is best when assembled to the diner's preference. Love avocado? Put more on!  Not crazy about mozzarella?  Leave it off! Think you might like some green onions sprinkled on top? Go for it!  Choose your choice and enjoy!

Salad ingredients

• Mixed baby lettuces
• Heirloom tomatoes (in at least two colors), sliced
• Tomatillo, sliced
• Avocado, sliced
• Bacon, cooked and crumbled
• Ciliegine (tiny mozzarella balls)
• Croutons
• Buttermilk dressing

Croutons

• 3 cups day old baguette, cut into ¾ inch cubes
• 3 T butter
• Italian Seasoning
• Sea salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment.  Melt butter in skillet.  Add bread cubes.  Season liberally. Toss in butter until coated.  Spread bread cubes on baking sheet in a single layer.  Bake for 10 minutes, turning once, until lightly browned.  Cool.

Assemble all salad ingredients to your preference and enjoy!

Tangy Thai Eggplant

I picked up a few Thai eggplants over the weekend and decided to see what I could do with them.  I landed on this tangy vegetable sauté that takes just a few minutes to prepare. Enjoy!

• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 cup purple cabbage, shredded
• ½ yellow pepper, thinly sliced
• ½ tsp chili powder
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 3 Thai eggplants, cut into 8-10 wedges each
• 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar

Heat oil in pan over medium heat.  Add cabbage; cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add chili pepper, salt, and yellow pepper.  Continue to cook over medium heat for 3 minutes, stirring often.  Add eggplant and vinegar.  Cook uncovered, stirring often, until there is very little liquid remaining.  Add 2 Tbsp water, cover, and cook 2 more minutes.  Enjoy as a side dish or over rice.

On Feeding My Two Swimmers.

Almost everyday I pack lunches for my two children.  We have found over the years that school lunches just don’t do it for them – in less than 30 minutes, they need to consume calories – quality calories – that will take them through the rest of the school day (until they eat before going to swim practice), and that means they need to take lunch to school each day.  And yes, I’m the mom who packs her kids’ lunches.  As I see it, they each have two fulltime jobs, as students and as athletes, and having some time to relax is an critical part of their day.  If I can let them have a little down time by packing lunches for them, then I’ll do it – and besides, it’s food!  It’s what I do.

A couple of years ago, one of my son’s friends sincerely asked me, “Ms. R., do you know how much he eats?  I mean really!  Everyday at lunch! Have you seen what he eats?”  And my answer was, “Yes, I do. I pack those lunches!”  He was unmoved.  “No, really, do you KNOW how much he eats?”  Indeed, I do know.  As mother of two teenage swimmers, I know.  We’ve laughed a lot about that conversation, and the truth in it.  Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meat, legumes, cheeses, yogurt, whole grains, and water fill lunch sacks and cover our table each day.

Lunch packing ingredients

Turkey & vegetable wrap, with some
red quinoa tossed in
for whole grain goodness

As the school year is coming to a close the need to provide healthy meals throughout the day doesn’t change. In fact, it intensifies, since we transition to 5 hours of practice each day.  What does change is that I’m not packing the brown bags each day and my kitchen becomes a non-stop cooking laboratory for my kids.  After early morning practice, they eat their second breakfast of the day and then begin experimenting.  I wonder what their cooking projects of the summer will be: cheese making, homemade pasta, the perfect baguette, or ultimate cinnamon rolls?  Last year it was cake decorating (fondant included) and anything that could be made with a noodle.  Whatever they choose, their friends and teammates will benefit, as the fruits of their labor will surely travel to afternoon practice each day.  And I can only hope that there will be something left for me each day when I return home from work.

Flatbread #2: Heirloom Tomato & Blackberry

It has been a busy Spring, although I'm no longer convinced that there is a time of the year that is less busy than another.  The only exception in my life might be the 7 days in March when no one in my family is in the pool - and the irony then is that we don't know what to do with the time and end up eating dinner at 8:30PM anyway.  That just goes to show that I have the appropriate target for my meals:  the whole premise of my life in the kitchen is to create meals that are healthy, flavorful, and fast.  I've made three versions of flatbread in the last week and all three fit my criteria.  The blackberries MAKE this recipe.  I'll add goat cheese and a balsamic drizzle next time.

• Thin pizza crust or flatbread (pre-baked)
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• Olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• handful of basil leaves, julienned
• 2 or 3 heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced
• fresh blackberries

Preheat oven to 450 degrees or according to your crust directions.  Drizzle olive oil on crust; sprinkle garlic on and use a spatula to spread garlic and oil all over crust.  Sprinkle Parmesan in thin layer on crust.  Spread tomatoes across crust; avoid overlapping as much as possible.  Top with blackberries and basil.  Sprinkle another thin Parmesan layer over everything.  Bake 6 to 7 minutes, until cheese is melted and starting to brown.