Schezuan Salmon

Let's eat something healthy and yummy!!

What you'll need:

Chunk of Salmon ~ I think this was almost 2 lbs
Season Salt and Pepper
about 1/3 bottle Schezuan Sauce~I don't have a favorite brand
Zucchini and Banana Squash
Handful of Spinach
Onions
Wheat Spaghetti Noodles~or regular ones work fine.
Soy Sauce

Season your salmon with season salt and pepper. Chop your squash and onions. Prepare your noodles.

Taste your Schezuan sauce, if you think it's too spicy you can "lighten" the spice by adding some soy sauce and a bit of honey. 2 parts schezuan, 1 part soy and about a tablespoon of honey.

I did this salmon on my grill pan and although it was successful, it made my house pretty smoky. If you want to do it this way, put fish skin side down, tent with foil and cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes. What I would recommend is heating your oven to 400 degrees, spraying a piece of foil and wrapping/tenting the salmon (kind of making a packet) and baking for about 12 minutes. Either way, check you Salmon with a fork and it should easily flake away, you know it's done if it flakes. Brush with schezuan sauce and cook another 2 to 3 minutes.

While your fish is cooking. Saute your zucchini and onions. You can put a tiny bit of olive oil to help the party get started if you want, but it's really not necessary. Season with salt and pepper. Toss in your spinach and noodles, few shakes of soy sauce and couple tablespoons of schezuan sauce. Toss around to heat through and serve.

Season your salmon
Slice your zucchini
Saute your onions and zucchini
Add your spinach
Put your salmon, skin side down on a hot grill pan and tent with some foil to speed the cooking process
Toss your noodles, soy sauce and sauce in
if you aren't sure it's done. Stab it with a fork, it should pull apart really easy.
Top with sauce
Put it all together and serve...YUM

Schezuan Salmon

I realized I liked Salmon a few years ago. We had this AMAZING Schezuan Salmon at this local restaurant and I was hooked. I wasn't completely successful recreating it but it's still a yummy and healthy dinner.

What you'll need:

Chunk of Salmon ~ I think this was almost 2 lbs
Season Salt and Pepper
about 1/3 bottle Schezuan Sauce~I don't have a favorite brand
Zucchini and Banana Squash
Handful of Spinach
Onions
Wheat Spaghetti Noodles~or regular ones work fine.
Soy Sauce

Season your salmon with season salt and pepper. Chop your squash and onions. Prepare your noodles.

Taste your Schezuan sauce, if you think it's too spicy you can "lighten" the spice by adding some soy sauce and a bit of honey. 2 parts schezuan, 1 part soy and about a tablespoon of honey.

I did this salmon on my grill pan and although it was successful, it made my house pretty smoky. If you want to do it this way, put fish skin side down, tent with foil and cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes. What I would recommend is heating your oven to 400 degrees, spraying a piece of foil and wrapping/tenting the salmon (kind of making a packet) and baking for about 12 minutes. Either way, check you Salmon with a fork and it should easily flake away, you know it's done if it flakes. Brush with schezuan sauce and cook another 2 to 3 minutes.

While your fish is cooking. Saute your zucchini and onions. You can put a tiny bit of olive oil to help the party get started if you want, but it's really not necessary. Season with salt and pepper. Toss in your spinach and noodles, few shakes of soy sauce and couple tablespoons of schezuan sauce. Toss around to heat through and serve.

Season your salmon
Slice your zucchini
Saute your onions and zucchini
Add your spinach
Put your salmon, skin side down on a hot grill pan and tent with some foil to speed the cooking process
Toss your noodles, soy sauce and sauce in
if you aren't sure it's done. Stab it with a fork, it should pull apart really easy.
Top with sauce
Put it all together and serve...YUM

Tuna Salad

Tuna salad was on the table whenever we had a picnic or had hot dogs for dinner. I love a "good" tuna salad but I've had a LOT of bad ones over the years. Of course, I think my tuna salad is tasty and I hardly ever have left overs when I bring it somewhere so I thought I'd share "my" recipe. My kids don't eat it but we've already established that I'm not sure where they came from:)

You are going to need
1 lb Box of your favorite shaped pasta~I like skinny elbow, mini bow ties or small shells
2 cans Tuna drained~I prefer to use packed in oil because it has more tuna taste but typically have packed in water in the house
1 small onion minced
1 C Frozen Peas
2 stalks Celery chopped
Ranch Dressing
Miracle Whip
Pepper

Cook your pasta according to directions in salted water. You want to make sure it is fully cooked, al dente has it's place and it's not in tuna salad. Put your frozen peas in the bottom of your strainer and when you drain your noodles, you will defrost the peas. Put both into a bowl. Add tuna, onions, celery and pepper. Give it a good stir. Cover and put in the fridge until just before serving or leaving. If you are going to serve right away, that works too. I personally like a tuna salad that is a bit warm.

The dressing...you are going to use 3/4 Miracle Whip to 1/4 Ranch dressing. Start out with a total of a cup and add more Miracle Whip and a tiny bit more Ranch. Taste. I usually end up using more Miracle Whip because you don't want it to be too "ranchy" tasting but the Ranch adds a nice touch. Experiment, you'll get the flavor you like. Be careful NOT to put too much Miracle Whip, a wet salad can be a real day wrecker. You can always add more if it dries out, but you can't take it away.

Pan Fried Tilapia

I'm trying to eat healthier so I went back to a tried and true trick my Mom taught me, pan fried but without the calories. I ate this quite a bit while I did Weight Watchers a few years ago. My daughter doesn't like fish of any kind, not even breaded, doesn't taste like fish..fish sticks but my son will eat "some" and he actually likes it done this way.

Tilapia is a very non fishy tasting white fish that cooks fast. It's also a pretty inexpensive fish. It takes you about 6 minutes from start to finish with this recipe..how's that for fast and easy?

1/2 lb of Tilapia cut in half
Greek Seasoning
Spray butter

I cut the fish in half because of how I'm going to cook it. I want firm, even pressure on the whole piece and this works best for me. So, cut the fish in half, season both sides with your favorite seasoning. Tonight I used my favorite Greek Seasoning but Cajun is great as is just some salt, pepper and garlic. Totally depends on the flavor you're looking for. Spray your fish with spray butter (if you don't have spray butter you could brush with some olive oil), put sprayed side down in a non stick pan. Spray the top. Put a piece of aluminum foil on top and then put a HEAVY pan on top of that. I use my trusty cast iron for the job. Turn your heat to about a 6. Cook for 4-5 minutes, depends on how thick your fish is, this piece was on the thicker side for Tilapia. Remove pan and foil, it should pretty much look cooked on top. Flip your fish, put foil back on, pan back on top of that and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Done!
Here is my package of fish.
Cut the fish in half, season with your favorite seasoning and spray with your spray butter.
This is the brand I use. Others taste the same but their sprayer doesn't EVER clog so you get to use the whole bottle. Spray butter adds NO calories. Spray butter is your friend when you do Weight Watchers.
Put the fish in the pan butter side down, spray top.
Add a piece of foil. Don't be stingy with the foil, this will help keep the steam in and cooks the fish.
Heavy pan on top. I think they sell weighed things to do this but remember I'm not a fan of extra stuff in my kitchen. You can also skip the pan altogether and get similar results, I just find it to crisp up more evenly if I use the heavy pan on top.
This is ready to flip. Make sure you use a turner that is big enough. Make sure you get under the fish so you don't lose the crispy crust you just made. Flip it over.
See how crispy and yummy this looks! Put the foil back, pan back and cook another couple of minutes to get the other side to look equally as good.
Here it is with the yummy crispy crust and cooked to perfection. NOW..if I was doing Weight Watchers I would have had this with some vegetables or a nice big salad. I am not doing Weight Watchers so I had some of the kids Sesame Noodles on the side