Spice Rubbed Roasted Salmon with Lemon Garlic Spinach for Mother's Day at the Cooking Light Supper Club

This month's edition of the Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club is a rather special one for me. We're doing a celebration of Mother's Day. I happen to have the very good fortune of having my mother, who is a holocaust survivor, still around, still sharp as a tack and still telling me what to do.

In some ways I could say that my mom, also known as baba, the babster or bugs baba is the original inspiration for this blog. Food was always a focal point in our home. I'm sure many can relate to this but I've always felt that for someone who went through a period of her life where food was so scarce, having it, respecting it, taking care of it and not wasting it was something my mom always imparted. To this day, she would be horrified to see us throwing food away.

We've captured so many of baba's recipes on this blog by trying to reproduce something that had no real recipe or by having her share her food stories and life in the "old country"

On this Mother's Day, I'd like to share this wonderful recipe for Spice Rubbed Roasted Salmon with Lemon Garlic Spinach

Ingredients

Salmon:
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (2 1/4-pound) skinless salmon fillet
2 cups thinly sliced onion
Cooking spray

Spinach:
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 (6-ounce) packages fresh baby spinach
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Remaining ingredients:
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
Lemon wedges (optional)

Preparation
Preheat oven to 400°.
To prepare salmon, combine first 6 ingredients; rub spice mixture evenly over fish.
Place onion in an 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
Place fish on top of onion; bake at 400° for 20 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork or until desired degree of doneness.

To prepare spinach, heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.
Add garlic to pan; cook 1 minute.
Add half of spinach; cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently.
Add remaining spinach; cook 4 minutes or until wilted, stirring frequently.
Sprinkle spinach mixture with rind and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir in juice; remove from heat.
Place salmon on a platter.
Arrange onions and spinach evenly around salmon. Sprinkle salmon with chopped fresh cilantro. Serve with lemon wedges, if desired.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!  I hope your day makes you feel as special as you are to us.

Citrus Granola Parfait

Are you on Pinterest? If your answer is "no", you probably need to be checking it out. I love being able to go to an online resource that allows me to create virtual "boards", label them according to my own personal interests and when I'm surfing the internet for interesting things in line with my interests, I can save them (pin them) to my boards and have the original source to link to. This can be a recipe, a product, a hairdo or even just a great piece of photography. The options are broad and the site is so easy to maneuver. I'm so hooked. I've found new blogs and a wealth of creativity and inspiration.

I could eat breakfast for every meal and be entirely happy. Breakfast for snacks works too. One of the recipes that I pinned this past week was a citrus granola from The Tolerant Vegan that she featured as a parfait coupled with yogurt. I'm not so sure where this compulsion to "make this as soon as possible" comes from but I suspect if you're reading this you totally get it.

This recipe made enough to make 4 generous parfaits but now that I've made it and tried it, the next batch will be multiplied to have enough around to last for a month.

Recipe adapted from Oprah.com

zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 lime
zest of 1 orange
2 tablespoons grape seed oil
4 tablespoons orange juice
4 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoon lime juice
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup raw walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup almonds, chopped
1/4 cup unsweetened dried coconut
1/4 cup flax seed
1/4 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/4 cup dried cranberries
16 ounces yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees fahrenheit.
Combine all of the ingredients except the yogurt together in a large bowl Spread in a 9x13 pan (or cookie sheet)

Bake for 15 minutes and give it a stir. Bake for another 15 minutes. Cool completely. To make

parfaits, layer yogurt and granola finishing with the granola. I love the fresh taste of the citrus in this granola. The lime especially comes through - it'll put a smile on your face and leave you wanting more.

 

Mexican Chicken Casserole

Spring inspires me to get in the cupboards and use up alot of the accumulated cans of things that were so important to get for a recipe that just somehow never materialized. When Psychgrad put up a Mexican style dish it reminded me of how much I've come to love Mexican flavours. I have to admit I honestly don't know but when I think of Mexican food the ingredients that come to mind are beans, chili peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro. I had some ground chicken and turkey in the house so I just started to layer and the end result was amazing. You don't need a recipe to create something fantastic; a good pallet helps and some imagination and you're good to go.

1 lb (450 g) ground chicken
1 lb (450 g) ground turkey
1/2 large onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 14 oz can black beans
1 14 oz can kidney beans
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 7 oz tin tomato paste
1 Tbsp chili flakes
2 Tbp taco seasoning
2 Tbsp dried cilantro (you could use fresh)
taco chips
12 oz mix of pepper jack, mozarella and cheddar cheese
3 Tbsp olive oil

1.  In a large saucepan on medium heat, fry onions and red pepper in olive oil until soft (3 minutes).  Add garlic and mix well.
2.  Add ground chicken and turkey and cook until no longer pink. 
3.  Continue to layer each of the ingredients (i.e. add slowly) combining the flavours as you go up to and including the dried cilantro.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Check seasonings - add more heat or taco seasoning to your taste.
4.  Put a layer of taco chips on the bottom of a large (11x14) oven dish and top with the casserole mixture.  Top with a layer of taco chips and finish with the cheese.
5.  Bake in a 350 degree oven  for approximately 40 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Note:  This recipe is enough for 6-8 hungry people.  You can easily cut it in half and add or delete ingredients as you wish.  Use jalapeno peppers if you have them and if you want more heat, leave the seeds in the peppers.