Hey hey!

Happy humpday! How’s your morning going so far? Mine began with my usual early morning spin, and it was a great class! I’m so happy to have returned to teaching in a Wednesday morning timeslot and the fantastic ladies that come out each week make it even better!

Over to the subject of today’s post, I’m particularly excited to tell you about one of my new things this morning, but let’s start with the usual, shall we?

1. Recipe of the Week: I really can’t take credit for the Recipe of the Week today because it was passed on to me a while ago from one of my long-time, loyal readers, Shirley. She saw it in a newsletter from Red Mountain Resort in St. George, Utah, and knowing that I’m a salmon-a-holic, passed it on. I made it a month or so ago, but totally forgot to post it. Even though it seems a little summery to me, I feel it needs to be shared because it’s delicious. I know I’ve been giving you guys a whole lotta salmon recipes lately, but since omega 3s are great for us, why not add another one to the collection?

That would be Salmon with Apple Avocado Pico de Gallo.  (<– The original recipe is also available via this link.) I wasn’t able to make this exactly like the Red Mountain version which involved a lime citronette. Making the citronette required an immersion blender which I didn’t have in my arsenal of kitchen gadgets at the time. (I sorted that out though.) Nevertheless, the meal was absolutely delicious without. The apple avocado pico de gallo is so simple and it paired with the salmon perfectly.

So… are you running to the grocery store yet?

2. A new piece of kitchen equipment. Nope, it’s not a slow cooker, and nope it’s not a Vitamix. But…. it is something pretty excited, and something I’ve been lusting after ever since I visited Rawlicious back in July when I was learning about raw food diets. It’s a Paderno spiralizer.

Isn’t she a beauty? This weekend my mum and I made a trip to an awesome kitchen supply store to see if they happened to have any on sale, and sure enough I found the spiralizer for about $20 less than the price it was selling for elsewhere. I resisted the urge to bust it open over the weekend, but it was the first thing on my agenda for Try Something New Tuesday!

Prior to the purchase, I’d spoken to several raw food enthusiasts and spiralizer users who informed me that Paderno was by far the best brand as far as this appliance goes. It comes with 3 sets of blades that you can use to create different shapes out of fruits and veggies. Since my meal at Rawlicious contained zucchini ‘noodles’, that was the first thing I wanted to make.

The set-up:

All I had to do is attach the zucchini to the prongs, put one hand on the handle and the other on the crank, then push the handle in the direction of the green arrow while my right hand turned the crank.

In only a few seconds, this came out the left side:

At this point I was almost jumping up and down with excitement but neither of my roommates were home so I couldn’t share it with anyone…. so I took pictures instead.

But what to do with my zucchini noodles (zoodles)? Over the weekend I made this Edamame Succotash from the Clean Start cookbook and had some of the leftovers sitting in the fridge. I plunked it over the zucchini noodles and voila – instant lunch to take to work!

I enjoyed the meal cold, but if you really wanted to, I’m sure you could put the zucchini in some boiling water for a few seconds and use it hot in place of noodles in pasta dishes. Now I’m dreaming up all sorts of spiralizer creations. I may never use a knife again!

3. Trout. Yep, another type of fish I’ve never tried, although I’ve come very close. Back in December, I cooked perch as part of Try Something New Tuesday 36. I told a story about how my uncle had gone out and caught a bunch of fish (trout and perch), with the intention of frying them up in the back yard in a big bucket of hot oil (yumm… or not) then serving them to my extended family. But things went a little awry…

Unfortunately for him, a storm hit and he and my other uncles had to shut down the operation after trying for quite some time to cook the fish. Since they were taking so long, myself and my cousins filled up on appetizers. I was glad that I did too, because when the fish finally did arrive in the house, there wasn’t much and it didn’t look or smell overly appetizing. Hence, I’ve been hesitant to eat trout because of that unpleasant experience. But not anymore. Yesterday was Tuesday, and I decided to cook trout. Properly.

This character and the song 'Trouty Mouth' may come to mind if you're a Glee fan...

Since lemon and dill is a sure bet as far as fish goes, I made a little marinade by reducing about 1/4 cup of lemon juice, 1/2 tsp dill, and 1/8 tsp each granulated garlic and cornstarch in a saucepan on high heat. While it thickened, I lined a baking dish with foil and placed the trout inside. After sprinkling the fish with black pepper, I poured the lemony glaze on top and popped the dish in the oven at 375F for about 20 minutes. Result:

Major apologies for the yellow light – the sun went down faster than I anticipated last night! But how about the taste? Delicious! Much better than I remember trout smelling. They’re a fattier fish species and the taste seemed similar to salmon, but a difference was still detectable. (And as you all know from recent recipes, I’m very familiar with how salmon tastes!) Texture-wise, again, about the same as salmon – flaky and rich. The lemon glaze was perfect and didn’t overpower the fish at all. Winner!

So tell me:

• Did you celebrate Try Something New Tuesday this week? What did you try?
• Any other spiralizer fans out there? Are there any tricks I should know about? So far I’ve only tested zucchini, but I’ve got big plans for other veggies!