Salmon Pesto Pasta

 

I don't think you can ever have enough pesto.  It is SO delicious.  And it makes EVERYTHING taste better, like turkey burgers and hamburgers and plain old pasta.  So, of course I was willing to try the Salmon Pesto Pasta recipe from Annie's Eats in the hopes that  it would make one of my arch-enemies, fish, taste better.  (Not only that, but my pesto recipe even makes another arch-enemy of mine, spinach, taste fantastic, too!)

It's pretty simple:

Step 1:  Make spinach basil pesto.  We usually always have some in the fridge already because we eat it probably once or twice a week!

Step 2:  Make some salmon.  You already know how good salmon is for you (omega-3s and all that).  Annie recommends broiling it for about 10 minutes after coating it with olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper.  But maybe some of you like to put it on the grill or bake it.

Step 3:  Make some pasta. I used some bow-tie pasta because I thought it was cute, which would help the fish taste better.

Step 4:  Flake the salmon into little bits.  Stir in about 1/2 cup (or more!) of the pesto into the pasta as well as the salmon.  Top with shredded Parmesan cheese if you like! (p.s. Annie first heats up 5 ounces of evaporated milk, then adds the pasta, and then the salmon and pesto.  I don't think it's really necessary but you can try it that way if you want!)

You can see from my picture that I didn't make very much salmon, so if you love salmon, you'll probably want to include more than I did.  And if you're like me and you don't like fish but you're trying to eat more of it because it's healthy, then I would definitely try this dish because the pesto covers up a lot of the fishy-taste.   

Linking up to Real Food Wednesdays @ Kelly the Kitchen Kop

Baked Pecan Honey Dijon Salmon

Except for occasional tuna sandwiches, I have never liked seafood.  But lately, everything I read about being healthy mentions how important it is to eat a lot of fish, salmon in particular.  It's supposed to be wonderful for heart health, for lowering cholesterol & blood pressure, lowering cancer risk, lowering macular degeneration risk, etc. (source). 

So, my goal is to eat more fish, which means I need to find ways to prepare it so that I will enjoy eating it.  Here is one recipe that makes the salmon palatable for me (and hopefully if you don't like salmon, maybe you can try it prepared this way and you might like it, too.)  What I do is I make one salmon fillet, and I put it on my husband's plate so it doesn't touch my other food, and then I take tiny bites off of his.  All the other flavors in this recipe do a decent job of hiding the fishy flavor.  You can see that I'm really trying hard despite how much I hate fish!

Here's the original recipe:  Baked Dijon Salmon

I added more honey than the recipe calls for.  I also used just 1 salmon fillet, instead of 4, and put all of the topping on top of the one fillet, so that it had 4 times as much topping as called for.  That way I could really hide the fishy flavor.

Ingredients:
1 salmon fillet

Topping:
1/4 cup melted butter
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
4 teaspoons parsley
Pepper to taste
1 lemon, for garnish

1)  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2)  Mix together all the ingredients for the topping and pour on top of salmon.
3)  Bake for 12-15 minutes in the oven, or until it flakes easily.  Ask your husband to take off the salmon skin.

For the side, I made some quinoa and then heated up some black beans to stir in.  I don't know if you have ever tried qunioa, but you really should if you haven't.  It's similar to a grain, but it's not!  It's really a seed and it's not only gluten free, but it's also a complete protein.  It reminds me of cous cous as far as taste goes.  Anyway if you make it with chicken broth it's really delicious.  And you can add some black beans or lemon juice, maybe some corn, or some spices, or herbs, or whatever you want to add some flavor.

Do you like seafood?  Do you have to be creative to find ways to prepare foods you don't like, either?  Please tell me I'm not the only adult in the world who is picky!

Linked up to Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Real Food Wednesdays.