Reviewing the Recipes - Quick Salmon Tikka

We cook a lot of recipes from around the internet and various cookbooks that I don't write about because we don't change the recipe much or at all. I decided to start a series reviewing some of those recipes...

This Jamie Oliver recipe caught may attention when Jamie twittered that people were really liking it. As I'm always looking for new ways for us to eat fish this went on the weekly menu.

We were both a little skeptical but, it was absolutely fabulous! The recipe called for a particular brand of tandoori curry paste, we had some Fortnum & Mason korma sauce in the fridge so, that is what we used instead. Its flavor was perfect with the salmon (seriously, I'm going to want my salmon in korma sauce from now on). Other than that, the only change we made was to leave the fresh chili out of the yogurt sauce because I wanted the sauce to be cooling not spicy. It didn't look like a ton of yogurt sauce but the recipe ended up making twice what we needed.

I ended up calling this dish Indian Salmon Wraps because you eat the salmon, yogurt sauce and some cilantro wrapped up in naan. We found naan in the deli of our grocery store. It was quite good just heated for a few minutes in the oven. If you can't find naan another thick flat bread should do the trick, even something like Boboli. With the store-bought naan, quick yogurt sauce and small pieces of salmon that cooked up in no time this dish came together in less than half an hour, perfect for lunch or a fast dinner.

For a super easy side dish I made Cumin Roasted Cauliflower. The cauliflower is broken into florets then placed on a baking sheets where is it tossed with olive oil, kosher salt and dried cumin. Roast at 400 F until brown, about 15 - 20 minutes. I could eat cauliflower cooked this way for a snack instead of popcorn or potato chips.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski

Reviewing the Recipes - Italian Kale and Farro Soup

We cook a lot of recipes from around the internet and various cookbooks that I don't write about because we don't change the recipe much or at all. I decided to start a series reviewing some of those recipes...

Matt is a loyal Serious Eats reader and often prints out recipes from their Dinner Tonight series. This Italian Kale and Farro Soup is one of those recipes.

These recipes are typically easy and interesting, perfect for a work night. This soup was no exception. Other than some chopping it took no time at all to prepare. It's basically a vegetable soup with farro added to it but, it has some really great flavor thanks to the leek, garlic and fresh thyme. We love the farro, it doesn't get as soft as barley can and adds a nutty flavor (yes, it is quite a bit more expensive than barley). I was worried the kale wouldn't have enough time to cook to tenderness but 20 minutes ended up being just enough time to soften it yet still leave a little texture.

We had only one issue with this recipe and that was with the quantity of some of the ingredients. First, it called for 4 tablespoons of olive oil to sauté the onion and leeks, that is a lot of oil. I cut it in half with no problem. Second, was the amount of farro. The recipe called for 2 cups for 4 servings, that is 1/2 cup per serving, way too much in our book. We cut it down to 1 1/2 cups and we still ended up with a soup that was almost a stew. When Matt had it the next day for lunch there was no broth left, it was more like a farro pilaf or risotto. Next time we'll only use 1 cup of farro which seems more appropriate. Finally the recipe says it makes 4 servings but, with a slice or two of crusty bread we had 6 hearty servings.

This is a soup that gets high marks in our book and will end up in our cold weather rotation.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted. © 2007-2011 Kathy Lewinski