A quick and easy dinner

The following recipes came from The Healthy Kitchen by Andrew Weil and Rosie Daley. This meal came together in about 30 minutes. The salmon recipe posted below is for 6, but since there's just two of us I scaled it back, but now that it's a few weeks later, I can't exactly remember the proportions I used.

This meal was really light and refreshing. It also felt like spring with the citrus glaze and the crisp snow peas. The snow pea side dish literally came together in minutes once the snow peas were all trimmed up.

Seared Salmon with Orange Glaze

serves 6

Ingredients:

Six 6-oz salmon fillets

1 T. sesame oil

3 tsp. soy sauce

1/4 c. white wine

1 c. freshly squeezed orange juice

1 tsp. orange zest

3 tsp.l sherry

1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger

Slices of orange for plating

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. In a large, very hot skillet, add the sesame oil, and sear the fish fillets for 1 minute on each side. The fish should sizzle when it hits the pan. If you don't hear the sizzle, your pan is not hot enough.

3. After searing, move fillets to a ceramic or glass baking dish.

4. Drizzle soy sauce and wine over the fillets and bake them for 10 minutes.

5. While the fish is in the oven combine the orange juice, zest, sherry and ginger in a small saucepan and warm on medium-high heat until the liquid is reduced by half.

6. To serve, plate the fish and top with an orange slice. Drizzle orange glaze over the top of the fish.

Shiitake mushrooms and pea pods

Ingredients

1 pound of snow peas

1/2 pound of fresh shiitake mushrooms

2 tsp canola oil

1 tsp. toasted sesame oil

2 tsp light brown or raw sugar

1/4 cup of sherry

2 T soy sauce

Method

1. Trim the ends and any strings from the pea pods.

2. Slice the mushrooms into 1/2 inch wide slices.

3. Heat the oils in a skillet and add the mushrooms.

4. Saute over medium-high heat, until the mushrooms start to brown

5. Sprinkle the sugar over the mushrooms and add the sherry.

6. Cook and stir for 1 minute and then add the pea pods.

7. Cover, and reduce the heat to medium, and steam until the pea pods turn bright green, and tender crunchy (about 2 minutes)

8. Remove cover and continue to cook until the liquid has evaporated.

Serve quickly!

Stir-fried chicken with lime and coconut

This recipe was originally published in How to Cook by Delia Smith, but I found it in another compilation of recipes. There are two things I love about it:

1. It tastes complicated, but it's actually really easy with relatively few ingredients, so it makes for a great weeknight meal.
2. It's already scaled for two servings, so I don't have to convert any measurements or end up with a big batch of leftovers. (Not that there is anything wrong with leftovers, but sometimes you just don't want to deal with them, you know?)

Anyway, here it is...

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breast halves

• Grated zest and juice of 1 large lime


• 2 tsp. olive oil


• 1 hot green chile pepper, seeded and finely chopped


• 2/3 c. canned unsweetened coconut milk


• 2 tsp. fish sauce (nam pla)


• 4 scallions, cut into 1-inch shreds (including the greens)


• 6 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro


• Cooked jasmine rice, for serving

Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces. In a medium bowl, combine the chicken and lime zest and juice. Stir well and let marinate for 1 hour.

In a wok or large skillet, heat the oil over high heat. Add the chicken and stir-fry for 3 to 4 minutes, or until golden. Add the chile and stir-fry for 1 minute more. Add the coconut milk, fish sauce, half the scallions, and 3 tablespoons of the cilantro. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes more. Serve with jasmine rice and sprinkle the remaining scallions and cilantro over the top.

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This works out really slick... I zest and squeeze the lime while defrosting a couple of frozen chicken breast halves. Once I have chopped the chicken and gotten it marinating, I have about half an hour to get a load of laundry going, check my e-mail, whatever. Then I start the rice, and while it's cooking I chop the chile, scallions, and cilantro. After that I can get out the rest of the ingredients and start the stir-fry. By the time it's done, so is the rice... perfect!

I'm guessing that you could easily substitute shrimp or even tofu into this recipe, though you would need to adjust your marinating and stir-frying time. If you go the tofu route, you can make the dish vegan by substituting light soy sauce for the fish sauce and adding a pinch of sugar. Your dish won't have that distinctive fish sauce twang, but at least you'll get the salty-sweet aspect of it.

Also, I've found that I use less cilantro and scallion than the recipe calls for, only about 4 tablespoons cilantro and 3 scallions. That's still a lot of flavor but fewer leafy bits to get stuck in your teeth.