Recipe Monday: Pesto Roasted Salmon with Spinach and Orzo

     This particular meal came about as a last minute change. I had originally planned on making a very rich pasta dish for dinner. I decided to go with something lighter because I ended up going out to breakfast at Huddle House and eating two sausage, egg and cheese biscuits. That burned through about half of my allotted calories for the day. The orzo still gave me my pasta fix, which was nice. I wound up substituting a pistachio-basil pesto I canned last season for the pesto mentioned in this recipe. It came out wonderfully. I'll definitely be making this again. I do so love a nice piece of fish.

Pesto Roasted Salmon with Spinach and Orzo
(via McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant Cookbook)

Ingredients
• 1 pound salmon fillets
• 3/4 cup pesto (I used a pistachio-basil pesto)
• 1 1/4 cups orzo pasta
• 5 oz. frozen, no-salt-added spinach
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Lemon slices

Pesto
• 1 cup fresh basil
• 1/4 cup freshly chopped garlic
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup Extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Combine and blend thoroughly in a blender or food processor

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. 
2. Cut salmon into 4 portions and rinse. Set aside while preparing pesto. 
3. Lightly coat baking dish with cooking spray. 
4. Pat fish dry with paper towels. Cut each salmon steak in half, removing as much of bone, cartilage and skin as possible. 
5. Coat fillets in pesto and roast for approximately 8 minutes or until the fish flakes. 
6. Meanwhile, cook orzo and spinach according to package directions. Drain pasta well. 
7. Squeeze out excess moisture from spinach then combine together with pasta. Stir in nutmeg, cheese and pepper and combine with pasta. 
8. Divide onto 4 plates. Place salmon portions on top of pasta.

Good times!