Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Jacq's Secret Salmon

Everyone can use a little inspiration in the kitchen sometimes, so I thought I'd share my special recipe for yummy oven baked salmon.  It's super easy to make and extra delicious.

Heat your oven to 350'F - 375'F

I start with 2 FRESH Atlantic salmon fillets. (In my opinion, Atlantic salmon is by far better than Pacific!)

Using a glass baking dish, cover it with aluminum.  This decreases the amount of clean up after dinner.

From there I use President's Choice Basil Parmesan dressing and brush it across the bottom of the dish.  If you don't have that in your cupboard, you can use any sort of oil based salad dressing.

Place the salmon fillets in the dish and spread some more dressing across the top. You can use as little or as much as you want, but I like to make sure it has a good layer.

Sprinkle the top with spices such as Thyme and Basil. I like to add Red Pepper Flakes for a bit of a kick. To top it all off, sprinkle the top with Parmesan Cheese.  This melts nicely over the salmon.

Fold the edges of the aluminum around the salmon, creating it's own oven, so that no heat escapes.

Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes (depending on your oven).  You'll know it's ready when it's a light pink colour and can flake easily with a fork.

If you're not sure how long to bake it for, I would lessen the amount of time you have it in. If it's not cooked through, you can carefully watch it in the oven. If you keep it into long though, it'll turn out dry. And no salmon tastes good dried out.



Serve with steamed asparagus and roasted potatoes and you have an amazing and tasty meal, and you barely broke a sweat!

Enjoy!

(And let me know how yours turned out!)





Need a place to find some fresh salmon? You can always visit your local Superstore or Zehrs, but I recommend Caudles Catch. They have the most fresh and delicious fish I have ever tasted. With four locations in the KW-area, there is guaranteed to be one near you!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Looking through a different window

Hello dear friends. Recently I've had a huge inspiration/writer's block when it came to blogging, but the fog has seemed to clear and hopefully we'll get this back up and running!

If there's one thing that I've really been thinking about lately, it's been perspective.  The other day I had a really great conversation with two of my really great friends, Heidi (almost Fleming) Headon and Amy Stevens (check out their blogs!) and I wanted to share some thoughts.

Amy was leaving that evening to fly back to Israel, and we were talking about everything that was going on in the Middle East.  It was then that I realized just how much we have to be thankful for and how sometimes we just need to have a bit of a "perspective shift."

Right now, so many of us (myself included) are so quick to complain about how high gas prices are and that it's ridiculous to have to pay so much.  But really, would we rather be in a country full of riots and continuous death or living in a peaceful and free country, just having to pay an extra five bucks at the pump?

Or, we sit and complain continuously about the weather; how it's freezing and how we shouldn't have to put up with the "bi-polarness" of Canada.  In reality, though, we could be in Japan right now, having our city washed away and searching through debris in hopes of finding our lost loved ones.  I'm not sure about you, but I'll take the -25 degrees and an extra 5 bucks for gas over that any day.

What I'm trying to say is that sometimes we need to look at things through a different window and remind ourselves just how blessed we are to live in the country that we do.

Cheers.