Cheesy Zucchini Rice and AH-mazing salmon!

Hello all! This blog is dedicated to my Aunt Sandra who requested a no garlic, no onion dinner for my Uncle Kevin who is allergic. It was tough, but I DID IT!  Cheesy Zucchini Rice and Ah-mazing salmon!

Look how succulent and delicious! You can's see the cheesy zucchini rice in the background but I'll have more pictures on that later.

 A few weeks ago I went to an Italian restaurant, which shall not be named, and ordered Salmon with pesto. I'm not sure what I was served but it sure as heck wasn't salmon. It was crunchy on the ends, dry and kind of tasted like particle board. Super yucky! I was so disappointed because I think salmon can be one of the most delicious fishes if cooked properly. Now if you ever want REALLY good salmon you have to go to Washington state or Idaho, they really know how to do salmon! But if you can't go there, this recipe is a great substitute.
This ended up taking a whole lot longer (cooking time only) that I planned, but it was well worth it. I'd say that I probably had only 30 minutes of hands on time split between both dishes, but as I said the cooking took a bit longer than I expected.  So, if you have an hour and fifteen to kill before dinner or want to do this on a weekend it is so worth it, you'll thank me.
Ok so Salmon first because it took a bit longer. So get the salmon ready and in the oven and then you can do the rice and hopefully they'll be done around the same time, :-)

Ah-mazing Salmon

Here is the original recipe: (Blink and you'll miss it) http://thedevilspunchbowl.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/drinking-coffee-at-8pm-fierce/

 

Ingredients:

Salmon fillets ~0.5 lb per fillet

3 Lemons

4 Tbs Butter

Salt & Pepper

Fresh Dill (or dried)

Pre-heat oven 300F

Slice lemons in ~sixths and set fresh dill aside

  Put a piece of foil down on the counter (~1.5 feet long) and place 3 rows of 3 lemons on the sheet. Place 2 fish fillets, skin side down on the lemons

 Salt and pepper the fillets

Place butter on the fillets. I cut the butter length wise and approximately 1 mm thick

Place fresh dill on top

Isn't this just pretty?

Wrap the salmon up like a present

And here is where it went wrong! The recipe said Bake at 300F for 25 minutes. Here is what mine looked like at 25 minutes

Ewwww! Raw in the middle! Edges looked about done, but the middle was far from it. It was still so cool the butter had not melted

Soooo, I rotated the filets so that the uncooked part was on the outside and then baked them another 15 minutes... Still wasn't done. So I went another 10 minutes (50 minutes total) And....

TA DA!!! Done but still juicy! Perfectly cooked!

Now for the side dish...

Cheesy zucchini rice

This had a few more ingredients, but its totally easy to do while the salmon is cooking. I cut some corners to make it a bit healthier and when I wrote up the recipe on Livestrong.com 1/8 of the finished bowl was ~169 calories! Here is the link to the breakdown I wrote up just in case you're curious. http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/cheesy-zucchini-rice/ 

 I wanted to use brown rice, but didn't have any that wasn't mixed with other things. The brown rice I had was trader joe's and had Black barley and Daikon Radish seeds. When I made this rice for my Aunt in Columbia she said it looked like it had mouse turds in it, so I decided not to share that with you all. It tastes delicious, but I also know looks are important when enticing people to eat something and no matter how you dress them up, something that looks like a mouse turd is not appetizing. So next time I'll try to make this with brown rice and see what happens. 

Here is the link to the original recipe: http://bunsinmyoven.com/2012/06/28/cheesy-zucchini-rice/

Ingredients

1 TBS olive oil

1 c. basmati rice

2 c. reduced sodium chicken broth

2 TBS butter

3 c. of shredded zuccini (I used my food processor but a cheese grater would work well, too)

1 c. shredded 2% sharp cheddar

salt and pepper, to taste

1/3 c. skim milk

Instructions

 Shred the zucchini

Heat the olive oil in a medium sauce pan over medium heat.

Add the rice and stir to coat. Toast the rice, stirring often, just until it starts to turn golden.

Pour in the chicken broth, bring to a boil, turn heat to low, and cover.

Cook, covered, for 15 - 20 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed.

Remove from the heat and add the butter, shredded  zucchini, and cheddar. Stir until well incorporated. 

Heat milk for 30 seconds in the microwave and add to the mixture. Stir again and add salt and pepper to taste.

Finished! I would eat this over and over again! It was lovely! The zucchini gave a bit of crunch to it which made the texture interesting.

So, this was a complete meal and although it took twice as long for the salmon to cook it was well worth the wait. When I asked Matt what he thought he said, he'd eat all of it any time I want to make it, so I'd say that's a good stamp of approval. As a side note, there is no way I ate 1/8th of the bowl of zucchini rice, it was more like 1/6th. I had seconds, and thought about thirds... it was delicious! Can't wait to have it again for lunch tomorrow!
Happy Eating!