Garlic Salmon

Click here to see the recipe at Allrecipes.com.

I was craving savory meals this week after a disastrous attempt to cook rice pilaf in the slow cooker earlier this week. It was a mushy, bland mess. I am happy to report that the Garlic Salmon was a success! It smells fantastic and tastes great. It was easy and I used canned salmon to make it more affordable.

Canned whole salmon is surprisingly tasty. I was first introduced to it last summer by a friend, when we were making a Vietnamese salmon soup for 8 people. It’s fairly low in sodium (about 11% total daily value per serving) and it is pre-cooked. You can even save the bones and eat them “raw” for some extra calcium. I like to remove the spine at least and as many of the little bones as I can…I never get all of them but that’s okay, since the bones are softened from the canning process anyway…there’s no painful crunch when I’ve accidentally bitten into a bone! The canned version worked very well in this dish, although it’s not as pretty as salmon fillets….but I think my version of the dish is still presentable for guests. Using the pre-cooked salmon also shortens the cook and prep time considerably. I’d say this dish took less than an hour to prepare from start to finish. A good asset for a weekday meal!

Changes that I made: 1) Canned salmon for the fresh salmon fillets, I removed the bones as above and kind of separated the salmon into large chunks so that they would cover the bottom of an 8x8 baking pan. I like eating fish skin so I kept that, some people like to remove it because it can look…unusual. 2) dried dill weed, about ¼-1/2 tsp, I just sprinkled the dried herb over the salmon until it looked like there was enough! And 3) I used an ungreased 8x8 baking pan and covered it with foil. I cooked it in the over for 15 minutes, just long enough for the herbs and lemon to heat through and release their aromatics.

I am still looking for my camera…hopefully it will turn up when I clean my house!

Grocery receipt for this week:

1) Egg whites, $3.50
2) Pink Salmon (canned salmon), $2 x 2
3) Store brand vanilla soymilk, $2.56
4) Cilantro, $0.58/bunch
5) Yellow onion, $0.48, ($0.88/lb)
6) Bagged Dole Spinach, $2.38
7) Bulk garlic, $0.28, ($2/lb)
8) Bagged green onion, $1.18
9) Bagged celery, $1.46
10) Cauliflower, $2.66
11) Broccoli crowns, $0.89, ($1.68/lb)
12) Limes, $0.25/each
13) Tortillas, whole wheat, 96% fat free, $2.52
14) DumDum lollipops, 1 lb bag, $2.50

Total: $26.20. Yes, I went a bit over this week because of the DumDums, but I used some extra money to pay for them...they're actually for work, so they don't really count towards the grocery bill.