I don’t know about you, but lately, it has been way too hot to cook by the time dinnertime rolls around. I’m craving cold food – food that is light, crunchy and COLD (aka SALAD). Ironically, I’ve been in a bit of a salad rut so when that happens I usually seek out a boost of inspiration from whatever fruit and veggies are looking good at the markets as well as recipes I find online or in cookbooks…and of course salads I’ve made and loved in my own kitchen.

Today I’m sharing with you a few of my favorite healthy dinner salads from the archives. I dug back to find a couple I haven’t made in a while but I’ve eaten plenty of (I’m looking at you Blackened Fish Taco Salad). For the most part, these salad are no fuss and have minimal cooking involved. Beans, rotisserie chicken, leftover grilled steak or chicken are ideal to making any dinner salad complete in an instant, but if you have to quickly sear a piece of fish or some shrimp in a skillet it’s worth the effort and won’t heat up your kitchen too much.

I hope you find a little healthy dinner salad inspiration here to day! Have a great weekend!

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I am really trying to get more fish back into our diet. Fish is so versatile, there are so many ways to prepare it whether baked, broiled, grilled or simply pan fried like this Parmesan Crusted Fish with Lemon and Capers – and it’s so good for you! Let’s not forget to mention that not only is it super versatile, but it’s super quick to cook up! Which makes it a dream of a weeknight meal.

My friend Deanna has mentioned cooking fish coated in Parmesan a couple of times to me when I’ve asked her the question – what’s for dinner? I love having “what’s for dinner” friends, the ones who you can send a random text to throughout  the day to help you figure out what you are going to throw together at the last minute. We all need a few of those friends in our life. 🙂 I tend to get great ideas from those conversations. This fish dish is definitely one of them.

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I have been really enjoying reading all of your entries to my Favorite Things / Amazon Gift Card Giveaway! It sounds like a lot of you want to use the gift card to purchase Christmas gifts, but books (yay!), stand up mixers, fitbits and even a few sewing machines are making the list too. You have all week to enter the giveaway if you haven’t already, and don’t forget to check out the other 14 blogger hosted Favorite Things giveaways too (prizes range from more gift cards, a fit bit and lots of kitchen items!).

One of my favorite “Feel Good” meals is broiled salmon and veggies. It really doesn’t get much healthier than that does it? I haven’t been cooking as much fish as I used because my son can’t eat it. We haven’t had him officially tested yet, but we think he has an allergy. I usually end up cooking fish on nights that I have leftovers of something else that I can give him for dinner so that I don’t have to prepare two separate main courses. The rest of us love fish so I am making an effort to plan better so that we can have it regularly again.

The best thing about fish dinners like this almond crusted honey mandarin salmon are how quickly they cook up, usually in just about 10-15 minutes!

Turn on the broiler and prepare a salad or saute some vegetables while your fish cooks and you have yourself the perfect “Feel Good” healthy dinner.

I don’t know about you, but this time of year, I need more of these types of healthy meals to balance out the other types of meals. You know, those indulgent ones that tend to creep up every other day or so during the holidays. 😉

For this easy broiled salmon recipe, I used the juice of a couple of mandarin oranges (or are they clementines, I have always called them clementines – what is the difference?) that are starting to pop up in crates in the grocery store. We eat them like crazy at our house and I am so happy to see that they are back in season! I combined the juice with some honey, smoked paprika and crunchy almonds for a flavorful, light coating and sauce.

I served this Honey Mandarin Salmon with Almond Crust with a simple spinach salad with red onion, feta and vinaigrette – it was delicious!

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(Disclosure: This post is sponsored by McCormick via The Motherhood, I received compensation for recipe development and my time. My recipe was created using McCormick spices, which you would already find in my kitchen.)

Taco night is finally becoming a go-to dinner option in my household. My husband and I have always loved tacos of every kind, but my kids have been a little hit or miss over the years. I think it’s safe to say that each of us is happily on board with taco night as of now – and since Mexican food, especially the taco, is some of the easiest to prepare this mama is oh so happy.
As a matter of fact, my kids just recently proclaimed we should have taco night weekly – I am all over it!

Fish tacos are some of my favorite to prepare, especially during grilling season. I love taking a simple white fish and seasoning it up just right with a few spices and fresh lime juice. When McCormick asked me to participate in their Taco Night Fiesta I knew right away that with the beautiful warm weather we were having I had to make fish tacos. For these fish tacos I wanted to try out a new-to-me spice that was sent to me by McCormick, dried diced jalapeno peppers. I was so intrigued when I saw this spice in their collection and I couldn’t wait to try it out. What I love about it is the mild jalapeno flavor it adds, without much of the heat (or fuss) of dealing with fresh jalapenos. It’s a nice way to infuse a little jalapeno flavor into a dish easily and conveniently.

I paired up the dried jalapeno with some ground cumin, salt, pepper and oil to marinate over the fish before putting on the grill. Using my fingers, I ground up the dried jalapeno so that it would work into the marinade a little easier, but you could always use a the back of a wooden spoon or a mortar and pestle to grind up too.

McCormick challenged me to come up with a 5-ingredient recipe for their fiesta so I kept the base of these fish tacos simple with this flavorful marinade using their spices as well as white corn tortillas and a very important and substantial squeeze of lime to finish them off. The lime truly brightened up the flavors that were cooked up on the fish. I love adding a squeeze of citrus after fish or seafood is cooked as opposed to including it in the marinade so that the acid doesn’t interfere in the pre-cooking process (hello ceviche) and so that the citrus flavor is fresh, lingering and very obvious. Citrus and fish should always be the best of friends in my opinion.

The fish and the tortilla are definitely essential to the taco making business. No question about that. But…my favorite part of tacos is always the toppings!

And lots of them!! I stuck with a green theme to keep these fish tacos fresh and light (and for a little fun!). Our toppings included shredded green cabbage (you can always use lettuce!), lime, avocado, and of course lots of fresh cilantro. My kids are loving Greek yogurt on everything these days so I had to include that too.

My family loved these Grilled Green Fish Tacos, my daughter probably the most. She couldn’t keep her hands off the fish, and pretty much finished it all off taco-less.

Needless to say, this perfectly seasoned grilled fish would be great on its own maybe paired up with some Fresh Corn Salad or Cilantro Rice for a completely different dinner. (I truly love successful family dinners like this one!)

But for now, enjoy these fish tacos instead.

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I’ve got some more grapefruit love for you today!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Sandy posted this beautiful baked salmon dish on her blog. On the same day, I received a shipment of these gorgeous pink grapefruit from Harry & David. After seeing Sandy’s salmon, and tasting the grapefruit, I decided to play with her recipe and treat the family to a healthy salmon dinner. We love salmon at our house (well 3/4 of us do at this time), so I’m always looking for new ways to serve it. And to be honest, I hadn’t made salmon for dinner in too long. The last time was when I posted about this Salmon Salad a couple of months ago!

All the ingredients for the pistachio topping came together just perfectly. To be honest, I was enjoying the topping all on it’s own way too much during “taste-testing”. The crust was so good over the wild sockeye salmon I used. I purchase it frozen at Costco, so I always have some in the freezer for convenience. I think it would also be good on any other firm white fish like grouper or red snapper.

How do you make pistachio crusted salmon?

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place your salmon filets on a lightly greased baking sheet. Season top side with salt and pepper.
3. In a food processor or blender, add olive oil, honey or agave nectar, grapefruit juice, pistachios, paprika and a light pinch of salt and pepper. Pulse ingredients a few times until combined. Spoon nut mixture over salmon filets and spread evenly. Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes until salmon flakes easily.

Citrus goes so well with all kinds of seafood or fish, so it’s worth a try to experiment! I paired up the salmon with a nice spinach salad, topped with this simple grapefruit vinaigrette, for a great healthy weeknight dinner. For dessert, we had raspberry-rhubarb crumble with vanilla ice cream. So delicious!

I hope you enjoy this grapefruit-pistachio crusted salmon recipe as much as we did.

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I’m pretty excited about today’s post and giveaway, it’s my biggest giveaway I’ve had here on the blog and it’s for a product I love and have been using for a long time. I’m asked often about what kind of nonstick skillets I use and over the years, I can tell you, I’ve gone through quite a few and have stuck with Calphalon for as long as I can remember now.

I think it’s safe to say that my family uses our nonstick skillets almost daily. My husband is always cooking up eggs for us for breakfast, and I like to use them for frittatas, fish and quick vegetable sautes. Since I’m usually trying to keep the amount of oil and butter I use to a minimum, a good nonstick skillet is something I really depend on in my cooking.

(this is the Calphalon Unison Nonstick 10″ Omelet Pan – with only 1/2 a teaspoon of coconut oil that I used for this recipe)

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If you every took a peek inside my freezer, you would most likely find at least 3 or 4 different kinds of frozen fish or seafood at any given time. Salmon, mahi, red snapper, cod, shrimp…they all come in extremely useful when putting together quick healthy dinners, and I always stock up on them – especially when they are on sale or I visit Costco.

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Whenever anyone asks me what my favorite kitchen tool or gadget is, my reply is always a sharp knife. A sharp knife is essential to any kitchen as far as I’m concerned, and after experiencing an injury to my hand last year because of a not-so-great encounter with a dull knife and an onion, I now know first-hand how important it is to make sure your knives are good and sharp before you use them.

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errr, I mean plate. But I just really like how bowl sounds. Would you agree?

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This is my first time participating in Kitchen Play’s Progressive Party and I’m happy to be be bringing some of this delicious Italian Fish and Potato Stew made with this month’s featured ingredient – potatoes.

When I initially started thinking about creating a soup with potatoes, I immediately started thinking of creamy soups. I might be in the minority here, but I don’t get excited about creamy soups. Then I remembered that most chowders, specifically my favorite type of chowder – Manhattan style – usually have potatoes in them. Ding ding ding! Since I had a nice piece of cod in the freezer already, I picked up some red and white potatoes along with a few other ingredients and put together this comforting, straight forward soup that was enjoyed on a dreary rainy afternoon.

This Italian Fish and Potato Stew is actually inspired by a stewed cod fish dish my grandfather makes every Christmas Eve. It’s hearty, and perfectly satisfying. It’s chock full of good clean vegetables like potatoes, celery, onion, tomatoes and garlic. I brightened it up a bit with a little clam juice and fresh squeezed lemon. At the end I threw in some roughly chopped green and kalamata olives along with the chunks of fish. It is absolutely delicious, and incredibly good for your health and for your soul.

I chose white and red potatoes for the soup because I knew they would hold up well in the hot liquid. I diced the potatoes just small enough so that they would cook up at close to the same rate as the other veggies in the soup. Adding potatoes to a healthy soup like this is a great way to add a little extra nutrition, since they are naturally fat free, high in vitamin C and great sources of fiber and potassium.

Now that is my kind of soup.

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Kitchen Play – Italian Fish and Potato Stew

• Author: Aggie's Kitchen
• Category: Fish
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: Italian

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Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, small dice
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 celery stalks, small dice
• 2 red potatoes, small dice
• 1 large white potato, small dice
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• pinch salt and pepper
• 1 28 oz can of Italian diced tomatoes
• 1 8 0z bottle of clam juice
• 4 cups of broth (chicken or vegetable – I used 4 cups water swirled from tomato can and added a tablespoon vegetable bouillon)
• juice from 1 large lemon
• 1 1/2 lbs fresh or frozen cod fish (or any other firm white fish), cut in 1″ – 1 1/2 ” pieces
  handful of roughly chopped green and kalamata olives
• additional salt and pepper, to taste

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Instructions

1. In a large soup pot, heat oil and add onion, garlic, celery and potato. Season with thyme, oregano, salt and pepper. Saute for about 10 minutes until slightly softened. Add tomatoes, clam juice, lemon juice and broth. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for about 20 minutes, until potatoes are soft. Add pieces of fish and olives to soup and gently stir. Continue to cook for another 15-20 minutes until fish is cooked through. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust accordingly.
2. Serve with whole grain bread, crackers or on it own.

Stay inspired to include potatoes into your diet by checking out the US Potato Board’s Facebook page or by signing up for the US Potato Board weekly recipe email here.

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