The Yum Yum Factor

Never mind when Harry Met Sally. Whatever. Tonight, my new Anova met Instant Pot and it was glorious. Although I just got a new  Anova Precision Cooker Wifi  , I have had an Anova sous vide for over a year now and I love it but this one is even cooler.

It was so hot today that you couldn't even sit still outside without melting into a disgusting pile of sweat soup. Of course, I made the mistake of thinking it would be nice to walk down to the beach and do a bit of grocery shopping this morning. Walking down to the beach also means you have to walk back UP FROM the beach, which I did, carrying two heavy bags of food. By the time I arrived back home I knew a couple things for sure. I was NOT going to turn on my oven, boil water for pasta or go for another walk back down to the beach.  When it gets this hot and humid I always crave a bowl of vietnamese bun. Bun noodles are typically the very thin rice vermicelli noodles that you can find in any asian grocery store. Room temperature noodles, lots of fresh herbs, sweet/sour nuoc cham, raw veggies and a bit of fish - it doesn't get better than this. I am not sure if using salmon in this version of bun is very authentic but it delicious so I don't really care. We o...

We are still Shackless as it seems like his movie is never going to end and he is never coming home from Montreal. The only thing we can do to stop ourselves from crying ourselves to sleep every night is to continue to dine on the creatures of the sea. It is our cross to bear. I was actually not planning to make salmon at all today (I was going to whip up some chili nachos) but then I went to the store for mustard and ended up buying a nice piece of salmon instead. It wasn't quite enough to serve the two of us so I needed to stretch it a bit. I toyed with the idea of making a salmon risotto or pasta or something but nothing was grabbing me. Time for salmon cakes. I often make extra salmon just I can make cakes the next day but this was the first time I cooked salmon just for that purpose. Because I have been craving Indian food for a week, tandoori salmon cakes were now on the menu. As is often the case, I have made them before but I have never really paid attenti...

Shack has left to work in Montreal for a week or so and do you know what that means? Oh sure, it means we  miss him and we both fall asleep on pillows wet with fresh tears. IT MEANS WE CAN EAT FISH! WE CAN EAT SALMON! EVERY DAMNED DAY!!

Shack is working late and won't be home for dinner so I promised The Kid that I would cook salmon since his crazy whackheaded father doesn't like it and we both adore it. Along with David Bowie, The Legend of the Seeker and egg salad, salmon has become one of those things we indulge in when it's just the two of us. It's best this way. For some reason, salmon really lends itself to indian spices and I often make a proper tandoori salmon but today I wanted to do something just a little bit different. I also didn't want to bbq it and tandoori is best bbq'd but after my failed attempt to start the charcoal last night armed with nothing but an old electrical bill envelope, a nascar lighter,  charcoal and some fondue pot fuel DOH I wasn't in a hurry to try that again. I found this tasty looking recipe on Family Style Food and although I think I would love the corn salsa thing, it also required the grill and I don't know that The Kid would appreciate...

The minute I saw this recipe for a chermoula for oily fish on 64 sq ft kitchen, I knew I wanted to make it and do salmon. I almost never cook salmon steaks, preferring salmon fillets cooked so that the skin gets super crispy for the kid. He is the hoarder of salmon skin around here so it is always all about that crunchy skin but I wanted to try the steaks for a change. I followed the recipe without any real changes other than subbing shallots for the onion and it was really flavourful. Part of master plan was to have enough salmon leftover to make something the next night with it but I wasn't sure that would happen.

What to do with leftover sushi rice? Make sushi pizza, what else! Okay, you could also make onigiri but I don't want onigiri today. I want something crunchy and crispy. I made sushi for Little Shack's lunch and made way too much rice. I also happened to have leftover salmon from the previous evening's dinner so it made perfect sense to plan on sushi pizza for dinner. You can pile anything you want on a sushi pizza. You can throw on some raw fish, cooked fish, leftover fish, pickled vegetables are good, kimchi is great if you like kimchi. If you are vegetarian, you can just throw on pickled veggies and sauce, avocado and whatever else you would normally like to eat in a sushi roll. It really couldn't be easier: Heat a frying pan over med to med high heat. With wet hands, grab a baseball sized ball of leftover, cold sushi rice and pat it down into a patty, much like a hamburger patty. Mix up soy sauce, sesame oil and a bit of water (I do about 2 tbls ...