Adventures in Cooking

I am slowly but surely getting back into the swing of cooking after the kitchen. Hey, 5 months without a kitchen - I need to ease back into cooking!

I try to make dishes that will provide us with leftovers we can eat over the course of the week since we really get home too late to cook a proper meal before Madeleine needs to get her bath and story before bed. A couple of years ago I bought some cedar planks with the thought of using them on the grill. I wanted to try them this weekend and salmon was on sale at the grocery store ... all I needed was the recipe.

I remember seeing a recipe for cedar plank salmon in an old issue of Cooking Light. I searched the website and found a different one instead - Cedar-Planked Salmon with Barbecue Spice Rub. Seemed easy enough, soak the planks, make a rub, rub the fish and cook. Bonus, it was in an article entitled 'Grill Once, Eat Twice' with the second meal being tacos. Easy yet we technically aren't eating the same thing again.

I was standing at the sink chopping the vegetables for one of our side dishes, Cabbage and Corn Slaw with Cilantro and Orange Dressing, when I noticed it was pretty gray outside. Actually it was very gray out one window. Wait - it isn't gray - that's SMOKE!

I flew downstairs to the grill and smoke was just pouring out of it. Visions of charred salmon were dancing in my head and I was already planning a replacement meal of scrambled eggs and bacon. I opened the grill and there sat my two pieces of salmon, on their respective planks, completely surrounded by fire. If I hadn't panicked at the thought of supper going up in flames I would have taken a picture before trying to rescue the salmon. Literally, they were surround by a ring of fire. Whoops, maybe I didn't soak them long enough.

Eh, regardless of the fact they almost went up in flames it was a very tasty supper. I rounded out the meal with Springtime Pasta Salad since I am a huge fan of dill and Madeleine is an olive fiend. She even polished off the salmon I gave her. Of course, she called it chicken ... but she ate it!