Monday Menu LinkUps: Pug Approved

It's Gen here, and today I am turning over the blog to Mom so she can speak of things not directly pug related. She has decided to participate in a menu planning party. Please bear with her......

Poached Salmon with Rice

An easy meal that's both healthy and yummy!  Hoisin sauce is a little sweet, so most kids will enjoy it.   Poaching is much less complicated than it sounds, and is less smelly than pan frying.
 
Prep time 15 mins
Cook time 10 mins

Ingredients
4-6 oz salmon fillet per person
Hoisin sauce: 1 tbs per filet
Scallion: about 1 stalk per fillet
1 lemon
Your choice of plain or flavored rice


How to:

Chop scallions into 1/2 slices,  reserve green tops for decorative garnish.
Slice lemon into thin slices, set aside
Wash salmon filets in cool water.
Arrange salmon filets in a single layer top of a double boiler,  or use a veggie steamer in a sauce pan*.  
Make sure to have a few inches of water below the fish, but do not submerge filets.
Top each filet with @ 1 tbs. Hoisin sauce and sprinke with scallion slices.
Cover and allow fish to steam for @ 10 mins/inch of thickness, when fish appears opaque, it is cooked.

While cooking, you can start your rice and make fancy scallion garnish like this:

Place the cooked salmon on a bed of rice with a slice of lemon and a sprig of scallion. Yum.

*Unless you have a fancy fish poacher like this:

Feeling more adventurous? Here's a salmon recipe from Kikkoman that looks great.

A word from Gen & Foo:

We LOVES salmon!   Just be very careful what you touch, or else, you might have this problem.

Mom's 1st Roast Beef

Mom made a roast beef and all we got was this.........

Hey, it's EMPTY!!

She says it's the first time she's tried this.


It smelled sooooo yummy all afternoon.   But he tall ones ate almost ALL of it!  No fair.   Mom was very suprised the humans ate so much, and actually asked for more. (What???? who's house are we in? Surely not mine!)

So we did get some yummy beef leftovers, but not as much as we would have liked. 

OK, MOM, you get two four paws up!  That one IS a "Do over"........please.

Ye of little faith, Behold.....The Pug-kin!

So there's one thing the momma just can't resist.......a Challenge!     She can't stand hearing "That can't be done"   and especially   "....can't be done by her........ which is about a million times worse!

So she got her pumpkin on, and got her tools ready:

There were lots of pumpkin guts:

But her trusty assistant #2 was there to lend a hand:

And after LOTS of scraping and marking and carving, the pumpkin began to take shape:

Using her surgical skill (and tools) it was finally done!

And then it was time for the photo shoot:

(This fine photo could not have been taken without the help of #3, thanks, cupcake!)

Who said it couldn't be done?

Hah!

The culprit has been found!

No.....a rogue salmon did not swim into the brownie batter.....

First, let me back up to the dinner before the brownie. Perhaps this was the origin of "eat dessert first"?

For dinner, as per the menu plan, salmon. I relented slightly and offered the small folk a choice of tuna burger. A choice that was most eagerly accepted. That leaves more yummy salmon for me. Oven baked sweet potato fries were also not so popular with the kids, or for that matter, Honey. More yum.

I was particularly pleased that I had gotten a large slab of fresh salmon from Sam's (about $14) and divided it up into 2 meals. I even used the spify vacuum pack bags with the extremely COOL little vacuum tool. And, boy did that little sucker work - no pun intended. The thawed salmon look fresh as can be, and tasted great.

But everyone has a preference about how their fish is grilled.....so one piece was coasted with (blech) butter and salt substitute, one with (yummy) soy-ginger marinade, and the last, simply sprayed with......you guessed it.........

PAM. See that muffin tin?

Apparently, although I am insenely obsessive about keeping my hands clean, there must have been some cross-contamination on the can.....and voila;

The Salmon Brownie Muffin is born.