Grilled Salmon Taco Dinner

This is my idea of the perfect grilled salmon taco. Keep it simple with a little cole slaw, salmon, avocado and sour cream with a sprinkle of cheese. This is a great dinner when having guests over!

Ingredients:

Salmon filets

Green cabbage cole slaw

Avocado

Lite sour cream

shredded cheese

Tortillas

Black Beans

Mexican rice

Preparation:

First, make your cole slaw because the longer you let it sit around the better it will be. Here's my recipe:

Cole Slaw

Next make your Mexican rice. I've made this a few times, it's really awesome and so easy. I'll post the recipe to my blog one day soon. In the meantime, here's how you do it. Take your rice cooker and add 1 cup basmati rice and 1-3/4 cups water and one 7oz can of Embasa Salsa Mexicana. Let the rice cooker do it's job. When done fluff with a fork.

Next, make the black beans, Here's my recipe:
Black Beans

Next cook the salmon. Take your salmon filets and cut them into strips about 1" wide and grill on an indoor grill pan for 3-4 minutes a side.

Assemble your salmon taco by heating a 6" tortilla and putting the heated tortilla in a taco holder if you have one, if you don't have one go to amazon and get some, they're awesome. Add some cole slaw, salmon, avocado, sour cream and cheese and your ready to go.

Grilled New York Strip Steak with Coffee Spice Rub

This is an awesome way to prepare a strip steak. The coffee spice rub adds a light smokey, sweet flavor with a hint of coffee.

Ingredients:
New York strip steak
1 tablespoon ground decafe coffee
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Preparation:
Combine all the ingredients to make the coffee spice rub. This spice rub recipe is for 4 steaks so put about 1/4 of the amount on each steak. Let the steak marinate with the coffee spice rub for 4 hours if possible.

Grill the steaks over a medium high heat for 4 minutes per side. Remove from the grill and let rest for 5 minutes and serve.

Wilted Spinach and Sautéed Garlic

I like spinach many different ways and here's one that's just really quick and easy and super tasty. The key to this dish is to slowly sauté the garlic and olive oil until the garlic is translucent. Remove garlic from the pan before sautéing the spinach and toss on top of the finished spinach.

 

Ingredients:

Lots of fresh spinach

10 cloves sliced garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

 

Preparation:

Peel and slice 10 cloves of garlic. I know this sound like a lot, but when you slowly sauté the garlic it is more like roasted garlic, no so strong. Sauté the garlic in the olive oil over low flame. If you burn the garlic, throw it out and start again. When the garlic is really translucent, remove from the pan and set a side while you finish the dish.

 

Heat a 12" sauté pan to medium and add just a touch olive oil. Add a handful of fresh spinach at a time and constantly turn while the spinach wilts. 3 or 4 handfuls is about righ for 2 people. When the spinach is wilted add a touch more olive oil to coat the spinach and remove to a serving plate. Add the sautéed garlic on top and a grind of salt and pepper and you're done.

 

Garlic Marinated Pork Chops

The key to pork chops is to buy only pork chops with the bone in and not to over cook them. The bone in the meat will add lots of flavor as well as help to keep the chops moist. But because pork chops are a lean meat and can always use some extra moisture, use the pan drippings and make a quick sauce, it make all the difference.

Ingredients:
Bone in pork chops 3/4 to 1 inch thick
10 cloves crushed garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon Wondra flour
Salt and pepper


Preparation:

Take your crushed garlic and spread a little on each side of the pork chops. Place the chops into a large zip lock bag and marinate for 1 hour.

 

Take a 12" sauté pan and heat to medium high and add the olive oil. Salt  and pepper the pork chops  and add to the sauté pan and cook for about 4 minutes per side. If your not sure on the cooking time, take a small knife and cut into one of the chops and see if it's done. The pork chops should be medium rare. Remove from the pan and loosely cover with foil while you prepare the sauce.

 

Take 1/4 cup of chicken stock and mix with the flour. Add the stock to the sauté pan and mix with the pan drippings from the pork chops. The sauce should be fairly thick, if not, add a little more flour.

 

After the chops have rested for 5 minutes go ahead and place on a serving plate and spoon on some sauce and you're done. 



Macaroni Salad

As a kid growing up, it seemed like whenever our family got together for the holidays or birthdays, my grandmother and then my mom in the later years always made macaroni salad. I don't think I had made macaroni salad for 15 years and just thought to make it this past Mothers Day.

There's just something simply awesome about the combination of chopped sweet pickles, chopped black olives, diced red onion and chopped Italian parsley. The macaroni salad turned out great, everyone seemed to like it and I'll definitely have to make this again soon.
 

Ingredients:
1 pound Barilla Ditalini pasta
1/4 cup chopped bread and butter pickles
1/4 cup chopped black olives
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/8 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
1/4 light mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Prepare the pasta per the directions, rinse in cold water and set a side to drain. Place the pasta in a large mixing bowl. Add the pickles, olives, red onion, Italian parsley and mayonnaise. Mix well, add a couple grinds of salt and pepper. This recipe is always better the next day, but if you can't make ahead of time try to make as early in the day as possible. Here's to old school classic macaroni salad.  

Potato Crusted Cod

This is a an all time favorite for sure.  We buy this at Fred Meyer and ask for the largest pieces because it's so good. The fish is easy to prepare and it's never dry and goes well with rice. Sometimes you might find the fish individually packaged, but most of the time it's in the fresh meat and fish cases.

Ingredients:
4 potato crusted cod filets
Serve with Ken's signature rice. See link below.

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take some aluminum foil and cover a baking pan. Spray the baking sheet with a little spray canola and bake for 20 minutes, comes out perfect every time!

Ken's Signature Rice

Split Pea Soup

We had the pleasure of hosting Easter dinner this year and we usually keep it pretty traditional with spiral cut ham from Costco, green beans, twice baked potatoes and salad. It didn't occur to me that Costco would run out of spiral cut hams, but they did. So the day before Easter I got no ham...

 

I went to Safeway and they still had their Safeway Select spiral cut ham in stock so I didn't have much choice and bought it. As it turned out, this was the best spiral cut ham any of us at the table could remember eating. The ham was moist and had a great sweet smokey flavor. So not only was the ham awesome, but the split pea soup turned out pretty great as well.


Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 rough diced onion
1 cup sliced carrots
3 celery stalks
Ham bone plus 2 cups reserved ham
1 bag split peas, rinsed and checked for pebbles
28 once low sodium chicken broth
2 - 3 cups water


Preparation:
Add the olive oil, onion, carrots, celery to a large stock pot and heat to medium. Cook the vegetables for 4 - 5 minutes until soft. Add the ham bone, chicken stock, water and split peas and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 2 hours.

After 2 hours remove the ham bone to a cutting board and let cool. Take half the soup and blend until creamy smooth. I like my split pea a little rustic, so I only blend half. Cut off any ham from the ham bone and cut into bite size pieces and add to the soup. Add the 2 cups reserved diced ham to the soup.

To serve, add a helping of split pea soup to a soup bowl, top with croutons, shredded cheese and ground pepper.

The Best Red Potatoes Ever

I got this recipe from watching America's Test Kitchen and they really are the best red potatoes ever!

Ingredients:
1 pound red potatoes 1" to 1-1/4" size
1 tablespoon butter
2 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf


Preparation:

Wash the potatoes and slice in half. Place the potatoes flat side down in a 12" sauté pan. The potatoes will remain flat side down for the entire cooking process. By doing this you will end up with a crispy golden brown potato on one side and creamy in the middle. Next add the butter, garlic, bay leaf and water to just cover the top of the potatoes.

 

Cover the potatoes and cook at just below a boil for 15 minutes. Remove the lid and raise the temp to a slow boil and cook until all the water evaporates. Once the water has evaporated, remove the bay leaf and garlic cloves. Add a touch of olive oil, cook until the bottom side of the potato is golden brown.  Take the garlic cloves and rough dice them and toss on to the potatoes. To serve, place the potatoes on a plate or shallow bowl, top with light sour cream, green onion and chopped Italian parsley.

Chicken Burger with Goat Cheese and Green Onion

This is a burger I made using a ground chicken patty as opposed to a grilled chicken breast. I've been using ground chicken for a few different recipes because it's just better than ground turkey. Ground chicken is actually hard to find in the grocery store because stores don't have much on hand or they don't have any at all.

 

I like goat cheese and I thought this combination would go together well, and it does! I'm throwing this out as a signature dish because I can't find any reference to this recipe on Google.

 

Ingredients:
1 pound ground chicken
Goat cheese
green onions
Green leaf lettuce
Potato bun
Mayonnaise
Stone ground mustard

Preparation:

Ground chicken is really soft and kind of difficult to make into a patty. I use a patty maker and the key is to put some water on each side of the patty maker so the chicken patty will release once you form into the patty.

Heat a 12" sauté pan to medium high. Use a little spray canola so the chicken patty doesn't stick to the pan. Cook the chicken patty for about 4 minutes per side, longer if your make thicker patties. When the chicken patty is done, your ready to assemble the burger.

 

Take you fresh potato bun and start by adding some mayo to the bottom piece of bun. Next add the green leaf lettuce and the chicken patty. Goat cheese can be very soft, so what I do is put it into the freezer for 10 minutes and that hardens it up so you can make nice slice of goat cheese.

 

Add a few slices of goat cheese and top with diced green onions. Take the top bun and spread on some stone ground course mustard. Cut the chicken burger in half and serve with a simple salad.