Salmon with Fennel over Spinach, a surprising yum

Total honesty here: As I was making dinner last night, I was griping to myself that I was annoyed. Here I was, spending valuable time cooking while Little was screaming and no one was going to appreciate the meal. Sunddenly, my kids, who love salmon weren’t in the mood for it and my husband called and let me know he’d be home late. So, why, I vented, am I wasting my time?

Of course, I was really wasting my time because I bought the salmon on Monday making Thursday the last day I could keep it in the fridge. I just was not in the mood to wrap it and then freeze and forget about it later.

Ingredients:

2 bulbs fennel, thinly sliced (just slice the bulbs, toss the grassy, weedy looking part)

2 lemons, sliced into quarters

3 tablespoons EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

Kosher salt

black pepper

Salmon fillet (our family of 4 eaters usually eats about a pound and a quarter. And that’s starting to get to be too small. Sigh. That means our weekly salmon meals will be getting more expensive this winter)

1 1/2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary (do not substitute with dried)

1/2 (or so) bag of spinach

Get Cookin’

Heat oven to 400^.

Mix 1-2 tablespoons EVOO with fennel in a dutch oven (or large roasting pan)

gently add lemons (do not squeeze out juices)

Cook about 8 minutes

season salmon with salt and pepper

Add salmon into dutch oven and roast another 25 minutes (until cooked through, salmon should no longer be glossy inside)

Squeeze lemons into a bowl and add honey, rosemary, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1-2 tablespoons EVOO

place spinach leaves on a plate, salmon and fennel on top and drizzle lemon-honey dressing on top

Star Power Rating: It was totally worth it. Big sat down and kind of picked at the fennel. But when I mentioned that it tasted like licorice, he dug right in (who knew he likes licorice?). And he kept eatting. Middle loved the salmon, as he always does. And leftovers for lunch today were excellent (I drizzled a Peppercorn dressing on instead of the lemon-honey-vin. for lunch.) 4+ out of 5 stars.

Notes for next time: I didn’t listen to my own advice and used dried rosemary. Because it wasn’t cooked, when I took my first bite I thought the salmon wasn’t boned. Not a good feeling. Definitely make sure you use fresh rosemary. Additionally, next time I’ll add some mustard into the dressing to make it a lemon-honey-mustard viniagrette.

This recipe was adapted from Real Simple’s Salmon andFennel with roasted-lemon vinaigrette, featured in November 2008.

About Julie Meyers Pron

Julie Meyers Pron has written 815 post in this blog.

mom of 3 and wife, Julie is a former elementary school teacher and a Public Relations manager. She is the owner/editor of Just Precious, founding partner of Just Centsible, and a team member of Splash Creative Media. Julie is a PTOer, volunteer, elementary educator and that's just the beginning of the list!