Pretty Little Apron

dijon mustard

Ceasar Encrusted Salmon with Lemon and Goat Cheese Asparagus

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caecarsalmon

 


 

 

We were out for the day and dinner time was approaching. How easy it would be to just stop for something, we thought. Something in the back of my mind just kept saying NO, don’t do it, you know that food is junk. I remembered that we had frozen salmon at home, which is really easy to unfreeze and throw in the oven. We also had asparagus and sweet potatoes to make with the fish so I knew I had a complete meal that could be made at home. When I finally got to sit down and eat, I was so happy I chose the unprocessed route.

For the salmon, I prepared an olive oil based Ceasar dressing to coat the salmon with before putting the breadcrumbs on top. The dressing is really simple, and contains just a few real ingredients… olive oil, lemon juice, anchovy paste, Dijon mustard, and salt and pepper. If you just read the words anchovy paste and thought “Forget about this recipe!”  let me ease your mind. All Ceasar dressings get their distinct flavor from either anchovies or anchovy paste. I have been making real Ceasar dressings for quite a few years in restaurants and I got over the whole anchovy thing a long time ago. If you are worried about the ingredient, step outside the box just a little and give it a try. I promise once you taste the salmon you’ll be thanking me! The real base of flavor from Ceasar dressing comes from the anchovy paste, so it isn’t an ingredient you can omit.

I don’t use store-bought breadcrumbs because they are actually one of the WORST products found in grocery stores. Who knew those seemingly simple breadcrumbs actually contain about 50 ingredients including trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils), and high fructose corn syrup? To make your own you simply place two pieces of bread in the oven while it is preheating and let them get a bit toasty (or you could use a toaster and toast them lightly). You don’t want your bread to get overly toasted, just a bit dry. Take them out of the oven, put them in a blender or food processor for a minute and that’s it! Once they are processed you season them and add a bit of olive oil to get a nice and crispy topping for your salmon. I promise once you do this, you will never be tempted to buy the store bought garbage again! Just an FYI, I use a whole grain, 100% natural bread from Food for Life. It is a sprouted grain bread that will knock your socks off because it doesn’t contain soybean oil, sugars, additives, or preservatives. Every single ingredient is identifiable and necessary. Please check them out in the frozen section of the organic isles in your grocery store!

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With the salmon I served this lemon and goat cheese asparagus. It is another really simple side to put together quickly that is nutritious and delicious. It is really as simple as steaming/boiling the asparagus, seasoning it, and adding the cheese. I love my asparagus with big chunks of freshly cracked black pepper as well!

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Lemon and Goat Cheese Asparagus

Ingredients:

  • About 25 asparagus spears
  • 1/2 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp white wine
  • 1/2 tsp olive oil
  • sprinkle of salt
  • sprinkle of pepper
  • sprinkle of garlic powder
  • 1-2 ounces goat cheese

Directions: Steam/boil  asparagus. Put asparagus, lemon juice, olive oil, and white wine in a small sauté pan and allow wine to cook off (give it some heat).  Add seasonings, remove from heat and crumble goat cheese on top to serve.

Thick and Creamy Cheeseburger Macaroni Soup

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Ok, I admit my husband was right on this one. Don’t expect that I’ll be singing his right-praises any time again soon, but this one was a homerun! No, it was a grand slam. But don’t ask me anything else about baseball because those are the only two terms I know so let’s just move on.

While I was slaving over a hot pot of soup my husband walked by and suggested I add some mustard. Like, for real. Sometimes he is the voice of reason, but I was skeptical about this one for a minute. Then I remembered this genius little pizza we used to make at a café I worked at and I thought maybe he was on to something. I reluctantly added a little and it was pure manly goodness. It was reminiscent of those two love birds ketchup and mustard coming together on one bun, and oozing out in some sort of orange goodness that only ketchup and mustard can produce. If you are totally salivating right now this one is for you! Now where’s the bacon!?!

cheeseburger soup

This is one of those dishes that just won’t go away. You think you are done but you just keep coming back for more until your day is officially a fat day now. You know, one of those days where you’ve eaten like a cow for the past 10 hours but your still considering a huge bowl of ice cream after the kids go to bed? Yeah, this may or may not induce a day of shameless eating because it is just so good and you can’t get away from it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

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Some tips for this recipe… you may need to adjust the seasoning to taste. Also, if you prefer a thicker soup add 2 Tablespoons of flour at the end to thicken it up more. This will reduce the amount of broth you will have. This isn’t a super brothy recipe to begin with, so if you’d like it thinner I would suggest adding an additional cup of milk.

Whole Wheat Greek Pasta Salad

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I have been eyeing the beautiful packs of multi-colored cherry tomatoes at the grocery store ALL summer long. Each time I go, I put the pack into my cart and walk away. My kids scream, we grab a few other things, and inevitably I always end up back in the produce section talking my little self out of my way kewl pack of multi-colored tomatoes. Until today… when I put them in my cart and told my colorful produce loving self that today was the day I was taking these babies home! *yessss*


Little did those colorful cherry tomatoes know they were going home with a Greek Pasta Salad loving food blogger, and in their near future they would be slathered with an amazingly delicious homemade vinaigrette and made to mingle with some feta cheese. After that they would be gobbled up for lunch, then again for an after school snack, and again for dinner. Yes, I ate this 3 times today! I shamelessly pulled that bowl out of the refrigerator and devoured those cherry tomatoes and all of their friends like it was going out of style… FAST! So fast I left 4 noodles for my son’s lunchbox tomorrow. *SMH* So now, due to my shameless lack of self control, I will be up earlier tomorrow to prepare something else for him. Might be time to break into that freezer stash of hot lunches… on the 2nd day of school. 😉

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The pasta I use in this recipe is whole wheat, because if you’ve been following along you know we don’t mess with that refined stuff. I used a pasta that I could not find a link to on Amazon, Whole Wheat Gobbetti made by Bionaturae. I love their products, and highly recommend any of their varieties if you can’t find the Gobbetti. And seriously.. what the heck is Gobbetti anyways!?!?!

 

 

 

Red Wine Vinaigrette

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redwinevin

I love this dressing on a spinach salad with feta, strawberries, and walnuts. This can also be used in place of Italian dressing in pasta salad recipes, or use for marinating chicken. It is super versatile and easy to make!


Maple Dijon Grilled Salmon

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grilledsalmon

I like to keep things simple with Salmon because it is so good on it’s own. I use a cast iron stove-top grill for this recipe and it is perfect because the best part of this salmon are the flavorful drippings underneath the salmon! When I remove the salmon I scrape the goodness from the grill and put it right on-top of the fish. It makes this recipe that much better!


If you have never cooked with a cast iron griddle/grill before it does take some trial and error with temperatures. I’ve found the best thing to do is start very low, allow your grill to heat and if you need more heat turn it up little by little. Salmon is very delicate and the last thing you want to do is burn your fish to your grill in the first 2 minutes! Take it easy and you will have perfect result !

If you are on the market for cast iron cookware I highly recommend the brand Lodge. They have some really nice pieces that will last a life-time if you take care of them. Before doing anything with cast iron read up on how to take care of it. I’ve learned the hard way what to do/not to do with cast iron and replacing pieces is such a waste! Here is a link to the grill I use (I love it).

Creamy Caesar Dressing…. Mason Jar Style!

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ceacar Have you ever checked the ingredient list of the dressing you are using? Thankfully, I have… and all I can say is I will never be consuming store bought dressing again! Something about dumping a bunch of chemicals, artificial flavoring, and preservatives on a beautiful mound of spinach doesn’t make sense. Another reason I will never be purchasing store bought dressing again is the false advertising I have seen from the companies making these products. When I searched for the ingredients I went to the website for Ken’s Steakhouse and they were promising to be using “only the most select ingredients.” They have very clever phrases printed on their packages, for instance “Chef’s Reserve.” This gives the impression your dressing was handcrafted in a steakhouse just for you but unfortunately everything about Ken’s marketing is an illusion. Here are the 26 ingredients in the creamy Caesar:

INGREDIENTS: Soybean Oil, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Egg Yolk, Parmesan Cheese (Pasteurized Part Skim Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes), Garlic, contains less than 2% of: Salt, Olive Oil, Sugar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Spices, Natural Flavor, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Benzoate and Calcium Disodium EDTA as Preservatives, Onion*, Xanthan Gum, Propylene Glycol, Alginate, Molasses, Corn Syrup, Caramel Color, Anchovy (Fish), Tamarind, Titanium Dioxide (for color). *Dried.


Not exactly the select ingredients I thought Ken’s was talking about! I bolded all of the ingredients I consider questionable in this dressing, and there are a lot! Essentially your consuming genetically modified soy and a bunch of other unknown ingredients. Soybean oil is highly refined, unhealthy, and cheap so I choose not to consume it at all. For more on soybean oil click here.

I purchased a special glass bottle to make dressing that had a bunch of recipes printed on the bottle. In theory this was a great idea but trying to put thick ingredients into a small hole just doesn’t work out so well. I resorted to a half pint wide mouth mason jar and it was perfect! It fit just right into the jar and I realized this made it super easy to make without creating a bunch of dishes and a mess!