Prep for January 5th

Menu for January 5th:

• Salad with homemade vinaigrette
• Homemade rice pilaf
• Roasted salmon with green herbs

Salad:

Mesclun mix, shredded carrots, thinly sliced red onions, Trader Joe's® "stuffing mix".

This is a pretty standard salad in my eyes, but I am keeping in mind the fact that my darling is (in this way at least) a rather stereotypical male and dislikes at least 90% of all veggies and is turned of by "frou-frou" stuff in his salads. I personally love veggies and nuts and fruits and especially cheese and the inclusion of all in a salad would only better said salad in my opinion. The boy is picky however so I have to keep it safe. The Trader Joe's® stuffing mix contains celery, onions, fennel, rosemary, parsley, and a few other herbs all chopped up and mixed together.

Vinaigrette:

Olive oil, honey, lime juice, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.

This is a recipe that I pulled out of my head. Vinaigrette's have to be one of the easiest things to make and I was supremely lucky to have a legitimate chef as a roommate in my early twenties who taught me how to make them. Once you learn the technique you can implement nearly any ingredients that you can think of. He once made one with tequila and avocados that was amazing; now that I am thinking of it I may have to replicate it later on in this experiment.

Rice Pilaf:

Medium grain white rice, orzo, vegetable stock, fresh chopped green onions, fresh minced curly parsley, minced garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

The recipe that I am going to use on for this pilaf  is a variation of one used by the boy's mom. Pilaf is one of his favorite side dishes so when we were out in the mid-west for the holidays she showed me how to make it. I have kept the bones of her recipe but I am going to add a little bit of me into it to make it mine. This will be the first time that I am trying this recipe so I hope all goes well.

Roasted Salmon with Green Herbs:

Salmon fillet, olive oil, lemon juice, minced scallions (both green and white parts), fresh minced dill, fresh minced curly parsley, dry white wine.

This dish is found in the Barefoot Contessa "How easy is that?" cookbook, copyright 2010, published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York. There, I do not want to get in any copyright infringement issues. I love Ina Garten, I want to be her when I grow up. My darling knows this and bought me one of her cookbooks for Christmas. This will be the first time that I am trying one of her recipes from a book and I think that I will have to fudge it a little considering the fact that it calls for a skinless salmon fillet and I could only obtain a skin on fillet.

I have decided to not post the recipes unless they are asked for. Alright here I go!