Let’s Try This Again! Salmon & Potatoes

After a long absence in which my life took some great and unexpected turns I’ve decided to rethink this blog and it’s content. I’ve always been an avid cook but now I also have the time to try out tons of recipe ideas I’ve had over the years. I was Vegan until recently but have now turned carnivore again, so I’ll be posting a little of both! I will try to add reviews of natural personal care products as there are always new and better products coming out. 

 

Now, this time: Salmon Fillet with Baked Potatoes:

                        Ingredients: 

   For the Salmon:

• 2 Medium pieces of salmon- deboned, skinless. 
• 2-3 Cloves of garlic
• 2 Tbs of Cajun spices
• 2 Tbs of  Paprika 
• 1 Tsp of a dried pepper mix (such as Steakhouse Pepper)– Optional
• 1 Tsp of Herbamare or regular sea salt 
• 1/4 or 1/3 cup 0f Olive oil
• 2 pieces of tin foil for baking

   For the Oven-Baked Potatoes: 

• 2-3 Medium sized potatoes (preferably organic!)
• 2 Cloves of garlic
• 1 Tbs of Paprika
• 1 Tbs Herbamare or sea salt
• 1 Tbs Crushed black pepper
• 1 Tsp Cajun spices (optional- for a little heat)
• 1/4 cup of Olive oil

Serves 2!

1. Its better to start with the salmon, as it will need to sit in the marinade for about 30 minutes. First lightly wash the salmon and cut into 2 pieces.  

                                     

2. Prepare marinade: remove skins from garlic and either put them through a garlic crusher or cut them into medium pieces. Pour olive oil into a bowl and mix in all the different spices. Mix with a spoon.

                                             

3. Place salmon pieces in bowl and using your hands (this is a little messy!) coat the pieces with the marinade. The marinade does need to cover the fish completely! 

4. Place in the fridge (preferably covered) for 30 minutes or more. Use within the same day or freeze up with the marinade.

                                                    

5. When the time is up, cut up 2 long pieces of tin foil and place each salmon piece on it. Wrap it up and close it up. It doesn’t need to be perfect!

6. Place in the oven at a heat of about 405-410 F, for 15 to 20 minutes. This is quite individual as the heat in each oven can vary. Yet, its important to keep the baking time to at least 15 minutes to ensure the fish is cooked. You can check in and open the wrap after 15 minutes to asses how much more time is needed in the oven. Serve immediately. 

 

And now the side dish! Notice that when the fish is sitting all cozy in the fridge you can start working on the potatoes.

1. Wash the potatoes with warm water. I recommend not removing the potato skins, especially if the potatoes are organic.

2. Cut potatoes into halves and place on a baking sheet in a pan.

                                             

3. Cut garlic without the skin into medium sized pieces. Small pieces will burn in the oven while its cooking! Place on potatoes.

4. Sprinkle all the different seasoning on the  the cut potatoes and then drizzle the oil.

                                       

5. Mix everything up. Come on, use your hands!

6. Place in oven for 20-30 minutes or until soft. In terms of heat, you can simply place it in the oven with the fish at 405-410 F. Make sure to toss and turn the potatoes once while in the oven.

 

That’s it! It’s done:

                                 

 

You can also add Dijon Mustard to the potatoes or salmon. Its also quite  good to pour half a lemon on the salmon steaks prior to cooking in the oven. Its really easy to make and doesn’t take more than an hour. Its one our favorite dinners!

Soul Improvement

After a few turbulent days and weeks, I have finally settled back (to some extant) into my routine again. While I was away I decided to make a few changes in my life that I hoped would make my life a little easier… And lo and behold, I sure is! For one thing, I bought a few Vegan cook books. I adore the book La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer because EVERY thing I have made so far has been more than awesome.

I also started baking vegan with Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and frankly, if you don’t have it already… I think you should! Some results (and a vanilla one soon to come) can be found in my Flicker account.

These minor improvements have made what I eat so much more versatile, yummy and easy that I can’t imagine my life without them! Another thing which have made my life certainly more comfortable has been using Rosa Mosqueta® Rose Hip Moisturizing Cream by Aubrey Organics. Finding a moisturizer is like finding a holy grail at times. Much like the deodorant, its a product that enables you to feel a little more comfortable with yourself. This might sound like an odd statement, or like something oddly superficial… However, walking around when your face is suffering an allergic reaction from some “natural”/”hypoallergenic” moisturizer makes me feel a tad self conscious. Another problem is walking around with dry dry skin or (suddenly) way too oily skin.

I think I am probably right when I say that you want your moisturizer to make your skin feel elastic, not itchy or dry, without any break outs or oily spots and the all important… Not make your face freckle even more. A lot of moisturizers have awful ingredients in them, such as those find in here:

What annoys me about it is that, when you don’t know what to look for you are bound to buy products that ultimately harm you. After quite a long search I ended up with Aubrey Organics. My skin is sensitive, very dry and I am prone to freckle; therefore, I was looking for something to moisturize my skin in a hot weather with minimal issues. I did find it in the Rosa Mosqueta® Rose Hip Moisturizing Cream. Now, the EWG rates it as a 2 hazard, but! it the rating is so high due to Vitamin A and Tocopherol (which is basically Vitamin E). I do realize that this is not *obsessively* natural but I have yet to find anything better.

The smell is decent enough, kinda rose like. The consistency is kinda weird and almost shiny. It feels almost watery and it absorbs nicely providing you don’t put too much on. Its totally vegan, biodegradable, and mostly organic. The bottle is not too big, but certainly not too small… still, you do pay at least 16$ for it at Whole Foods. I managed to buy it for 12.54$ when I bought it online at Vitamin Life though it was processing for literally a month before it was sent, so be advised to plan well ahead. Value wise its not a bad deal and my face looks and feels quite good. I totally recommend it, but if you find something more natural than be sure to let me know! The one thing I do wish it had was some sunblock protection. I guess it might make it less fitting to sensitive skins, but it sure would make my life easier. I use Badger’s sunscreen on it, unhappily. I will rate the sunscreen in another post.
All and all, I give it 8 out of 10.

Oh yeah… You might wonder why I don’t use it (a.k.a. Vegecol with Aloe Moisturizing Cream) and I am glad to answer that I did! Only it seems that my skin is more dry than anything else and it flaked when I did try to use it. It also WAYYY more expensive for something sooo small. I use it at night so that I wouldn’t feel like I wasted my money on something useless.

Oi Vey! Allergic reaction!!

Well, remember how happy I was with Tom’s Of Maine’s deodorant? Well, so happy in fact that I tried the lemongrass version of it. At first my armpits felt alright and I was pretty happy. Two days ago I started to feel a little burn there after shaving to wear a top (we’ve been having some really nice sunny days here) but I didn’t take much notice of it. I still felt it yesterday and today, but I guess I didn’t notice it in the shower… While I was trying some cloths on I actually saw that my armpits are chaffed, very red and very very agitated!! So let me put it this way…

If you EVER had issues in which your skin is just sensitive to different stuff, AVOID this deodorant at ALL COSTS!! It feels quite terrible and unpleasant, not to mention I won’t be wearing any tops soon. I can still recommend using the unscented version of the deodorant because I used it for a whole month and never had any reaction.

So with this, I shall conclude today’s negative feedback! Hopefully next time I’ll have some recommendations we can all use, share and love.