Nutty Salmon

I made some salmon on a wood plank. This is nothing new, but, in the past, all I ever saw was cedar planks. Then Kroger started carrying planks of other kinds of wood, including pecan. What better method of cooking pecan encrusted salmon?

The package explains how to soak and prepare the wood, so I'll skip that. I saw various recipes for pecan encrusted fish, many of which had some kind of sweet stuff or sauce added. I wanted to keep it simple.

I got a nice, thick piece of salmon fillet from Fresh Market (worth the extra cost compared to Krogr fish). I rubbed a little olive oil on it, then som salt and pepper and some minced garlic. I covered the top entirely in crushed pecans and put it on the prepared plank on the grill.

The pecans came out toasty and tasty. The salmon was moist and perfect. I also grilled some corn on the cob and vegetables. It was a great dinner.

Rice

Yeah, I invented this thing I call "rice". No, seriously, I just found a way to make the rice turn out a little nicer. Maybe everyone else already knew this but I didn't:

When I put the rice and water in the pan, I stir it for a while, until the starch makes the water very cloudy. As the water is coming to a boil, I stir a couple more times. When the water is boiling, I stir again just before covering and reducing the heat.

What happens is that a lot less rice sticks to the pan and there is no burnt crust. Some people like the burnt crust, but not me.

Some people I know rinse the rice before cooking and get rid of a lot of the star ch. I prefer sticky rice that you could eat with chopsticks if you want.

I also add a little salt to the water before I start cooking. Why? Because I'm an American and excessive salt intake is one of our proud traditions.

Where the Figs Went

I wanted to make some kind of interesting pizza on the grill outside but I didn't have any pizza dough or the desire to make any and it was cold and rainy.

What I did have was some brie, some gouda cheese and some of this flatbread. I cut 4 triangles from each of the cheeses - each triangle the sixe of 1/8 of the bread - and alternated the cheese slices around the bread.

I cut 8 thin slices of granny smith apple and arranged them on top of the cheese. Then I cut a few thin slices of fig (from my bacon-wrapped-dried-fruit experiment) and laid them between the apple slices.

I put my cast iron grill pan on the stove, on high heat, and put my "pizza" on it. That got the bottom crispy, but the cheese wasn't melted enough so I put the pizza in the oven under the broiler (toaster oven works great).

The reauslt was perfect. I think I might go make another now.

Hot Dates

We went to a progressive dinner and one of the appetizers really captured our taste buds, so we wanted the recipe. The person who had prepared them had to miss the dinner because of some family emergency (we all prayed it was not food poisoning) and no one knew exactly how the dish was prepared.

It was some dried fruit wrapped in bacon, with some kind of barbeque-ish sauce on it. There was a debate about whether the central item was a fig or a date or, since it was wrapped in BACON, whether it mattered what you put in there.

I went to the store and bought some mission figs and some pitted dates (both pictured here). While I was there, I noticed smoked almonds. What better to add to a bacon-wrapped, BBQ-sauce-covered item?

I cut bacon strips in half and wrapped each half-strip around either a fig or a date. In some of the pitted dates, I inserted a smokehouse almond (some of the larger dates I cut in half). Rather than use toothpicks to hold the bacon, I just overlapped the ends on the bottom, it worked great. I selected a tangy-smokey BBQ sauce, not too sweet, from the selection my sister sent me as a BBQ sauce of the month present. It didn't taste quite like what we had had at the party so I added a little balsamic vinegar and that made it pretty interesting (in a very good way). I covered the treats in sauce and put them in a 375 degree oven until the bacon was crisp.

It became clear that the best way was with dates and the almonds were a perfect addition (I know this is not an original idea). The figs came in handy for another recipe later.

I also found that a couple of dates and 6 smokehouse almonds make a tasty, satisfying and healthy snack at work.

Why?

I like to cook but I don't like following recipes. I often read a few recipies for something like, say, fish tacos, and take the things that appeal to me and make it my own way. I watch the food network and get ideas about cooking techniques and tools and what foods/spices/seasonings go together and hope to keep that in the back of my mind when I'm making dinner. I look in the refrigerator and cupboards sometimes and try to think of what goes together.

I'm not a great chef but I've found some things that I enjoyed and thought I'd share.

If you have any discoveries or variations you would like share, I'd love to have them. Just add to the comments or email me. jbunyan@gmail.com