Moosewood’s Sunday Salmon

I love lox. I could eat it every day for breakfast with onions, and toast, and a little bit of creme fraiche. It is just that good. Forget breakfast - I would gladly eat it any time. This recipe always makes me think of Kenny, a co-worker of mine who has the same taste in salmon as well as the last name of the actual recipe, which is “Stein Sisters’ Sunday Salmon.” Kenny (Stein, not Salmon) is retiring this year, and perhaps I’ll manage to sneak him out a wedge of this stuff if it doesn’t disappear before tomorrow morning.

This recipe pulls double duty as a good brunch dish (with fresh fruit and bagels) or as dinner (with a greens salad with a tangy dressing.)

Ingredients:

• 4 medium potatoes (fist sized) sliced into thin half moons
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 Tbs butter
• 1/4 lb. lox, cut into pieces
• 2 Tbs fresh minced dill (or about 3/4 Tbs dried)
• 1/2 lb fresh salmon steak (or go for those vacuum packed ones. Don’t get the cheap canned stuff, as I did this time, and have to spend 15 minutes picking tiny bones and scales out. Ew.)
• 8 oz. cream cheese, cubed
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 c. milk (the original recipe calls for 1 1/4 c. but I found that it NEVER set so I reduced it a bunch)
• sweet (not hot) paprika

Boil potato slices for about 7 minutes, or until just tender. Line the bottom of a oiled (or sprayed) casserole dish. Meanwhile, sauté onions in butter until just translucent. Add lox and dill and saute for a few minutes more. Season with salt and pepper.

If you’re using fresh salmon, boil an inch of water in the bottom of a saucepan. Place salmon in a steamer rack or metal colander, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover, and steam 5-6 minutes. Flake into lox mixture. If you’re using vacuum packed (or, heaven forbid, canned) salmon, dump it out and break it up a bit. No need to steam. Add to lox mixture.

Distribute cubes of cream cheese evenly around the casserole dish (seriously, the cream cheese is the best part, so make sure everyone gets an equal chance to consume its delicious goodness), and then top with lox-onion-salmon mixture. Mix eggs with milk, and pour over entire thing. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until set.

Posted in breakfast, dinner, fish, potatoes, recipes || 2 Comments

Cinnamon Rolls

I’ve been gone a long time, but no one reads this anyway, so hoo-wah! Things have been a little busy since my first post… I got married, went on my brief honeymoon, had my reception, celebrated Christmas and Thanksgiving, and um, worked and stuff.
Right.

And in the meantime, I got to try a recipe from one of my favorite food blogs ever: The Pioneer Woman Cooks. It’s actually the recipe that I found her blog through, and now I’m obsessed with her life and check her personal blog and her cooking blog about 3 times a day for updates. (Her life is much cooler than mine.)
These are neither simple nor quick, but delicious and well worth the effort. Her pictures are better, but this is a half recipe.

Ingredients:
2 C whole milk
1/2 C vegetable oil
1/2 C sugar
1 package yeast
4 C flour
1/2 C flour
1/2 heaping tsp baking powder
1/2 scant tsp baking soda
1/2 tbsp salt

Filling:
1 C melted butter
1/2 C sugar
Cinnamon (enough to make it look right)

Frosting:
1/2 bag powdered sugar
1/4 C milk
2 Tbs brewed coffee
1 tsp maple flavoring (add more to your liking - I needed about twice this)
2 tbsp melted butter
pinch of salt

Mix whole milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a pan. Scald to just before boiling. Let cool until lukewarm (30-45 minutes, 105-110 degrees. Don’t kill your yeasties!) Sprinkle in yeast and let sit. Then add 4 C flour, stir mixture together. Cover and let sit for one hour. Add 1/2 C flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir mixture together.

Sprinkle surface generously with flour and form into a rectangle, roll the dough thin, maintaining a rectangular shape. Drizzle melted butter over dough. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Roll the dough toward you. Pinch the seam to seal it. Grease foil cake or pie pans. Cut rolls 3/4 to 1 inch thick and lay in greased pans. Cover the rolls and let sit for 30 minutes. Bake at 400 for 15 to 18 minutes.

Combine all frosting ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Generously drizzle frosting over warm rolls after they come out of the oven.

Eat all of them by yourself, then start again and serve those to your family.

Before baking.

Posted in breakfast || No Comments