My toe socks arrived!!

My toe socks arrived!!

Imagine I look like this:

Which I don't. 

But that is all just fine, because I can now stare at my freshly painted toes with abandon during yoga class. 

And this is a very important thing - I kid you not...

I did spend a big part of yesterday ignoring the fact that my water was turned off and did spend it picking out paint colors for my sisters new home.


And I ate this for lunch:

I ate this with some of my sister's salad dressing (the only one she had in the fridge) and some of the dressing that came with.

 I did pick up other interesting stuff while I was out.

More about that later...

A breakfast present - salmon onigiri

In my usual trend of only occasionally eating breakfast foods for breakfast, I pulled out the one treat I had left over from my trip to Nijiya.

Salmon onigiri!

If you haven't eaten this before - I am going to give you the walkthrough.

The sheet of nori is actually packaged separately from the rice.

The rice ball is stuffed with delicious cooked salmon.

If your rice ball is cold from sitting in the fridge like mine was, you can pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to bring it up to room temperature. It is much tastier when it isn't cold IMO.

Then you need to take the nori out of the package.

And wrap up the rice ball with the nori - almost like you were wrapping a present.

Ta da! A lovely breakfast present:-)

I also had tea and a packet of blueberries. *warning* the picture came out blurry ((

Here is a better picture of the blueberries if you are curious.

Happy May Day everyone!

Feel free to frolic around the Maypole if you have one handy in your back yard :-)

Salmon and sweet potato fun

I had a great time making the treats for the dogs.

But it all started with my dinner:

Pan seared salmon over a bed of spinach.

I marinated the salmon fillet in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic.

Then the salmon went into a pan on medium heat - meat side down.

Six minutes later I slid the pan under the broiler (set on low). Another four minutes and the fish was done.

Then the I started on the dog's treat.

Sweet potatoes.

 They went into a pan of boiling water for 15 minutes.

Then I added 2 Tbsp. of greek yogurt and a tiny bit of water and pureed them smooth. 

Then came the fun part.

A dollop of pureed sweet potatoes with a topping of salmon on a small square of nori.

I wet the edges with some water and pressed them together like I would a potsticker. You might need to keep the seals pinched until it dries just a bit and hold well.

First wet one side and pinch the middle section to form a roll.

Then bring in one of the ends and fold it till it sticks together. Do the same with the remaining end.

The dogs loved, loved, LOVED these! 

I think it was a perfect combination of fish (for Abby) and a little bit of sweet (for Connor) so that it was a huge hit for both of them :-)

Yes, I did sacrifice a bit of my salmon fillet for the dog's treats but I think it was well worth it.

Protein, it's what's for dinner

Going along with my 'listen to my stomach' plan - protein is what I wanted for dinner.

Pan seared salmon over carrots.

I marinated the salmon in a mixture of balsamic vinegar, garlic, sesame oil and honey.

I let it sit in the marinade in the fridge for four hours.

 
Make sure to brush off the bits of garlic before putting the fillet in the pan - otherwise they will burn - burnt garlic is BAD!

I put 1 Tbsp. of oil into a fry pan on high heat. Use any oil with a high smoke point. I put in the fillet meat side down and let it cook for three minutes. 

Then, after checking that the meat side had browned up nicely, I flipped it skin side down, turned down the heat to medium, covered the pan and let it cook another four minutes.

I steamed the carrots earlier and had them set aside on a plate.

The salmon turned out beautifully and I think the balsamic marinade gave it a nice dark look.

I always want sauce, so I added some balsamic vinegar and honey into the fry pan and let it simmer on low heat till it became a wonderful black syrup.

I loved how the sauce made this black, inky pool on the plate.

I have a bad habit of over cooking fish. But I think I might have left this in the pan a bit longer.

How does everyone else like their salmon cooked?