Hurricane dinner
Followed by hurricane beer and hurricane cookie
Thankfully, we do not have a hurricane day at work tomorrow
It's pretty well-known that cycling and food go together exceptionally well -- like franks and beans, peanut butter and jelly, or pizza and beer. These days, there are few things that give me more pleasure than coming home from a ride nice and hungry, and eating enough to satisfy my tummy and my legs.
One thing that I've come to appreciate about food is its ability to engage multiple senses at once. While I'm steadily becoming a better cook where tastes, textures and scents, but I continue to struggle with the visual aspects of food. I don't know, but I'm convinced that it's related to my inability to draw anything more complex than a stick figure. It's something I'm always meaning to work on.
But, there are many challenges to being a busy cyclist and journalist, chief among them being constraints on time, so I'm often left to eat simple things -- like past with unembellished red sauce, or simply cooked chicken breasts. Today was a rare day when I didn't have much to do, and had a well-stocked kitchen. My fortunes improved further when the power was restored after an overnight outage caused by the passage of Hurricane Irene through the Lehigh Valley.
So, I did what I like to do best, and put a few things -- red onion, red pepper and a Pink Lady apple, all chopped into inch-long, thin pieces -- into a pan, and let them simmer for a bit in olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Once everything was tender, I slid in two pieces of salmon, marinated in a Teriyaki peanut sauce, and let it all cook for a bit.
I served the fish with broccoli and brown rice, which lead to a delicious meal, but an unfortunately flat color pallet. Next time, I think this dish would have looked better with something brighter -- maybe a Jasmin rice instead of the healthier brown type, and maybe using more pepper. Also, although the fish tasted really good, as it always does, I overcooked it a little. Which was sad.
2 comments:
Dinner looks great, Andrew, and is just like the dinner I made yesterday except I used chicken instead of salmon. Jazz up the color pallet with the addition of a few pistachios to the brown rice. Or if that doesn't appeal, try one of these added to the rice: a few dried craisons or cherries, chiffonade of fresh baby spinach stirred in just before serving, some lemon zest grated on top. The lemon zest looks and tastes good on the broccoli and salmon, too.
The secret to improving appearances is to apply complimentary colors (look this up in Wikipedia), and that can include serving the meal on a colored plate. I find brown sets off many meals nicely.
Thanks for the advice, chef!
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