Easy salmon and couscous with lotsa veggies

If you can't tell yet, this blog is a way for me to have some accountability to seek out and consume beauty--whether it is food or nature walks or fashion or inner beauty.  All things lovely!

Maybe next I'll learn French!  What could be more romantic?  Going to Paris for a spontaneous weekend?  Ok!  I'll put that on the list too!

For NOW, I'd like to share my latest kitchen experiment.  Faced with more expiring veggies and a newly purchased pound of salmon from Trader Joe's, I remembered a lovely dinner my bf and I had at M. Henrietta.  I really recommend any meal at this place!  The lovely pork loin is entirely lovely.  However, I did not have the ingredients or the courage for that.  Instead, I decided to recreate: a shiraz glazed char-grilled salmon fillet, served w/cous cous & sautéed herbed vegetables.

It was pretty easy!  I wish I'd had a grill for the salmon instead of just my oven, but it was fine.

First, preheat the oven and put on water to boil for couscous.  

Next, I put some red wine (mine was malbec because that's what was open), honey, and olive oil to simmer in a large skillet.  I pretty much just let it bubble for awhile until there was less liquid than when I started.  (While I may be attempting to cook lovely things, I'm not doing it in the most pre-planned fashion...which may have to change but for now I'm happy to just muddle through my cabinets and veggies.)  

While the wine was bubbling, I started washing broccoli, asparagus, and peeling carrots.  Any veggies you have will do just fine.

I poured my wine mix onto the salmon before I cooked it.  Next time, though, before cooking I will glaze the salmon with butter and brown sugar and then glaze after cooking with the wine-glaze. 

I cooked the veggies in the microwave, added the couscous to the water.  Cleaned up a bit.  Then after the appropriate amount of time, added the couscous to the veggies in the skillet (wine glaze was on fish by then). 

I sprinkled a little bit of cinnamon into the mix and added dried cranberries.  I highly recommend doing both of these little additions.  They add the perfect balance of sweet and spice to the couscous and veggies.

Then I pulled the salmon out and put 1/3 of it on top of a plate of couscous.  I had the perfect amount of food for 3 meals (with 1 cup of dry couscous, 1lb of salmon, 1 head of broccoli, 3 carrots, some asparagus).  It is delicious.  Super healthy.  And only took about 20 minutes to make because you can pretty much do everything as the fish cooks!