Welcome to today’s blog about cooking a very quick meal suitable for after work or after an adventure. You need salmon filets (skin on is fine) and any vegetables you happen to have in the fridge.
Cover two cookie sheets with aluminum foil and spray lightly with olive oil. One cookie sheet you will use for the salmon and one for the vegetables. Take the first sheet and place the salmon on the foil. Dribble about 1 teaspoon of honey on each salmon filet. Sprinkle liberally with Herbes de Provence or Italian Seasoning or any other herbs your family likes to eat.
Zest one lemon or more, if you are having more people for dinner, and spread the zest on each salmon filet. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. My daughter cooks this meal at 500 degrees but she is usually in more of a hurry than we are. If you use 500, shorten the cooking time by about 5 minutes.
Next, cut up whatever vegetables you have on hand into bite size chunks and place on a second foil-covered cookie sheet. We used red onions, scallions, mushrooms and red and orange peppers. Typically you would drizzle with olive oil, add salt and pepper and whatever seasoning you planned to use. In this case we didn’t use Olive Oil. When you use mushrooms and salt them well, the moisture from the cooking mushroom is enough to keep the vegetables from drying out without having to use oil. We sprinkled the vegetables with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to give it a little kick.
Cut the lemon you used for zesting in half. Using a lemon juicer, juice half the lemon over the vegetables and the other half over the fish. You can omit this step, if you like. If you use lemon on the fish the honey will have a tendency to run off the fish. After applying the honey and zest to the fish sprinkle the herbs over top of the fish and the vegetables. If you’re not using mushrooms, sprinkle the vegetables with olive oil.
Place the salmon and vegetables in a 500 degree oven for 15 – 20 minutes. Check with a thermometer at 15 minutes. You want the fish to be at 160-165 degrees.
If cooking at 450 degrees, cook for 20 – 25 minutes. Check at 20 minutes.
Be sure the salmon is on the lower rack in the oven.
When the fish and vegetables are cooked (vegetables will be tender with a little crispness remaining), plate them on some pretty plates and enjoy.
In about 30 minutes you have a healthy, delicious dinner….. and it was good! Serve with some hot bread. Enjoy!