A Rainy Night's Dinner

It was chilly and rainy last night as I left work, and I was looking forward to going home where it's warm and cozy and having my Alaskan wild salmon a la Contessa. I also had some serious knitting to complete for my class on Wednesday, so I needed to make sure dinner was not very labor intensive or time-consuming.

The marinade/sauce for this salmon is absolutely divine, and nothing could be simpler. Here's a link to the recipe, which I have been making for quite some time now. Combine minced garlic, olive oil, soy sauce (I use gluten-free tamari), and dijon mustard. Whisk together. Yum. Now try not to eat all of the sauce before you use it on the fish. Put fish in a plastic ziploc bag and pour in about half of the marinade. Swish around to make sure all of the fish is covered with the sauce. Put the fish in the refrigerator to marinate for 10 minutes or until you get the rest of your meal going. (Tip: even if you're only cooking for two, as I am, I tend to make the full amount of the marinade that the recipe calls for because I use it on the vegetables I serve with the fish.)

What else goes great with a rainy, chilly fall evening? Baked pears! After you've put the fish in the refrigerator, it's time to make some baked pears for dessert.

Rainy Night Pears
2 medium pears, cored
4 teaspoons unsalted butter
4-8 teaspoons brown sugar
cinnamon
nutmeg (optional)
vanilla (optional)
Serves 2.

Preheat oven to 350. Place cored pears cut side up in a 8" square glass baking dish, to which you have added a few tablespoons of water. This will aid in creating a nice sauce for the pears. In the cavity of each pear half, place 1 teaspoon of butter and 1 to 2 teaspoons of brown sugar. (The amount of brown sugar you use can be to taste.) Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg and cinnamon and a few drops of vanilla. Here's what they should look like before baking.

Put them in the oven and bake for 45 minutes or until the pears are soft. They should look like this when you take them out.

Caramelized and beautiful, they're perfect as is or with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. I love baked fruit because it seems to bring out the essence of the fruit's flavor. These pears, for example, were just plain-Jane pears from the supermarket and were not even very ripe. But bake them, and their flavor comes bursting to the surface.

So what about dinner itself? After I put the pears in the oven, I cooked the salmon in a hot frying pan, browning each side. No need to add additional oil, since the marinade contains olive oil. I love to serve this with steamed string beans, or haricot vert, if you will (Whole Foods sells great frozen ones), that I top with some of the remaining soy-dijon marinate and chopped scallions. Drizzle a little extra sauce on the salmon as well. Voila! We enjoyed this with a nice bottle of red wine for extra rainy night comfort.

P.S. Coming soon--my 2nd finished knitted object!