Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme…

So, I made one of my all-time favorite made-up recipes tonight, a Pecan Crusted Stuffed Salmon which has a creamy herb filling giving it the perfect blend of creamy and crusty.   Timewise, it rates moderate on the preparation level so I don’t make it very often but it’s not that hard and it’s worth the effort.  It’s also a great opportunity to use the fresh herbs that my husband maintains for me.

Right as I was getting ready to post this, I found this link from Allrecipes.com, which is one of my favorite resources for recipes. http://allrecipes.com/howto/rosemary-an-herb-to-remember/detail.aspx.  I had forgotten how much I love cooking with fresh herbs.  It is amazing how much of a difference it makes in the flavor.  One of the keys to really cooking with herbs in general is to let the flavors have time to mix.  For the following recipe, I generally make the cream cheese filling and then let it sit for as long as I can while I prepare everything else.

Anyway, here is the recipe to tonight’s recipe:

Pecan Crusted Stuffed Salmon

1 1/2 lbs. salmon

8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened

2 TBSP finely minced purple onion

1 TBSP fresh rosemary, minced

1 TBSP fresh oregano, minced

1 egg, beaten

chopped pecans

Mix together the cream chese, purple onions, and the fresh herbs and set off to the side.  Cut the skin off of the salmon and butterfly it.  Spoon the cream cheese filling into the salmon and close it back up.  If you need to, you can use toothpicks to close it though the cream cheese should work as a glue factor to hold it closed.  Carefully dip the fillet in the egg and put on a greased cookie sheet.  Use your hand to carefully cover the fillet in chopped pecans.  Bake at 450 for 15 minutes or until the fish flakes with a fork.  It is good served with brown rice and a spinach salad.  Buen Provecho!

Leftover surprise

Today was one of those days. Everyone’s had them. The baby is crying, you try to deal with the company that accidentally double charged you for something and the person on the other end of the phone gets attitude, and pretty much nothing productive gets done around the house. Well, it’s the perfect recipe – no pun intended – for leftover surprise. Tonight’s leftover surprise was a sort of rice pilaf. The key to getting a good leftover surprise pilaf is keeping produce on hand – though you have to be sure to use it within its shelf life, which is generally pretty short. Bell peppers are one of my favorite things to keep on hand. You can keep a partial bell pepper in a little sandwhich bag and cut on it for salads, pilafs, etc . . . for several days to add taste, crunch, and a little variety. Anyway, tonight’s leftover surprise pilaf went something like this:

Leftover surprise

cooked brown rice
chopped bell pepper
2 roasted sweet red peppers (I wasn’t kidding in yesterday’s post)
a squirt of mayo (i would have used thousand island dressing if i had had it

Some things I wish I had put in:
nuts (any kind will work but I didn’t have any)
corn (just didn’t feel like thawing it out)
peas (same as the corn)

If you have other vegetables in the fridge, just throw them in. The best part about this is that it is a great way to clean the fridge, use leftovers, and give you something to eat fast.
I just heated the rice, then added the rest of the stuff and voila. Dinner in less than 5 minutes which meant that I even had time to eat it before the baby woke back up!