The ROARing (LaTe) TwEnTiEs: Weekend Foodfest with my girls

I had the awesome opportunity to spend the weekend with my two best friends. They came up to CT from NYC to see me. We were able to spend this time together because Monday was a holiday, and being that I have a Sunday-Monday weekend, it worked perfectly. Both of them were off from work. The girls inspired me to make a light supper on Sunday, a scruptious breakfast on Monday morning, and feast of a dinner for Monday evening. Clearly I love to cook, and I wouldn't create such a full menu for just myself! They told me they were arriving on Sunday evening, so naturally Sunday during the day I shopped for food. Now this sounds like an easy task, its not if you don't have a car haha. I packed up my reusable shopping bags and walked first to one store (approx 15 min walk each direction) and after packing my two bags full, I stumbled back home, unpacked, rested for a few minutes and headed to the second store...which required a bus and such. Not having a vehicle is a lot of work!! I got all my shopping done by about 6 and started some light prep as I waited for them to arrive.

Do you know that you can buy just the pizza dough from your favorite pizza shop, and even buy extra and freeze it?! Its awesome. Just in time for the girls arrival I had all the ingredients for my pizza ready to be assembled. I was making a small white pie. About 2 hours prior to putting it together, I chopped about 2 garlic cloves, some herbs, and olive oil and let it marinate. Once I was ready to make the pizza, I had a nice garlic and herb infused oil waiting to be brushed onto the waiting dough. I loaded the pie up with mushrooms, fresh tomato, broccoli, and some onion and sprinkled it all with mozzarella cheese.... pop it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes and it was ready to be consumed!!! yum. Sadly I have no pictures because I forgot...

Monday morning breakfast was very diverse and European styled. I had fresh rolls (I did not bake them, there is a yummy bakery down the street), butter, hard boiled eggs, strawberry greek yogurt with almond honey granola, walnuts and crasins.. also some sliced cheeses, sliced avocados, tomatos, onions and cucumbers for my rolls, and some apples and grapefruit. Oh yea I had some of my couscous left (from the recipe on this blog) so I threw that onto the table as well. All this wonderful food was served with hot tea.

Now after breakfast, we went out and about, did some fun shopping and enjoyed each other's company. On the way home we stopped by the fish market to pick up a nice salmon filet, and finally started dinner. Now here I have pictures!

The Salmon was very easy. It is such a flavorful fish that you really don't need too much to make it amazing.

Salmon with peas and dill

1 salmon filet (approx 1.3 pounds in my case)
EV olive oil for greasing and drizzling
4 slices of lemon
1/3 cup of green peas (can be fresh or canned)
a handful of chopped dill
salt and pepper to taste

1. Set your oven to 375. While its preheating, grease a glass baking dish with a little bit of olive oil.
2. Place your Salmon filet, skin side down, into the dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with oil. Rub the oil and salt/pepper into the fish.
3. Place about 4 slices of lemon into the fish. spread the chopped dill on top and finish off with the peas. Remember to rinse off the peas if they're canned to get the "can flavor" off.

4. Cover your dish with aluminum foil and place in the oven.
5. You want to let it bake for about 20 minutes, but check periodically to see if it is light pink and flaky. Depending on the thickness of the filet it may bake quicker or longer.

Once done, it should look like this:

I also made a tzatziki or cacik style yogurt dipping sauce for the salmon.

Dill yogurt dipping sauce with cucumbers and garlic

1 Chobani serving cup of plain greek yogurt
1/4 cup of peeled and chopped cucumber
1/8 cup of chopped white onion
2 cloves of garlic
small handful chopped dill
salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine all ingredients together in a small mixing bowl. transfer to nice serving bowl, cover and chill until ready to serve. Tastes better when made day before because all the flavors marinate.

Kinga and I actually ended up eating the yogurt sauce on our bread as well...delicious!

Now the salmon needed something added to it, so I roasted some veggies as well.

Roasted Vegetables

1 head of cauliflower separated into florets
3 small carrots, cut julianne
2 small zuchini, cut julianne
half a small sweet red pepper
10 (approx) button mushrooms, cut in half
3 cloves garlic chopped
EV Olive oil for drizzling
dry herb mix (mine consists of oregano, thyme, basil, rosemary and parsley)
about 1/4 tsp Paprika
salt and pepper to taste

1. place all vegetables in a large pyrex baking dish, sprinkle with spices, garlic and drizzle with oil. Mix together to coat all veggies in spices.
2. Cover with aluminum foil and place in the oven for about 35 minutes or until veggies are fork-tender.

I made a salad that I call a green salad.

Green Salad

2 ribs celery
1/2 english cucumber
1/2 avocado
1/2 green apple (granny smith or other greenish types)
dill (I had so much left over so I used it here, you can use cilatro or parsley as well)
1 hard boiled egg
lettuce of choice (I used red leaf lettuce)
red wine vinaigarette dressing (I use Marie's)

1. In a large mixing bowl combine the first 4 ingredients, chopped into desired sizes, chop hard boiled egg into bite sized pieces, chop dill (or other herb) and rip up the lettuce.
2. pour desired amount of dressing into salad and toss well.
3. Transfer to pretty serving bowl :)