Salmon, hold the nuts.

As I am still catching up on a week's worth of extremely minor events, I came across pictures of a pretty lovely meal I made last week that had completely slipped my mind. Per Ry's request, which is how most of my meals come to fruition, we had salmon. To get my cooking juices flowing, no pun intended, I started checking out my favorite website (tastespotting.com) for some ideas. Most of the recipes included Soy Sauce and/or Hoisin. I really was not in the mood for an asian flavored dish, particularly not with the veggies I was making, so I decided to revise a recipe I saw and I think it turned out quite well.

HONEY PECAN SALMON:

Worchestire Sauce
Honey
1/4 c. crushed Pecans
Salmon filet
Cooking Spray

Preheat oven to 375. Coat glass baking dish with cooking spray and place salmon in dish. Cover with several dashes of worchestire to taste, basically enough to cover and/or marinate. Squeeze lines of honey on the coated salmon and kind of mix with the worchestire with your finger or a spoon. I let mine sit for about 15 mins. since we wanted to eat soon, but I think this would be even better if you let it marinate covered in the fridge for a few hours. Heat olive oil in a skillet pan to a medium-high heat. Once drops of water sizzle on the pan, place the salmon in the pan. Sear it on both sides for just about a minute each side. Place the salmon back in the baking dish and cover with crushed pecans, drizzles of some more honey, and salt to taste. Bake for about 12-14 mins. until desired doneness.

And on the side we had our favorite veggies, which is actually so simple that I almost wouldn't even think to post a recipe. However, I made this around Christmas-time with my family and my sister loved it, as was quite clear when I received a text message from her a few days later asking how to make it because she was craving it. That was quite the cooking ego boost I might say. Thinking back however, I believe credit is truly due to my man Tony Chachere, who has made many things I have cooked taste quite complex and utterly delicious with very little effort on my part.

BROCCOLI & CAULIFLOWER SAUTE:

1 bag Frozen mixed Broccoli & Cauliflower

OR

1/2 head of chopped Cauliflower
4-5 Broccoli Florets chopped

Spray Butter
Tony Chachere's Seasoning (or Cajun Spices, or Cayenne)

Spray saute pan with spray butter and heat to medium. Toss cauliflower and broccoli in pan. Sprinkle veggies with salt, pepper, and spicy seasoning of your choice to desired spiciness. Spray veggies with a little more spray butter (enough to coat a little) and sautee veggies for a while in the pan. I recommend cooking them until they start to brown a little. It makes the veggies kind of crunchy and in my opinion better (I will say from what I have read, critics would say I am well overcooking these types of veggies, but I think it tastes better).

Cauliflower Overload

So ultimately the purpose of creating a blog for myself was for recipe maintenance and distribution amongst my more "kitchen challenged" friends (you know who you are) asking for some of my stolen or slightly original creations. By no means do I consider myself an expert when it comes to culinary stylings, but I will try anything once and tend to have unique taste pairings. On more than one occasion by more than one person, my appetite has been compared to that of a pregnant woman's. Since I vehemently deny that pregnancy could ever be the culprit, I instead attribute it to an early penchant for original combinations. Though far from classy, my early classics were Cold Hot Dogs dipped in Apple Sauce, Mustard on Oreos, and Tortilla Chips dipped in Vanilla Yogurt. The salty-sweet combination matured into a love of Peanut Butter Burgers, Hawaiian Pizza, and Chocolate Dipped Bacon.
But anyway, I'm getting entirely off track here as my latest meal has absolutely nothing to do with the above. Last week, after what seemed like an eternity of busy schedules and take out food, I finally was able to cook. My initial idea though had grown simply from steak and cauliflower (in my attempt to cook on a budget and use what's currently in my fridge)to an entirely new concept. I had four days of meal planning as my schedule kept being pushed back, so once I finally found the time and motivation to cook, I really went for the cauliflower overkill. Ryan and I both agreed that they meal together was good, but each separate piece was great. So I will implore any that decide to try the following to learn from my mistakes as you might in a choose your own adventure book & turn to Page 26 instead of Page 14, which thinking of it, I really need to get because those things rock.

First, I had a SIRLOIN strip type steak (eh, I'm so not good on remembering the cuts of meat, particularly steak) in the fridge since it was on sale at my Ralph's.
Since it was on sale, I figured it would be best to do some sort of marinade to avoid the potential toughness of the meat, plus I wanted extra sauce for the next part of my meal. Using a few I found online as a point of reference I made the following
SIRLOIN with MARINADE:
1/4 c. honey
3 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. balsamic vinaigrette
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 flank sirloin steak
Mix all the ingredients through garlic powder well. Pour over meat in small casserole or pan and spoon extra juices on top of steak. Cover and refrigerate for about an hour or more to marinate. Broil Steak for about 4-5 minutes on each side in casserole dish in oven, or until desired doneness.

Another aspect of this meal was the cauliflower rice. Despite my intense love of all things carb, I also recognize the need to get rid of the "Relationship 10" lbs gained over the last year and a half while blissfully ignoring my ever tightening pants. This was actually a very nice addition to the steak and worked very well with the juices. I think if I ever make this again, I will keep the steak and faux rice and substitute the rest with a salad.
CAULIFLOWER RICE:
3/4 head of fresh cauliflower
Olive Oil or Cooking Spray to taste
Salt & Pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan (optional) to taste
Lightly pulse the cauliflower in a food processor so that it resembles the consistency of rice. When the rest of the meal is almost ready, lightly saute the cauliflower bits with some cooking spray or olive oil, and seasonings. I also put a bit of Parmesan for taste. Serve under the steak, the extra juices from the marinade really complement the faux rice.

Next up is the ham wrapped asparagus and cauliflower steaks. These are not highly complicated so I will spare you the detailed recipes. I will say, that in the future I fully plan on making the ham asparagus in place of one of my favorite sides/appetizers, bacon wrapped asparagus. It provides a similar flavor with very little fat as I just used just half a thin slice of low fat ham to wrap the spear and secured with a toothpick. I did use a little olive oil, salt, and pepper on the asparagus prior to wrapping, but you could spray with pam for less fat. The cauliflower steak was 2 sections cut from the same head used above for the "rice". I essentially seared the cauli-steak to brown the outside. Both the asparagus and steak were baked together at 325 degrees F for about 30 minutes. You could adjust the temperature to whatever your needs are, I wanted to take Sammy-Pants on a walk so that's what I did while it cooked.
In the end it resulted in a reasonably pleased and well fed boyfriend, a "happy to eat the leftovers" Chance, and a lesson in overthinking & overpairing meals.