This is going to be a shorter post as we’re going to post about the next week separately as I’m in LA! I’m as excited as you guys probably are to see what Mark eats while I’m away if he can’t stick to his staples of green thai curry or pesto pasta 😛 it’s not that he can’t cook though!

Here’s how we did on Thursday and Friday of last week:

15/01/2015: Superfood Salad with Pan-Seared Salmon from the Alaska from Scratch blog

http://www.alaskafromscratch.com/2014/01/14/superfood-salad-pan-seared-salmon/

How many more super foods could you actually stuff into one recipe? I was worried about how this would turn out given that the recipe said to massage the kale rather than cook it, but it turned out really well. Massaging (or rubbing awkwardly unsure of how the hell you’re meant to massage kale…) turns the leaves from tough and quite bitter, to soft and a little bit sweeter without having to boil/steam off any of the goodness! I also had some reservations about the quinoa as we’ve never really had it much before but it really worked with the salmon and the dressing. We found it difficult to find quinoa (especially as the shop assistant had no idea what Mark was talking about) but managed to find a packet of ready-to-eat red and white quinoa which we thought worked fine and made this a pretty easy dish to put together. The pomegranate arils really made this dish giving little bursts of sweetness with each mouthful. I particularly enjoyed adjusting the vinaigrette to make sure it was the right balance of the kick of the mustard and the sweetness of the honey without being overpowered by the white wine vinegar.

16/01/2015: Salmagundi from The Best-Ever Illustrated Encyclopedia of British Cooking by Annette Yates, Christopher Trotter, and Georgina Campbell

So Salmagundi is apparently traditionally an English salad made with a mixture of whatever you like from cooked meats to seafood to veg to nuts. It’s a typical English bung-it-all-in job! It goes without saying then that this is a good weeknight dinner that you can make quickly with leftovers of whatever you can find. We followed a recipe for this version (and used the julienne peeler!) but there isn’t a set recipe by any means.