Earl Makes Arugula Spinach Salad with Fennel, Bacon Chunks & Spanish Goat Cheese

Arugula Spinach Salad with Fennel, Bacon & Goat Cheese

We recently discovered a couple of additions to our homemade salads that really brighten the flavor and improve the crunch...arugula and fennel! Arugula has a nice bite to it, a bit like a radish, and fennel a hint of anise or licorice. Both add to the overall taste and texture of a homemade salad and are great additions.We like them so much that when I saw a Spinach & Arugula mix, I had to try it! Arugula is hard to find in the run-of-the-mill grocery stores for some reason, so I usually get mine at Trader Joe's. Finding this mix with arugula and spinach was a real departure for me because I usually don't buy mixes and almost never buy organic produce. We have both always loved spinach salads so I hoped the addition of arugula would make a great salad.

Trader Joe's Fennel Bulb

But an idea was formulating for a salad that had RAW fennel. It's texture is nice and crunchy, much like celery, but with that great hint of licorice. I have roasted it, but never had it raw in a dish until tonight. The fennel comes partially trimmed from Trader Joe's, all I had to do is cut it in half and slice the half lengthwise into salad size chunks. I should say bite size, because my wife (a.k.a. "Turkey"), thought my chunks were a bit big.

In addition to the arugula & spinach mix and the fennel bulb, I added grape tomatoes, halved, green onions (white & green portions), two kinds of cheese (Spanish goat cheese and blue cheese), my home-baked bacon chunks and my homemade croutons along with bottled dressing.Turkey decided against the cheeses, but liked the salad so much she took it to work for lunch the next day!

Earl Cooks Keta Salmon with Spinach & Sliced New Potatoes

I am gradually learning more about salmon the more I buy and cook it I saw some on sale the other day marked wild caught Keta Salmon in a dill butter, so I grabbed some. Wild caught and sustainably

Keta or Chum Salmon - Male

harvested, sounded good to me but I didn't know what 'keta" was. Keta salmon is second only to the king in size and inhabits waters throughout the Pacific Northwest. It has an unattractive nickname "chum" salmon. It is relatively neutral tasting. 
The salmon was frozen with 2 fillets vacuum packed and included the dill-butter sauce in on the fillets, which were skin on and about 6oz. each.The instructions are to defrost in the fridge and cook on the grill or in the oven. This was my first time, with these fillets, so I selected the oven.

 I started by seasoning the tray, not the potatoes. It is hard not to over season potatoes and I didn't want that. I then placed the sliced potatoes on the seasoning and drizzled some EVOO over the top. Then while the oven preheated, I put the tray of potatoes in and roasted them until the oven was hot. and covered them with the leaf spinach. I used caned but defrosted frozen would also work

 Once the oven was hot, I placed the fillets on a small baking sheet I hat sprayed with non-stick pan spray. Shown here with the dill butter sauce poured on top.





Here is the finished plate. I added a bit of butter to the spinach-potatoes as well as to the salmon. By the time my camera took the shot, it had melted to the side.
Results:
The salmon was good, although the dill-butter sauce was too mild and the potato-spinach side dish was underwhelming. I will definitely be cooking keta salmon again! Next time on the grill or stove-top though!

Earl Cooks Mediterranean Crusted Salmon with Spinach/Artichoke Riced Caulifower

Salmon has become the go-to seafood in our house. I originally started serving it because of it's health benefits, but now it is for it's versatility and flavor. It seems to be readily available year-round, and while not cheap, it is rather reasonable. I try to have it once a week, so I am always looking for new ways to season and serve it. While shopping a my local fishmonger (the seafood area in the butcher section at the chain grocery store), I spotted some salmon fillets that were pre-seasoned with a Mediterranean herb crust, so home they came! Now all I had to do was find a side that wouldn't negate the health benefits of the salmon, so I created Spinach/Artichoke Riced Cauliflower...what a MOUTHFUL. And yes it was a mouthful, but easy and per my wife's instructions, cleared a bit of cupboard space! The details follow...
Ingredients
̶  for the Spinach/Artichoke Riced Cauliflower

• 1 pkg Riced Cauliflower (frozen)
• 1 can Artichoke Bottoms
• 1 can chopped spinach
• Juice from 1 lemon
• Salt & pepper
• 1 TBL real butter

 ̶  for the fish

• 2 Mediterranean Herb crusted Salmon Fillets (5 oz). I bought mine at my local Smith's, a Kroger grocery subsidiary, but have seen them elsewhere and even in the frozen food section. You can also find crust recipes all over the internet
• Salt & Pepper
• Lemon
• 1 tsp real butter 

Instructions

̶  for the Spinach/Artichoke Riced Cauliflower

• Drain canned spinach and artichokes and rinse thoroughly
• Chop Artichokes
• Cook Riced Cauliflower per package instructions and drain any excess liquid
• Combine all and heat through
• Add butter, salt pepper and lemon juice to taste

 ̶  for the fish

• Cook per recipe instructions. If you are cooking fresh salmon, I recommend a skillet to give the skin the necessary crispness, but I cooked mine in the oven because the skin had been removed

Results/Conclusions

The salmon was good, though not as good as I have made before. I love artichokes, but the canned variety lacked the savory goodness of fresh. My wife likes canned spinach, or spinach in any form, so it was fine and we have come to enjoy riced veggies of all kinds. All-in-all it was a satisfying  weeknight meal, though next time, I will make a few changes.