Too many of us live crazy busy lives. Up in the morning at the gym, then off to the office, we get home somewhere between 6:00 and 7:00 where we want to spend time with family and friends and we are too tired to cook some deeply involved meal. That doesn’t mean we have to stop off at our favorite take out place on the way home for dinner.
A few of you have asked for meals that you can cook very quickly when you get home and I put some thought into the matter. I’ve tried to keep these meals fairly light and very easy to execute. To keep the reading interesting and manageable I plan to release these meals as a series. Tell me your thoughts on that decision. I see no reason to wait any longer, let’s get to eatin!
Pan roasted salmon and broccoli with rice. Thirty minutes and you are eating dinner. You could substitute the rice with an escarole and endive salad with oil and vinegar and cut this down to Twenty minutes.
2 portions of salmon (skin removed)
1 medium head of broccoli
½ cup of rice (uncooked)
Season the salmon with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder and cayenne pepper. Always season both sides of your fish. Set to the side while you prepare the broccoli and rice/salad. Drizzle about a tablespoon of olive oil into a hot non-stick skillet. Carefully place the salmon filets into the skillet, former skin side up. The salmon should brown up really nicely in about 2-3 minutes per side. Then place the skillet in the oven. At this time you will be turning the oven back to 350 degrees from 400, where it will be for the broccoli. I like my salmon medium but you can play with the temperature and get it to your liking. It will be ready in about 5-7 minutes
Cut the head of broccoli into florets and toss them in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and put into a 400 degree oven for about 12-15 minutes. Broccoli should be tender and slightly browned. If you want it to cook a little longer just leave it in with the salmon. When removed you can top the broccoli with some good EVOO and optional, freshly grated Parmesan.
Do I really need to tell you how to cook rice? The directions on the box are perfect. The one key is to not remove the lid during the cooking process. Other than that you can add some really cool flavor and color by experimenting with various spices in the cooking water. My personal favorite is turmeric.
Quick Tips:
Prep vegetables ahead of time, perhaps on Sunday evening. You will want to always keep onions, peppers, celery, carrots and garlic prepped and ready for cooking. I also like to keep mushrooms at all times. If you slice, dice, and chop your veggies all at once it will save time all week. Just watch your fingers, will ya! I strongly suggest having a good set of airtight plastic or glass container, these make for great storage of your prepped veggies. And they stack nicely in the fridge, saving space.
With garlic, I like to buy 2 heads at a time and sit at the island, watching TV while I peel cloves of garlic and drop them into an airtight container. I then store them in the friends and they keep beautifully for a while. This is much cheaper than buying the jars of peeled garlic. Don’t believe me? Go look! It’s worth a little bit of time. To make it easy, I roll the cloves between my fingers to loosen the husk. Then I peel it off fairly easily.
I also suggest having a good bit of greens prepped for salads. You can certainly mix up what greens you choose or you can stick to a favorite. There are great pre-packaged salads in your favorite produce section.
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