Monday Night Salmon

As I'm sure is plainly evident by my lack of posts the past two weeks, I've not been doing much running or cooking, or really much of anything other than work, including sleeping, eating or most other normal daily activities. I've been a slave to my desk, laptop and blackberry. Takeout and Rob's simply yet thoughtfully prepared meals have sustained us. But, there have been a couple nights where I get home late enough where I don't want to cook anything at all involved, but early enough that I'm not desperate and bringing home something unhealthy and of the "fast" variety. On nights like this, I turn to recipes such as what I'll call my "Monday Night Salmon." It's insanely easy, and in 15 minutes you have a healthy, highly edible fish dish.

As for my preference in salmon, I must admit that Rob and I are kind of babies when it comes to salmon selection. Yes, I know that the wild caught variety, smallest possible fish, are the healthiest, like Coho and Sockeye (lower on the food chain equals less mercury blah blah blah) and the like...but...it really tastes much fishier than the lovely, smooth Norwegian farmed variety. And Wholefoods promises me that even though it's farmed, they don't use antibiotics or any of the other nasties that typically give farmed salmon a bad rap. So, I buy the Norwegian farmed salmon and to add insult to fishy injury, get it skinned at the fish counter. I almost came to blows (not really) with the fish monger at Wholefoods once over this request because he said I was removing a lot of the healthy fat and oils that make salmon good for you in the first place. I spared him the long story of how I just really don't like the way it makes the house smell when I cook it with the skin on and stood my ground. He grudgingly did as I'd asked, but I was still annoyed. Cut me some slack here guy, we're still eating salmon, not a T-bone! I now take my skinned farmed Norwegian salmon business to King Soopers, who sells the same fish, from the same supplier for half the price as Wholefoods, and never makes me feel less virtuous for having my salmon skinned.

Anyway, I digress...

Christie's Monday Night Salmon

Salmon filets - whatever the hell kind you like, skin, no skin, wild, farmed, whatever!!!

Drizzle with soy sauce

Drizzle with fresh lime juice

Sprinkle with sea salt, fresh ground pepper and ginger to taste. Freshly grated ginger is lovely, but again, this is MONDAY night salmon, so more often than not I'm using the dried powder variety and it's just fine.

I bake this in our handy dandy "counter top oven" aka toaster oven, because, once again time (and efficiency) are paramount here, and it requires no time to get up to temperature, unlike the big oven. I even line the pan with foil so I (err, Rob, let's be honest here Christie) don't have dishes to do. So, I throw it in there for about 15 mins at 300 degrees, but you can do higher temp for less time...whatever you want to get the fish to your preferred temperature. Unless I'm at a restaurant, I don't mess with "seared" so we go for cooked all the way through, flaky when forked on this.

I have found quick cooking brown and wild rices, of which I'm a huge fan. So I'll often get that going while I prepare the salmon. Then I'll cut up a head of broccoli and microwave steam it for five minutes, and there ya go...within 20 mins we have a very passable weeknight meal! Hooray! And no I don't have a beautiful picture to add to this post because, like I said, it's for late on a Monday night and who has time to take pics in a situation like this!?