Roasted Salmon w/ Lentils - French Fridays w/ Dorie

Last week we were on vacation and didn't even attempt to complete the FFWD dish, yet I will because it was French Onion Soup, one of my favorites. You can read all about the trip at my more personal blog. This week I'm way behind on everything, having come home Sunday night and working all week. As of this minute, I'm actually out of milk, have no idea if there are eggs, and have been going through the freezer for dinners. Alan even chipped in and made a wonderful tuna noodle casserole that we've been enjoying most of the week as well, and just finished last night.

The issue with the Roasted Salmon is a timing thing. I think fish has to be fresh, if you can get it that way. Since I can, and often do get very fresh salmon around here, I'm going to make this tonight and will be late in posting. Roast salmon happens to be one of my go-to meals, and Dorie's lentils are my new recipe of choice for prepping these interesting little legumes. I've tried other recipes where they taste too healthy and turn out mushy and rather unappealing, but her recipe is great. They're almost al dente and have great flavor, I think due to the one little clove added to the pot. More details will follow tomorrow.

Tomorrow, actually now. Last night we made the Salmon and all of us loved it. As I mentioned above, Dorie's lentil recipe is the one I've been making for some time now, but I never thought to puree it and make it into a sauce. The texture was great and Alan commented that he really liked the flavor of the lentils with the salmon. I agreed and Shara ate hers up too! It was hearty and didn't need the roasted broccoli and bread that I served on the side, but I was starving so it was fine with me. The bread was also good for getting the last bit of lentils off the plate!

Since these were recipes I've made before, I made a couple of small changes. I needed to buy more lentils and the only ones I could find were the standard brown or red. I got the red and added them to the 3/4 cup of green I still had. In the end, the green ate up the red so there was no color difference in the finished product. The other change was to add some seasoning to the salmon. My sister gave me a great sesame seed seasoning mix for fish that I put on the salmon. I wasn't sure how it would work out, but it was perfect. I think she got it at Marshal's. It's called "Victoria Taylor's Seasonings" - toasted sesame ginger seasoning: sesame seeds, ginger, black sesame seeds, garlic, sea salt, red pepper, toasted sesame oil.

Shortcut: rather than take out some of the lentils and broth to puree, I just took out the clove and carrots and cut them up. Then I took my immersion blender and pureed the onions and some of the lentils. I added back in the carrots and boiled down the lentils a bit. I don't know the texture was supposed to be, but we really thought this was fine.

The next day I took the leftover lentils and put them on top of baby spinach, popped them in the microwave for a couple of minutes and had a great lunch.