Salmon Brioche Sliders with Bacon & Apple-Horseradish Mayo

Bacon. Pan-seared salmon. Apple-horseradish mayo. Toasted buttery brioche buns.....the pictures tell it all. There were no leftovers.

Salmon in its final minutes with the brioche buns toasting above

Link to the recipe:
Salmon Sandwiches with Bacon and Apple-Horseradish Mayo

Grilled Wild Salmon with Cucumber-Avocado Salsa

We discovered this recipe a few years ago and still keep it in our back pocket as one of our favorite salmon recipes for the summer. The cucumber-avocado salsa is great citrusy topping for some grilled wild salmon. We paired it with sweet potato fries and white wine because...welll..Julia likes sweet potato fries and wine.

Wild salmon ready for the grill after we topped it with salt, pepper, chives, and cilantro

Grilled Wild Salmon with Cucumber-Avocado Salsa Recipe

Baked Sweet Potato "Fries" Recipe

Salmon Burgers with Sweet Potato Chips

As the weather gets nicer and everyone starts rolling out their grills, we recommend salmon burgers as a great alternative to your traditional beef burger. It's one of our go-to meals that we enjoy a few times a year. We have tried a couple of recipes but this one from Cooking Light is our favorite and includes lettuce, cucumbers, and a lime-cilantro-jalapeño mayonnaise for toppings.

Recipe Link

We accompanied the burgers with some quick and easy sweet potato chips. When buying the salmon from your fish guy (yes, Philippe has a fish guy...his name is Ray), ask him to remove the skin to save you some work.

Finely diced salmon ready to be mixed with cilantro, green onions, lime, and jalapeño

The salmon patties will be pretty fragile, so be gentle with them

Earlier that day we started off our morning with some whole grain blueberry waffles. Here is the recipe: Link

Quick and easy, yet so tasty.

On Sunday Julia had her alumnae field hockey game, where
the alums put up a good fight against the current team.

Salmon with Melting Tomatoes and Pine Nut Mint Couscous

Happy belated Holidays and New Year everyone!

To celebrate the New Year, Philippe traveled out to Los Angeles where it was sunny and 60 degrees on New Year's Day...not a bad deal.

While he was there, he gave Julia a new Barefoot Contessa recipe book to add to her collection for Christmas. She was so excited that we made 5 of the recipes that very weekend. The first three were made the very first night of Philippe's visit. For dinner, we had Ina Garten's Salmon with melting tomatoes and her couscous with peas, pine nuts and mint. For dessert, we tried her recipes for blondies which didn't disappoint.

Both dinner dishes were very simple to make (guess that's why her book is called "foolproof"). The salmon was first cooked in a cast iron skillet then moved to the oven while the tomatoes marinated with shallots in a skillet on the stove.

For the couscous, we just cooked it to the package directions, then added toasted pine nuts, chopped mint, defrosted frozen peas and some butter, lemon juice salt and pepper. We have learned that with Ina's recipes, it's  always a good idea to cut down on the salt and butter that she calls for. Trust us, you won't miss it...she tends to go a little overboard here!

Salmon, tomatoes, and couscous

mmmm mellllting

Our newly brunette chef..clearly doing all the hard work!

We paired the dinner with a sparkling rose wine, mostly because the wine said on the label to pair it with salmon....sold!

yum!

Here is the link to the couscous recipe:

Couscous with Peas and Mint Recipe : Melissa d'Arabian : Recipes : Food Network

We were not able to find the salmon recipe online...but it's definitely worth buying the book!

Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust: Ina Garten: 9780307464873: Amazon.com: Books

We also made Ina's blondie recipe for dessert which are highly recommended. You can find those here: 

Chocolate Chunk Blondies Recipe : Ina Garten : Recipes : Food Network

Salmon with avocado salsa and double broccoli quinoa

Now that the weather is starting to warm up, we have been looking forward to making our "salsa" recipes, which come in many varieties of chicken, steak, and fish, and usually include some kind of fruit. Tonight's salsa creation featured avocados, lime, cilantro, and red onions atop a fillet of salmon.

We got a little crazy with the side dish, trying quinoa for the first time in a "double broccoli quinioa recipe" found on Pinterest.com. The double broccoli comes from making a broccoli pesto that mixes in with steamed broccoli, toasted almonds and quinoa. This turned out well but was definitely more work than we usually put in to our side dishes. Even had to pull out the mini food processor compliments of KTG!

Salmon with avocado salsa recipe
Double broccoli quinoa recipe

mmm summer salsas

Dinner is served!

Salmon florentine with green beans

Tonight we made a salmon recipe from one of Julia's magazines, Self. The Salmon Florentine was topped with spinach, tomatoes and feta cheese. Shout out to Katie Garrison who has also made this recipe in the past and says it's a keeper! We decided to pair it with green beans that we just added onions and garlic to make a quick and easy side dish.

Salmon Florentine: Recipes: Self.com

We really liked this recipe. It is pretty simple and very healthy but still has lots of flavor. Will definitely make again!

Spinach, Artichoke, and Mushroom Risotto with Grilled Wild Salmon

Last night we decided to conjure up our own unique recipe using risotto as a base. Philippe ended up buying a lot of tasty things to mix together. No real measurements were used but the whole thing turned out excellent. We initially planned on just

Ingredients

• Sautéed mushrooms, artichoke hearts, onion, spinach and garlic
• Risotto cooked with white wine, chicken broth, lemon juice and butter
• Grilled wild steelhead salmon (actually a type of trout) 

Overall, the whole thing tasted great we had a whole bunch of healthy leftovers. We're a little behind on posting some of our recent meals, but we'll write the posts shortly.

Panko-crusted Salmon & Garlic Parmesan Broccoli

Tonight was our fist time making dinner at Julia's new studio apartment! Although it's a small kitchen to work with, the appliances are all brand new which is a big plus. There is also a new addition to the cooking-at-Julia's apartment experience...a kitchen table! We didn't have one at her old apartment, and it is definitely an improvement to actually enjoy our dinner while sitting at the table instead of on our laps on the couch!

To celebrate this joyous occasion, we made one of our favorite tried and true salmon recipes (introduced to us by momma Garrison..shout out!). We have made this panko-crusted salmon by The Barefoot Contessa a few times and it never dissapoints:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/panko-crusted-salmon-recipe/index.html

Our side dish was another Julia and Philippe favorite, cheesy broccoli. You really just can't go wrong with cheesy broccoli. No recipe required....just steamed broccoli that we sauteed with salt, crushed red pepper, garlic and parmesan.

Extra leftovers for Julia's lunch the next day....

Salmon and Broccoli..so happy together.

Chef Julia Steele: Very good as always..I can never say anything bad about this dish. A+!

Chef Philippe Michel: I loved it. But then again, Julia would say that I love everything that involves bread crumbs and lemon

Toasted Sesame Ginger Salmon

The star of tonight's dish was Toasted Sesame Ginger Salmon which we made with green beans and rice. We found the salmon recipe on Pinterest, which had been posted there from another blog called "How Sweet It Is" (link at the bottom!)

Props to Julia for finding this amazing recipe and to Philippe for pairing it with some delicious and nutritious sides. We just kind of threw together a few things for the beans...some toasted almonds and golden raisins with garlic. Pretty tasty if we do say so ourselves. The rice was pretty straightforward...we used up all our creativity points on the bean creation.Thank you Uncle Ben for the rice pilaf that tastes great straight out of the box.

We grilled the salmon on Philippe's Weber, which always does a great job of giving the fish a nice crispy texture. We first put the fish face down on the grill. When we flip it, we put some aluminium foil underneath the skin to help with clean up.

Salmon on the grill

 Cooked the green beans on the stove with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Once they were just about done, added some minced garlic then mixed in the toasted almonds and golden raisins.

Hungry chef in the kitchen

 Once the salmon has been marinated and grilled, you add a glaze on top with extra sesame seeds and scallions...YUM!!

Delicious meal on our plates

Link to the recipe

Chef Julia Steele's Rating: Loved it! Had a unique flavor compared to some other similar Asian-inspired salmon recipes we have made in the past. Paired nicely with the sides we included but could work with almost anything!

Chef Philippe Michel's Rating: Definitely my favorite meal of the blog so far. I highly recommend making the salmon. It's a bit involved with some non-typical ingredients but definitely worth it.

Chef's Choice Award