Dinner Parties Part I
Summer has wrapped up this weekend with Labor Day celebrations and our fantasy football draft (post to come later on on draft night). It is bittersweet as summer is my season. The fruits and veggies are just delicious and the warm weather makes for lots of outdoor activities. Our anniversary is in July and the the wedding season makes for such happy times.
Half the fun of using the formal dining room is setting up the table and using all of our fun wedding gifts. When I unpack the gifts it reminds me of all the wonderful people in our lives.
Our most recent house guests were in town in August, which is the most beautiful month of the year. We planned many excursions while they were in town to include evenings out in downtown Portsmouth and paddle boarding. The second night in town I prepared a dinner for us and enjoyed cooking local salmon, broccoli, and zucchini straight out of my neighbor's yard.
The easiest way to prepare salmon is in foil in the oven and it steams it nicely. Lucky for me, my father-in-law is a grill master. I'm hoping he will pass this along to my husband (wishful thinking)! So, he grilled the salmon for me. I marinated it in a ginger soy marinade. Recipe is below. Of note, you don't want to cook the salmon directly over the high heat as it can dry it out. You will notice below that we placed the salmon to the right and left of the flames.
I left out some of the marinade and tossed the zucchini in it as well. I then roasted the zucchini and broccoli (just olive oil and tuscan seasoning on the broccoli). They will roast up pretty crispy and it adds nice texture to the meal. I mixed my zucchini with some Aproten Rigatoni and extra marinade.
Adapting meals for the low protein diet is very simple and my default is just tossing pasta in with the vegetable dish instead of the meat or protein option. I have spoken in the jambalaya post about making the vegetable base and splitting after for the protein option and the low protein option. I tend to leave more out for the veggie dish because Nick generally does not like leftovers. I love leftovers!
Salmon recipe below:
http://damndelicious.net/2014/12/19/asian-salmon-foil/
The marinade was perfect over my veggies and pasta! We paired this with a bottle of pinot noir and it made for the perfect meal.