Grilled Salmon with Sweet Corn, Avacado, and Cherry Tomato Salad

• I follow whole foods market on Twitter, this is an adaptation of one of their recent recipes.  

(Photo from Whole Foods Market website)

• There's a young farmer right down the road from us and he raises the sweetest sweet corn around.  In addition, our garden is overflowing with tomatoes--roma, cherry, early girl, and 4th of July varieties.  So this salad worked out perfectly. 
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• I used Atlantic Salmon which is rich and fatty and delicious.  Cooked the salmon on a cedar plank in the Traeger Grill.  Doesn't get much better than that.  This can be done in the oven as well, or a charcoal grill for that matter.
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• Sweet Corn, Avocado, Cherry Tomato Salad
• 4 ears fresh corn, kernels removed from cob
• 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
• 1 small avocado, diced
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• Atlantic Salmon
• 4 (4- to 6-ounce) boneless, skinless salmon fillets
•  Olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Put corn, tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, oil and vinegars into a large bowl and toss gently to combine. Set aside.  This salad is so good that it's great on its own.

Lightly brush the salmon with extra virgin olive oil, then sprinkle on the sea salt and black pepper.  Place salmon on a cedar plank (the cedar plank needs to soak in water for at least 2 hours to prevent it from burning on the grill).  Onto the Traeger Grill at 375 degrees for 20 - 30 minutes.  You'll know the salmon is cooked perfectly when the flesh just begins to flake with a fork.

Enjoy friends!

California Cobb Salad

More cheese from Wisconsin in the fridge--Billy Blue Cheese--goat blue cheese.   Hmmmm, Blue Cheese, Bacon, Avacado, Tomatoes, Hard Cooked Eggs, and Lettuce from the garden.  What else but Cobb Salad uses all these amazing ingredients!  We are having Chicken Amadine with the salad for dinner so I skipped the chicken that is usually included in the classic Cobb Salad.  (BTW you can find the recipe for the Chicken Amadine on this blog.)

This is lettuce from our garden--red leaf, butter crunch, leaf lettuce, and romaine.  It grew like crazy!

For the vinaigrette:

1 Tbls. Dijon mustard

1/4 Cup red-wine vinegar

2 tsps. Worcestershire sauce

1 garlic clove -- grated fine

1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt

1/2 Cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1/4 tsp. sugar

Place all the ingredients except the olive oil  in a blender, blend, then drizzle in the olive oil.  Done!!
Drizzle this over the salad greens.

Prepare the rest of the ingredients:  crumbled Blue Cheese, chopped hard boiled eggs, crumbled cooked bacon, sliced avacado, grape tomatoes cut in half.

Here's that cheese we bought in Wisconsin.

Arrange the Cobb Salad ingredients in little rows around the dressed greens.  Look for good color   combinations--put bright colors like the tomatoes next to light colors like the cheese.  I sprinkled the bacon bits over the top of the greens.

And to go with the salad, the Chicken Amadine.  

You can find that recipe on this blog, did I already say that?

Enjoy friends!

Breakfast Quesadillas

This morning hubby ask for "something Mexican" for breakfast.  Looking over the contents of the fridge, I noticed lots of possibilities.  However, having not used my quesadilla maker for a while, I thought this might be just the ticket!

I chopped up some onion, jalapeno, and some Jimmy Dean turkey sausage.  

Saute until the vegies are tender.

Get the rest of the ingredients ready.  The salsa, sour cream, and avacado will be garnish!

We like to use whole wheat tortillas!

Here's the quesadilla maker that was a gift from our daughter, Nickole!

Top a tortilla with some cojack cheese and the sausage mixture.

Place another tortilla on top and close the lid.

Meantime, break a couple of eggs into a non-stick skillet.

A bonus of living in a small town, we get farm fresh eggs from our 

next door neighbors for $1.50 a dozen!

The finished product, sprinkled with some cilantro.

Enjoy friends!!