This week’s challenge is a return to fish.  I love fish and living in the Puget Sound (well, on an island in the Puget Sound to be accurate) gives me access to some of the best seafood around.  We might not have great lobster, but we do have wonderful salmon and halibut.  And just around the corner is Copper River Salmon!! It’s some of the best there is and comes fresh from Alaska.

With that in mind, this whole month is going to be a fish month!  Let’s start it off with:

• Halibut
• Rice
• Artichokes
• Carrots

That should be fairly simple!  I hope.  I’ve stopped noting in the ingredient list which items are organic because, quite simply, all my ingredients are organic.  Well 95% of the time anyway.  And while I don’t think it’s vital to a recipe to call out which ingredients are and aren’t, I do believe the better tasting food is grown organically most of the time.  That is why you haven’t seen a ton of out of season foods in the challenges, but as Summer is just around the corner, expect to see a bigger variety in the challenges ahead!

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This week’s challenge is a tough one! Things are a bit bare in the kitchen at the moment and while a shopping trip is on the horizon, I’m making due with what I have.  If you need help with how this challenge works, you can find it here.  It’s pretty simple, just take the four ingredients listed below and add in two of your own if you like.  Then post your recipe here or reference your own site.  I’ll then cook up, video tape it and share with the world my and my daughter’s thoughts.

This week’s ingredients are:

• Ground Lamb from Thundering Hooves (raised on organic feed with no hormones)
• Onion! (organic too)
• Rice (yup, also organic)
• Trader Joe’s Organic Baked Bean (which is organically organic)
• Two ingredients of your own choice (or just one, or none!)

Now I can see this one coming a mile away, at least with the beans.  Yes, you can use ingredients in side dishes as this isn’t meant to be a one pot wonder meal. 

So show me what you would do to make a scrumptious meal fit for a 7 year old and her Dad!

The only entries for this week’s challenge didn’t quite fit the bill (didn’t use all ingredients and seemed, well, tough!) so I ended up winging the recipe this week.  Here’s my best bet at what I did, followed by the video.  And in the video, my seven year old daughter took over the camera action and added in her own commentary, at one point telling me what I was mixing looked like poop.  Wow.  I know I’m not artful, but poop?  Cummon!   She ended up loving what I made so it wasn’t THAT bad.

Ingredients:

• King Salmon Steaks
• Asparagus
• Brown Rice
• Red, Yellow and Green Peppers
• 1/3 Cup Olive Oil
• 1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
• Mustard Powder
• Old Bay Seasoning
• Dijon Mustard

Directions:

Cut Salmon into steaks and lay in 13×9 baking dish.  Mix together the olive oil, apple cider vinegar, mustard powder (to your liking) and Old Bay.  Sprinkle Old Bay Seasoning on the salmon cakes and the then coat with sauce.  Cover with cut peppers and sprinkle with more olive oil. 

Place asparagus on aluminum foil covered cookie sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil and Dijon mustard and mix to coat.

Cook rice per instructions.

Place salmon in 375F oven for 15 minutes.  When 15 minutes are up, place asparagus on top rack and switch to broil, but with door closed, for 10 minutes.  If you have  convection feature, turn it on now too.

After that 25 minutes, all should be done!  Place salmon, asparagus and peppers over bed of rice and serve!