Foodie with time on her hands

Day 2 without substitute teaching. SAT tutoring student cancelled afternoon study session. Rainy, dreary day. What am I to do?

Let my inner foodie loose in the kitchen, of course.

Baked Salmon and Green Bean Packet(s)


2 small salmon fillets
1 c. frozen green beans
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 t. honey
1 t. soy sauce
1-2 t. evoo, plus extra for drizzling
1/4 c. walnuts, chopped
S&P to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Line baking dish with a large piece of aluminum foil. Place salmon fillets on foil and green beans around salmon. Season all with s&p; drizzle beans with evoo. Mince garlic and chop walnuts. In a small bowl, combine garlic, honey, soy sauce, evoo. Eyeball measurements until it "looks right." Spread the honey garlic mixture over the salmon. Sprinkle all with chopped walnuts. Bring together the edges of the foil and crinkle up to form a packet. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until the salmon flakes easily with a fork and the beans appear to no longer be frozen.

If you are to use this recipe, please refrain from calling it Baked Salmon and Haricots Verts Packets. I know that it may sound fancy-schmancy and that you may be alluding to a longer, thinner type of green bean, but you are just saying "green beans" in French. On a related rant, don't use "sans" and pronounce the "s" at the end. If we are to use another language, let's try not to butcher it on purpose.

And yes, the salmon will have a more intense flavor if you let it marinate for 30 minutes or so, but who has time for that?

On that note, I am going to go eat my salmon sans haricots verts.

Foodie love

Two posts in one day...I am on a roll! This one is dedicated to my foodie love...

I bought this adorable apron in Japan this year over Christmas/New Year's. How shufu (house-wife) do I look in this??

A fun discovery of late was how easy it is to make my own caesar salad from scratch. All you need are these ingredients...

Bake your own garlic-y croutons with some evoo.

And voila!

Can't figure out for the life of me why I did not do this sooner.

Also, inspired by being in the Balkans, I made my own version of shopska salad.

We had been desperately missing our rice cooker that was used every single day in DC.

I was forced to resort to cooking rice on the stove-top (shudder!) and it would turn into this gloopy mess. Enter the Montenegrin rice cooker aka steamer.

You place water in the bottom unit and put the steaming containers on top of the base. Inside one of the containers, you place a small plastic dish wherein you put your rice and water. Turn that baby on for 30 minutes and you will have almost perfectly cooked rice. (Insert sigh of relief here).

Yesterday I bought these strawberries at a kiosk for less than 2 euros.

Tastes like summer!

The return of banana oatmeal

As most of you know, I have a slight obsession with food; therefore, mixed among the travel/cultural posts, you are going to have to put up with some foodie posts.

So, for the inaugural foodie post, I bring you...Nutella Banana Oatmeal!

I found in the fridge what appeared to be oatmeal. It definitely was a grain but darker in appearance than the oatmeal in the States. I googled what was on the bag, "Razene" and "Pahuljice," and came across an online Croatian dictionary that told me that pahuljice can be translated as "flake" or "cereal flake." I figured that I had enough evidence to proceed with my plan.

The goods:

How cute is this carton of milk?!

Hmm...maybe I should invest in some sort of measuring device.

The final product:

The verdict? Delish!

Although, I may have just made Nutella Banana Oatmeal out of something that is traditionally eaten with meat and potatoes! Oh, well!! =)