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Seafood

Sheet Pan Lemon & Herb Salmon with Dill Cream Sauce

August 20, 2019

Hello00 food friends! If you are still reading this blog after the super silent summer here, thank you! I spent the summer being the general manager for a kitchen remodel and general move out due to floors being redone, as well as focusing on my super cute offspring up at our lakehouse (that doubles as a ski house in the winter). I spent a lot of time researching recipes and dreaming about all the food I’ll make this fall in our new kitchen, so I hope there are a lot of good things to come here on The Humble Onion. I want to make all the delicious but easy dinners with new flavors, so if you’re looking for that sort of thing, keep checking back.

If you don’t follow me on Instagram, here’s a picture of our kitchen – we are waiting on new counters and backsplash so I’ll wait until they are done to do a blog post about it but here is a sneak peak:

My first meal in our new kitchen was grass-fed burgers, and it was SUCH a thrill to hear the smoke alarm go off, then turn on our new blower in our hood…and hear the alarm shut right off. Any of you who have lived through this knows how stressful it is to set off your alarm all the time when you’re cooking. (Pro tip: we lived with a shower cap over our smoke alarm for almost a year and it kept it from going off when I cooked.) Also, here is where I remind you you don’t need a gourmet kitchen to make good food. I cooked at our camp kitchen all summer and was just as inspired. 

Ok, my second meal was this Sheet Pan Lemon & Herb Salmon with Dill Cream Sauce. I wanted something easy, healthy, but full of flavor and I had been craving salmon. I love Ina Garten’s Roast Salmon with Herbs and had made it before, so I thought I’d make the fish in a similar way, but loaded with the fingerling potatoes, cherry tomatoes on the vine, and asparagus all on the same sheet pans. I was also craving something creamy – and this lemon dill cream sauce couldn’t be easier.

This sauce soaked into all the lemon, olive oil, and tomatoes juices and mashed into the potatoes nicely. Every bite was delicious and kept having to remind myself how easy this dinner was. The best part was it kept well on the stove so my husband and son could load up when they got home from football. Yup, conditioning has started, so goodbye lazy summer dinners and hello taking turns to eat, coordinating rides, and making big dinners for a hungry teenager.

This meal starts with salt and peppering your salmon, then adding lemon juice and olive oil and letting it marinate on the counter while you prep the rest of the food. Then you add herbs…you can add others that you like like parsley or chives.

I made two sheet pans to give the veggies room to cook. I tossed the veggies in olive oil, salt and pepper and then nestled in the filets.

One Note: If you prefer your potatoes crispy, you can cook them on a separate sheet pan, and place in the oven 5-8 minutes before the fish and veggies. I poured the lemon and olive oil marinade over everything which made them soft and able to mash with your fork to pick up all the juices on your plate, which I loved.

Then they roasted for…wait for it…12 minutes. It was super fast, just enough time to pull together the cream sauce. For my littles who don’t like salmon, I did cook a turkey kielbasa and they were thrilled.

The result was a super fast, super yummy dinner. It was seriously easy and restaurant level delicious. The tart acid from the tomato juices mix with the meaty salmon, fresh herbs, and creamy lemon dill sauce, so every bit is fresh and light and full of flavor. The potatoes help make this a stick the ribs comfort food dish.

I can’t wait to make this again, and neither can my husband and big kids. We loved it I hope you do too.

Happy Eating, Katie xoxo

 

Sheet Pan Lemon & Herb Salmon with Dill Cream Sauce

Ingredients

1 (2- to 2 1/2-pound) skinless salmon fillet

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup good olive oil

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/2 cup minced scallions, white and green parts (4 scallions)

1/2 cup minced fresh dill

1 pound asparagus spears, trimmed

1 pound fingerling potatoes, cut in half lengthwise

1 quart cherry tomatoes

For the sauce:

1/2 cup creme fraiche

1/2 sour cream

juice of 1 lemon (about 3-4 T)

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Place the salmon fillet in a non-reactive dish and season it generously with salt and pepper. Whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice and drizzle the mixture evenly over the salmon. Let it stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.

In a small bowl, stir together the scallions and dill. Scatter the herb mixture over the salmon fillet.

Divid vegetables on two sheet pans, and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper (about 2 T. of olive oil for each sheet pan). Nestle salmon in the middle of the veggies and then place in the oven.

Roast for 10 to 12 minutes, until salmon is almost cooked in the center at the thickest part and the potatoes are soft when you insert a knife and the center of the salmon is firm. Cook 1-2 more minutes if needed.

While it cooks, mix together the dill cream sauce by combining the creme fraiche, sour cream, lemon juice and fresh dill with salt and pepper to taste. Stir and set aside until serving.

 

 

Lobster Mac & Cheese

May 25, 2012

If you are anything like me, you are drawn to this menu item in restaurants like a moth to a flame.  And you also believe that the chef who put these two luxurious ideas together deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.  So it was a delight to discover how easy it was to make this dish at home.  

 

It all started when I visited a friend off of an island in Maine, and fell in love for my brief stay with all things related to island life.  The ferry, the harbor bell, the bike riding, and of course, the lobster buoys.


We picked seashells and blew bubbles on the most beautiful beach I have ever seen (the water was too cold to swim so we needed some activity on the beach!).  Little kids are just cute in Maine. They wear sweatshirts and Keenes and run all over the ferry.  And they believe Mermaids are in the water, which keeps everything a little bit magical. 

We had lobster races while the water boiled…I consider this a science experiment if someone thinks it is heartless.

We ate until our bellies were full, and still had a lot of this left over: 

 

So I brought some home.  It was my son’s graduation from Kindergarten (****sniff****), and I wanted to make a special dinner.  So I ran into a convenience store (that is how easy this recipe is) to buy elbow macaroni, and the rest is a delicious, glorious history. 

You start with a roux (1/4 c. butter, 1/4 c. flour), then add 4 c. milk.

 

Then you add CHEESE….mmmm……

I literally used what I had in the fridge, a combo of cheddar, Monterey jack, and aged gouda. 

 

You cook elbow macaroni, mix with delicious cheese sauce, until you are left with….

 

 

Can anyone else hear the Hallelujia chorus right now??? How could you ever improve on this loveliness? Who ever thought to improve on this?  As already noted, they deserve an award.


 

Popped them in little pots since it was a special dinner.

 

Added bread crumbs with butter, baked at 375 for 30 min until they were bubbly and delicious. 

 

 

Below is the recipe I followed, which is from Ina Garten.  I looked at other recipe’s and in the end hers had more sauce (i.e. more butter, flour and milk) which, unlike plain Mac & Cheese recipes helped coat the lobster too. 

Ingredients

  • Kosher salt
  • Vegetable oil
  • 1 pound elbow macaroni
  • 4 c. milk
  • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 12 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated (4 cups)
  • 8 ounces extra-sharp Cheddar, grated (2 cups)
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 1/2 pounds cooked lobster meat
  • 1 1/2 cups fresh white bread crumbs (5 slices, crusts removed)

DirectionsPreheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Drizzle oil into a large pot of boiling salted water. Add the pasta and cook according to the directions on the package, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain well.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan, but don’t boil it. In a large pot, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. Still whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minute or two more, until thickened and smooth. Off the heat, add the Gruyere, Cheddar, 1 tablespoon salt, the pepper, and nutmeg. Add the cooked macaroni and lobster and stir well. Place the mixture in 6 to 8 individual gratin dishes.

Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, combine them with the fresh bread crumbs, and sprinkle on the top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the macaroni is browned on the top.