Salmon and Chive Mashed Potatoes with a Goat Cheese Pancetta Cream Sauce

Determined to get out of my frozen and snack food rut, I decided to class up dinner with some salmon I found on sale at Safeway yesterday.  I created the sauce based on what I knew was in the fridge, and in retrospect most people might prefer this on a chicken or maybe a steak, but since I love rich cream sauces on everything, I thought it was delicious on my salmon.  So here's what you need:

Sauce Ingredients: Pancetta, Garlic, Onion, Mushrooms, Goat Cheese, Flour, Cream
Other Ingredients: Salmon, Chicken Broth, Potatoes, Milk, Butter, Chives


I began with boiling the sliced potatoes and poaching the salmon in chicken broth over medium heat until cooked to a nice medium well.  You can cook the salmon however you prefer, but I'm a fan of poaching because it yields the moistest result.  

Then I mashed my potatoes with butter, milk, and chives and plated them with the salmon on top while I made the sauce (I did the sauce after the salmon because I used the same saute pan, but if you aren't frugal with your saucepans feel free to make the sauce concurrently with the poaching of the fish).


I started by sauteing the pancetta with garlic over medium heat and added chopped onion and sliced mushrooms.  There wasn't enough fat from the pancetta so I added a little butter to help with the cooking process.

When everything was cooked to the desired doneness, I added a little flour to the pan to make a roux.  Next I added some cream and it thickened as I stirred (about 1/4 cup at this point).  I added the goat cheese last (maybe about 1 ounce) and added a little more cream to create more sauce.  I poured it over the salmon and potatoes and voila!  When you're working with roux and cream sauce, you want to make sure to prepare it as close to when you're serving the food as possible because it could thicken too much or if it sits too long it could separate and all these things make for grossness.

Pesto Pasta with Pancetta

This boring meal is brought to you by laziness and leftovers.  It's not really even worth a blog post, but there has been too much eating out and leftover reheating lately that home cooked meals have been scarce.  My stove feels neglected and my produce is going bad. 

So this five minute meal involved heating a saute pan.  Adding pancetta. Adding cooked angel hair pasta.  Adding pesto sauce.  Adding fresh goat cheese.  Yeah it was quite tasty.  But it was also quite easy.  It's amateur hour here at LND, but I suppose we can't make five star meals every night.  Especially on nights when spontaneous naps occur right before dinner time. 

Irish Nachos

Once, at an Irish pub, some friends and I saw Irish Nachos on the menu, basically potato skins in lieu of tortilla chips smothered in nacho glory.  As you might assume, they were delicious.  So in honor of the Giants game on Saturday, I decided to make my own version.

Ironically, my least favorite part of potato skins, is the actual skin.  So i decided to just peel my potatoes and slice them.  I lined them in a butter-coated pan, drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and put them in a 350 degree oven while I prepped the rest of the ingredients.

potatoes after about 20 min in the oven

Next I chopped a tomato (organic, courtesy of the roommate's CSA), and a little bit of onion.  I sprinkled the onion on the potatoes and put them back in the oven to cook together longer.  Meanwhile I defrosted and chopped some chicken.  I threw it in a skillet w/ a little oil and spices (paprika, chili powder, oregano) and cooked it through.  Out of the oven again I now sprinkled the tomatoes, chicken, and a can of black beans atop the potatoes and onions and baked for about another 10 minutes.

potatoes, onions, tomatoes, chicken

Finally I took the nachos out one last time, grated some white cheddar and snipped some chives for the top (I was out of scallions).  Back in the oven for another 5 minutes to melt the cheese and it was Irish Nacho game time.  I served them with a hefty dollop of sour cream (sadly i had no avocados or guac in the fridge).  Even the vegetarian roommate pushed aside the chicken and found this dish delicious.  Let's hear it for a little south of the border and overseas fusion.

Three Cheese Mac and Cheese

I discovered this recipe in food and wine magazine a few months ago and made a mental note that I needed to try it.  Well, this week I finally bought the ingredients, and several pots/pans/messy stoves later we had more three cheese mac than we knew what to do with.  aka an entire casserole dish of this stuff is currently sitting in the fridge at work.

The best part about this dish is the sauce.  It seems like a lot of sauce when you first make it, but it reduces when you bake the pasta.  Basically you cook some chopped garlic and onions in 3 cups of cream or half and half (we did 2 cups cream 1 cup milk).  Take some cream out to mix with flour then add the mixture back to thicken the suace.  Next comes the cheese.  Goat, white cheddar, and parmesan.  Sour cream, herbs, salt and pepper to season.  Then remove some of the sauce and mix with egg yolks and return that to the pan.  Then take some of your cooked pasta and sample it in the sauce if you can't wait for it to bake (that wasn't in the recipe).  45 minutes in the oven later and you've got dinner.

Well, I loved this sauce so much when it was on the stove that I was kind of sad to see it reduced so much in the oven, so next time I think i'll only bake the pasta for about 10 minutes, rather than 45, so the parmesan cheese on top can melt, but I don't lose the cheesy goodness coating the noodles.  I scanned the original recipe for all y'alls if you want to try it for yourselves.  Cooking the amount listed fills up a good 2 casserole dishes.  I'm thinking this will make an appearance at my next dinner party.