Jack Daniels glaze for salmon

Have you ever gotten so fixated on a recipe that you end up making that dish week after week all summer?  Me neither (ahem).  But if I did, it might be this salmon with Jack Daniels glaze.  Hubby professes not to like salmon, but what he seriously objects to is the salmon-flavor.  If you bury that under a mess of glaze, it's good times and great taste, I promise.

I bet this glaze would also be awesome on chicken and shrimp.  Or drizzled on sweet potato or broccoli or...it's good, friends.



Simple Jack Daniels glaze

1/2 cup Jack Daniels whiskey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.

Rinse and pat dry 2 salmon filets, place them in a baking dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

In a saucepan, stir together glaze ingredients and simmer over low heat until the consistency is more syrup-y (about 15 minutes).  Once sauce starts to simmer, put salmon in the oven to cook.

Cook salmon for 15 minutes.

Ladle about half of the glaze onto the salmon.  On the first go, I pour on quite a bit.  It caramelizes in the oven, and then I baste from the thickened sauce in the baking dish.

I keep basting every 5 minutes or so until salmon is cooked through (we like ours well-done so this is about 25 minutes total from when the salmon first went into the oven).

Trying recipes from My Berlin Kitchen

I told you I would get back to you after I tried out a couple of recipes from My Berlin Kitchen, and here I am!  You didn't think I forgot, did you?

First up, the ragù.  In the book, Luisa warns you that any cook time of less than 5 hours simmering this sauce isn't really worth it.  I can see why she says this.  I started my prep after lunch, and my whole house smelled moderately awful until at least 3pm (though I should probably add the disclaimer that we are not big meat-eaters and very rarely pork eaters--this recipe requires 1 pound each of beef and pork).  Thank goodness it was a reasonable temperature outside, so I could open the windows and back door.  My wee girl kept wondering aloud what that horrible stink was, and I pretended not to know.  Not appetizing.  Then, around the 3 or 4 hour mark, something changed.  The smell changed for sure.  I didn't taste the ragù early on while it was distinctively fragrant, but I'm betting the flavor made a huge leap forward too.  At the 5 hour mark, it smelled almost sweet and definitely delicious.  The flavor was great, far greater than the sum of its parts.  In addition to being easy to cook, it's a solid basic sauce, good on pasta or lasagna or frozen for future use.  I'm glad we stuck it out, but I will remember next time to prep on a weekday when my eaters are not at home during the early stages.  My oh my.



Next, the buttermilk panna cotta.  I knew this had to be made before I even finished reading that chapter.  Luisa wrote about the glories of a cold drink of buttermilk on a hot summer day.  I bet most people I know would screw their noses up at this idea, but my husband wholeheartedly agrees.  He has tried repeatedly over the years to sing the praises of buttermilk in hopes I might adopt it too.  I love to cook with it, but drink?  Not so much.  This dessert seemed a perfect match for both of us, and it was!  Cream, vanilla beans, and buttermilk cooked and cooled to perfection.  The texture of creme brûlée (minus the burnt sugar shell).  So smooth, cool and absolutely delicious!  The perfect summer dessert for grown-ups (our girls tried it but couldn't get past the buttermilk tang).  We loved it with and without the berry topping Luisa recommended.  Yum.

Have you tried and loved any new recipes lately?

Meditation through dinner prep

Yesterday afternoon, I was feeling awfully run down.  I had been hit by the Allergy Bus.  Actually, the Allergy Bus ran me over, backed up and did it again.  All that sneezing, sniffling and gravelly scratching in my eyes and throat left me seriously tired and cranky.  I knew I needed to reset my mood, but there was dinner to be prepared.  I washed and peeled carrots for a favorite salad to serve alongside our curry.  Although I have made this over a dozen times, always taking the easy route and grating them up in the food processor*, last night found me carefully cutting five carrots into matchsticks.  I have never bothered to devote so much time to prep, but there was unexpected pay-off.  The careful attention required by this precise cutting worked as a meditation.  I gave it my full attention, and the grouchiness slumped away.

Also, the salad was awesome.  Good food always helps!



*Honestly, the salad is perfectly delicious grated, just in case you wondered.

Baked oatmeal

Heidi Swanson's super natural every day continues to be a revelation of foodie goodness. This morning: baked oatmeal. Excuse me while I say OMG. Until now, I've never been a huge oatmeal fan. It's okay, but I'd rather have something else most of the time. Not so with baked oatmeal. Wow. Yum! I wanted to call and wake up the neighbors so I could bring some over to share while it was hot out of the oven.

Of course, my kidlets wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Well, one did, just to irritate my dear Miss Super-Picky, but then even she moved onto cold cereal. Their loss. Seriously. Hubby had already eaten half of his usual bircher muesli by the time the baked oatmeal was ready, so he just wanted to try it...and downed two helpings in a flash.

If you love good eatin', do yourself a favor and purchase this cookbook immediately (you can find six sample recipes here). Your tummy will thank you.

(gail, look away) I poached an egg!

Let me preface this by admitting that I am not a big egg fan. I simply don't care much for them as a breakfast solo act. Not my thing. But you see, Australians on the whole are big breakfast fans. It's not uncommon to find all day breakfast at many restaurants, and forget eating anything other than brunch on a Sunday. The star: Eggs. Without fail.

Whilst lamenting this phenomenon to a friend, she turned to face me, shock written all over her face, stunned to realize that I hadn't even tried Eggs Benedict. "Eggs Benedict is absolutely delicious, my absolute favorite...not at all egg-y. Poached eggs aren't like other eggs."

Hmm...

But trying said poached eggs in a restaurant would cost upwards of $15 for something that, let's face it, I'm fully prepared not to like. Poaching an egg at home is rumored to be seriously overcomplicated, thus an abundance of silicone molds and other plastic poaching assistants in the kitchen shops. I'm not too intrigued by those either. Enter my latest favorite cookbook, Heidi Swanson's super natural every day. In the back, she has a two-page discussion of egg poaching technique and promises that her method results in a perfectly poached egg every time. Bold claim! I had to try it, if only for the fun of the kitchen chemistry experiment...and voila!

Wow. I poached an egg. A beautifully, perfectly poached egg on the very first try.

While I will come clean and admit I did not finish it (there is still a texture threshold to be crossed here), I may just have to try Eggs Benedict next...

**my wonderful friend gail once explained her vegetarian (now vegan) lifestyle to me. even when she wasn't vegan, she couldn't even consider eating eggs because "that's just gross." so, sorry, gail. I think you will appreciate the kitchen chemistry, though. it's pretty magical, making that perfect little egg parcel.