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!

Monday Recipe: Crisp Roasted Pork Tenderloin on Farfalle

     I've been in central Illinois for about six years now and have noticed we have some signature regional foods. One is the Horseshoe. I'll get into that another day. The other is the pork tenderloin. We have a fair amount of pig farms (we have one right up the highway that you can smell if the wind is right), so quality pork products are readily available.
     Keep in mind, when you hear "tenderloin," you may not be thinking of the tenderloin I am thinking about. There is the pork tenderloin that is also known as the "pork fillet."

Pork tenderloin/fillet

     Then there is the Midwest tenderloin. This kind of tenderloin is just a thin slice of pork. It's similar to a wiener schnitzel. Tenderloins down here are generally served on a bun or horseshoe, heavily breaded and fried and drowning in a sea of gravy/cheese/mayonnaise. Mind you, that's not a bad thing.

Pork tenderloin sandwich

     Why am I bothering with this distinction? Well, the recipe for today calls for the bigger pork tenderloin, not the sandwich cut. However, I went ahead and used sandwich cuts because it was what I had in the house and I was too damned lazy and cheap to get the right ingredient.

     I managed to locate a fairly healthy pork tenderloin recipe in the McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant Cookbook. Go figure I'd find a good pork recipe in a seafood cookbook. Just make sure to plan ahead for this dish; the pork needs to marinate overnight. It's a nice, light alternative to the tenderloin gut bombs that are normally offered around here.

Crisp-Roasted Pork Tenderloin 

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup finely chopped green onions, both white and green parts
• 1 cup corn oil
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
• 4T grated lime rind
• 2T freshly grated ginger
• 2T soy sauce
• 1/2t salt
• 1/2t ground white pepper
• 2 small pork tenderloins (I used six sandwich tenderloins)
• Vegetable oil spray
• 1 1/4 cups plain bread crumbs
• 2T finely chopped fresh parsley
• 2T finely chopped green onion
• 1 pound dry fettucini, linguini, or spaghetti, (we used farfalle)

Directions

1. Combine onion, oil, lime juice and rind, ginger, soy sauce, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Set aside.
2. Lay the pork tenderloin in a baking dish and pour half of the liquid mixture over all of the meat, turning to coat evenly. Cover the dish and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Reserve the remaining mixture for the pasta.
3. Preheat oven to 450F. Lightly spray baking dish with vegetable oil spray.
4. In a pie plate, combine the bread crumbs, parsley and green onion. Stir to mix and set aside.
5. Remove the tenderloins from the marinade and wipe off the excess. Pat dry with a paper towel. Coat the meat with the bread crumb mixture. Place the pork in the prepared baking dish and roast approximately 30 minutes or until it reaches an internal temperature of 140F (cooking time will be less if you go with the sandwich tenderloins; I nearly burned mine when I didn't adjust for the thinner cuts of pork).
6. While the pork is roasting, cook the pasta per package directions and toss with remaining marinade. Allow the pork to rest for a few minutes, then cut into 1/2 inch slices and lay over the pasta.

Serves 6.

Good times!