Frozen Salmon on Tuesdays

A couple of days ago, one of my Facebook friends mentioned he was eating fish for dinner.  About 5 of us piled on and commented that we, too, were having the same thing.  I would eat fish every day of the week if I could, which brings me to one of my favorite food topics these days: SALMON.  I'm going to start pronouncing it "SAL-mon" since there is an "L" in it.   Take that Merriam-Webster!

Once each week we try to have salmon filets.  They are filled with Omega-3's, low in calories and high in protein.  We usually pair it with bread and a salad.  Sometimes I cook fresh veggies from the garden or I microwave or stir-fry bags of frozen veggies with a little soy sauce and olive oil.  [Shopping tips for the frugal: field green salad mix from Sam's Club - a huge box for less than $4 lasts us a week at our house; almost-free salad dressings we buy during triple-coupon days at Harris-Teeter; frozen veggies - Sugar Snap Peas Stir Fry blend, Walmart Great Value brand is very cheap).

We buy the bags of frozen, individually-wrapped SALmon filets at Walmart for about $5 for a bag of 4.  The best part about the individually-wrapped filets is that they can be thawed in the sink in minutes if you forget to thaw them in the refrigerator ahead of time.  This multi-tasker tosses the frozen filets in with the dish water - they are vacuum-sealed, so no soap gets in!
  
I used to brush them lightly with olive oil or butter, then sprinkle a little dried dill weed and some pepper on them.  Easy enough, but I wanted to make it taste like gourmet food since our budget no longer allows for eating out.  After searching the internet and combining a few ideas from various websites, I came up with 2 of our favorite salmon recipes:

1 - Bourbon Salmon: a shot of cheap bourbon, a shot of olive oil and a tablespoon of soy sauce. 

2 - Marinated Salmon: 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 or 3 tablespoons each of butter, soy sauce, lemon juice and cheap or leftover white wine (Leftover wine?  Who has leftover wine?).

Mix the stuff together, dump it over the salmon.  We bake them at 400-425 degrees for about 15 minutes, basting them in the juices every 5 minutes. After-dinner cleanup is easy if you line your pan with aluminum foil.

Either recipe is just delicious.  The kids like it, too.

*** While I'm thinking about it: if you need outdoor furniture, now is the time to get it.  Lowes has everything marked down to 50% off right now.  We bought a very nice market umbrella for our back deck today for less than $40.  Our 2-year-old was delighted with the "big red octagon", and it covers half of our deck.  Now if only the temperatures would break... here in the Carolinas it looks like it will take another month for fall to come around. 

And now I leave you with a Haiku:

How I love salmon
I add the missing "L" sound
Just like Grandma did. 

(I miss you Grandma Pressley.  You left us in September, and it's always a hard time of year.  Might have to blog about Grandma-isms one of these days.)

Love,
Cindy