day 120: salmon challenge

I was stoked a few weeks ago when Matt came home from the grocery store with fresh salmon fillets. Matt doesn’t like salmon, so whenever we have it in the house I get to make whatever I want with it. I had homemade lox on the brain (something Matt hates most).

There was a catch though. Damn.

He says to me, “I bought this so you can make me a salmon recipe that I’ll actually like.” With that, I tossed the fillets in the freezer to be forgotten for 3 long weeks until today when I came across the PERFECT recipe. Italian-style shallow fried monkfish scalopinne in a red wine sauce from my favourite Italian cookbook Molto Italiano.

I thought it would work really well with salmon and gave it a go.

As a bonus I got to use the first of the fresh sage from my herb garden:

And how did it turn out?

Okay, so it’s not the most photogenic meal ever, but it was a definite SUCCESS!

To quote the husband: “This is restaurant quality. Maybe even better.”
Best Compliment Ever.

I guess I just have to work on my presentation skills before I can start serving this dish up to the masses.

Salmon Scaloppine with Red Wine and Sage

Adapted from Molto Italiano

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup durum semolina (or all purpose flour)
• Salt and pepper
• 1-pound piece salmon fillet, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
• 1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 c. diced white onion
• 8 fresh sage leaves
• 12 small manzanilla olives, sliced
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce of choice
• 2 Tbsp cold unsalted butter

Directions

Place the flour on a plate and season with salt and pepper.
Pound each salmon slice with a mallet to a 1/4-inch thickness.
Heat the olive oil in a 12- to 14-inch nonstick pan over medium high heat.
Dredge the fish in the seasoned flour and sauté in the hot oil until golden brown on both sides, 5 to 6 minutes total.
Remove the fish and keep warm.

Add onion and sage to the pan and sauté 3 minutes, until softened and starting to brown.
Add the wine, the tomato sauce, and the olives and bring to a boil.
Reduce temperature to a simmer and return the fish to the pan.
Add the cold butter, and simmer for 5 minutes. The sauce should thicken slightly to coat the fish.

Man I love Italian cooking

day 44: spay

Today Bagigis got spayed. Poor puppy

Here she was this morning:

… and tonight I came home to this:

Look how sad she is in her little cone

Matt picked her up from the veterinarian today after her surgery. The vet told him that Bagigis was in A LOT of pain– more pain than most dogs are after the surgery. Poor girl, she’s barely moving much. She’s supposed to be better tomorrow. I’m really hoping so!

Tonight I sliced up some lox that I made on the weekend. If you’ve never made your own lox, you should really try it! It’s the easiest thing ever. Maybe I’ll start a trend
This batch didn’t taste quite as good as the last batch, probably because I didn’t use as good quality fresh salmon.

Fresh salmon

add salt, pepper, sugar

add fresh dill

wrap it tight and leave it in the fridge a few days

slice

done.

day 14: protein

I’ve been trying to up my protein intake these past few weeks for a couple of reasons: primarily to help keep me feeling full so I stop mindless eating, but also to feed my muscles. I have pretty nearly doubled my protein intake since I’ve started doing the Bikini Birthday: going from around 50-60 g per day to 100-120g of protein per day. This increase in protein coupled with my decrease in fruit has led to less frequent BMs, so I’m going to have to work out a better balance between the two so I feel my best.

I’ve started drinking protein shakes after my weighttraining and I’ve been looking for ways to get protein from food sources as well. I’m not a big meat eater so I’m incorporating more eggs, fish, and cottage cheese into my diet.

I was really surprised by the amount of protein in cottage cheese! A cup of 1% cottage cheese is 70% protein (28g). So now I’m going to substitute my yoghurt for cottage cheese as much as possible. I ate some this morning with a tablespoon of peanut butter mixed in and found it to be quite substantial (although I was hungrier by 11:00 than I had been when I ate 2 eggs at breakfast)

Fish is also a great source of protein and how easy is it to just open up a can of tuna? Last week I was eating a pre-workout snack of a half can of tuna mixed with a teaspoon of salsa and spread on celery stalks. That half a can of tuna is about 95% protein or 14g! I was really impressed by this too.

Salmon is only about 30% protein, but it also has a lot of good heart-healthy fats. I really love lox, or cured salmon, so last weekend I got it into my head that I should try making it at home. I bought a pound of fresh Atlantic Salmon (since we don’t get Pacific salmon in the winter), covered it in salt, pepper, sugar, and dill, wrapped it up, and tossed it in the refrigerator. I completely forgot about it until Friday when I finally washed it off and sliced it up. I have to tell you, it turned out AMAZING. I was so impressed with myself. Try the recipe at home; it’s extremely easy.

Cured Salmon

Ingredients

• 1lb fresh salmon
• 2 tbsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp pepper
• 1 bunch fresh dill

Directions

Spread out a piece of plastic wrap and put the salmon in the middle, skin side down.

Mix the salt, sugar, and pepper together then spread on top of the salmon flesh, covering it all.

Put the bunch of dill on top (you don’t need to chop it up).

Wrap it all tightly with plastic wrap then put it into a baking dish or something that will catch the juices as it sits in your fridge.

Refrigerate at least 2 days (I left mine for 5).

Toss the dill and wash the salt off of the salmon. Slice thinly with a very sharp knife.

Rinse the salmon again.

Eat :d