Twice Baked Salmon Potatoes

Our four year anniversary is on Friday.  So I found it fitting to cook a recipe from back in 2007.  It was fun to think about what was going on in our lives when I pulled this recipe from a magazine.  It was from the Cooking Light magazine of March 2007.  Ben proposed a month earlier.  We were living in Johnson City.  We were surrounded by great friends and the mountains.  Ben worked full time with Appalachia Service Project.  I worked at Eastern Eight and went to school full time. We were excitedly planning our wedding and future plans.

The recipe has made the move with Ben and I from Johnson City to Nashville and then Ohio.  Tonight I finally prepared it.  I have to say that I should not have waited so long.  It was delicious.  If you have the time to prepare twice baked potatoes, I highly recommend this recipe.  It would be even more delicious if you lived in a coastal area.  Ohio doesn't exactly have the freshest salmon available.  I used frozen salmon and it was still great.

The following site has the recipe.  It's not from the Cooking Light website, but it's the same recipe.  I found it impossible to keep the potato together like the above picture.  So I used their stock photo. 
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/twice-baked-salmon-potatoes-10000001591040/

Hope you all find some time to enjoy this one and some memories-

Julie

Raspberry Preserves

Raspberry Preserves was a success!  We canned a little over 2 pints.  Ben picked the raspberries from the garden earlier and then we got to work.  The end results taste great and look pretty too.

The process was much simpler than I had imagined.  Previously I've made freezer jam because I had heard it was a pain to actually make jelly or preserves.  But it was rather simple.  We used 2 pounds of raspberries and mixed them with 4 cups of sugar.  This was more sugar than I wanted to use, but everything I read said we had to use that much or a special no sugar pectin.  We did not have the special pectin.  We let the raspberry sugar mix stand for 10 minutes.  Then we boiled it until it started to gel up.  

We then poured it into individual jars and placed them in boiling water for 15 minutes.  Not too hard.  I'm excited we'll be eating our raspberry preserves through the winter.

Here are some additional canning projects from this summer.  Spaghetti sauce, diced tomatoes, raspberry preserves, and peaches...yum.

Love Affair with Cilantro

Lately I've been in a love affair with Cilantro.  So naturally the first recipe from the stack needed to include this herb.  Plus, who doesn't love a Mexican dish?  I made a recipe from Taste of Home called Mexican Rice Skillet.  It's like a Mexican version of fried rice.

 http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Mexican-Skillet-Rice

While this was not an instant favorite, it was very enjoyable.   I have a problem of changing recipes as I make them to fit my likes/dislikes.  On this one, I used my favorite go to canned turkey from Bowman Landes.  I love the ease of using this free range already cooked turkey instead of chicken in dishes.  I'm also not a huge fan of taco sauce, so I used about half the recipes request.  The most exciting part of this cooking adventure was roasting my own red peppers instead of buying a jar at the store.  I learned this trick from Barefoot Contessa (another love of mine we can discuss later).

The results were very tasty.  It reminded me a lot of a meal version of Cowboy Caviar.  My husband immediately made it into nachos with chips and sour cream.  But I enjoyed the rice based dish.  I'm sure I'll make this one again.  It just won't be in the favorites rotation.

Week 1 mission accomplished.  I have one recipe out of the stack and neatly organized.  I may be back again this weekend.  Ben and I are planning on making raspberry jam with fresh raspberries from the garden!

Cowboy Caviar Recipe:

4 roma tomatoes diced

1 can black eyed beans

1 can corn

2 tbl red wine vinegar

2 tsp hot sauce

1 tsp olive oil

1 clove garlic

1/8 tsp. pepper

2/3 cup cilantro

In medium bowl mix together tomatoes, beans, corn, and cilantro.  Use the vinegar, hot sauce, olive oil, garlic, and pepper to make a dressing.  Poor dressing over first mixture and serve with chips.  I think the original recipe called for an avocado.  For those of you who enjoy avocado, I recommend adding one.  Unfortunately I have an intolerance to avocados.

http://www.bowmanlandes.com/