Lovely evening last night. I'm reminded of how important it is to spend time with friends. We decided to recreate one of our Beaver Island dinners as a thank you to Teri and Brian for them including us on that trip. I did the salmon my favorite, easy way—poaching it in olive oil, herbs, and lemon. I put a drizzle of olive oil in the bottom of the pan, then fresh herbs (we had tarragon, thyme, and garlic chives–which are oddly low-fodmap—and lemon slices. We packed the salmon in pretty tightly–otherwise, you'd have to use a ton of olive oil, and since you're not trying to roast it, it's fine close together. In fact, when I make this for the two of us (the guys don't like fish), I put it in a loaf pan. Then add olive oil, so it comes partway up the side of the salmon, finish off with more herbs and lemon…oh, and some salt. Then you pop it in a 300 oven for about half an hour. I made up a couple of platters of spinach, arugula, mixed greens, walnuts, and strawberries. When the salmon was done, I just broke it into chunks and put it over the salad, using the flavored olive oil from the pan as the dressing. It was pretty delightful. Oh, and I seared up a bunch of scallops in brown butter.
I always end up smoking up the house with my cast iron pan. But, HELL, look at that sear!
I think this is about the tenth time I've written about this recipe. Oops. It's just so damned good. I made chocolate avocado pudding for dessert but it was a tad odd. I used the smooth-skinned avocados instead of the nubbly ones I usually use, and it didn't work as well. Lesson learned. Not bad, just not as good as I've made in the past. That and some cherries was dessert. A bit of wine and beer was consumed, the guys hung out for a bit, we all scratched off lottery tickets to no avail. It was lovely.
Onward.