Clean up the Kitchen for Three Salmon Salad

My brother-in-law Tom is visiting from Chicago.  I had appointments all day on Saturday and Connie had to process all my paperwork from Friday's marathon in my Columbus, IN office so Tom came to the office with us.  A tub of baby spinach was already at the office.  And, I'd taken in the leftover salmon and sweet potato I'd cooked Wednesday evening along with some orange marmalade.  You see, we really didn't like the mojito glaze for the salmon so my intent was to scrape that off then mix the marmalade with a little dijon mustard and make a new glaze.  I also had a bag of pecans because I'd made Lana's chicken salad from some leftover rotisserie chicken.  And, there were half a dozen tangerines in the fridge.  Sounded like the makings of a really good salad...  It was.  I'm writing down the recipe really quickly so I'll remember what I did and be able to recreate it!  Otherwise, in a month or so I'll look at the photo and think, "That was really good.  Wonder how I made it."  Getting old and losing my memory is not my favorite thing!!

Salmon Salad

Ingredients
fresh baby spinach
cooked salmon
cooked and cubed sweet potato
tangerine or orange wedges
pecans
orange marmalade
dijon mustard
Trader Joe's Soyaki Sauce (or another teriyaki-like sauce)
olive oil
red wine vinegar

Directions:

Toast the pecans.  While they're toasting, mound some spinach in the middle of a plate.  Crumble the salmon over it.  Scatter the orange segments and sweet potato chunks around the salmon.  Make a dressing with the marmalade, mustard, teriyaki sauce, olive oil and red wine vinegar.  Drizzle the salad with dressing.  Top with toasted pecans.

Tropical Salmon Salad

I've been craving salmon.  Major league craving it.  The problem with buying salmon in a restaurant is that all too often it's dry.  I like my salmon really moist.  And, for those of you who are newer readers, fixing salmon at home is a bit of a challenge because Connie isn't fond of cooked salmon.  Sushi, bring it on.  Smoked, ditto.  Cooked, uh, no thanks.  But, last year I finally found a recipe that he rather likes.  It calls for marinating salmon in soy sauce, dijon mustard and lemon juice.  Then, you slather it with strawberry jam and bake it.  Except, I used orange marmalade and smoked it on the grill.  It was fantastic.

Now, I call Mom every evening on the way home.  You might be right if you guessed that whats for dinner is a major topic of our conversation.  Turned out salmon was on her menu that evening also.  So, I told her about my recipe.  You could just about see her nose turning up over the phone.  Ewwww, that sounds really sweet, she says.  Well, no, it's not really I said.  Imagine my surprise when she announced the next evening that she'd slathered her salmon with orange marmalade and dijon mustard and LOVED IT.  She said she may not fix it any other way ever again.  Cool.  I love it when someone else loves a recipe I come up with. 

So, here's what the salmon looked like while I was smoking it:

Turned out I didn't have any marmalade so I had to rummage through the pantry to find an interesting jam.  Raspberry peach champagne jam.  Ok.  It was great.  Not as awesome as the orange marmalade was but still very, very good.  And, yes, there were leftovers.  I envisioned a salmon salad for lunch at the office.  But, alas, I've been practically living at the office - or working at home - and fixing a big dinner any night this week has been a pipe dream.  The leftover salmon became dinner.  Connie actually commented that he's becoming a fan of my cooked salmon.  I don't think you'll see him ordering it in a restaurant but he doesn't mind eating it at home.

Tropical Salmon Salad

Ingredients
romaine lettuce
cooked salmon (preferably leftover from        )
raspberries
pineapple chunks (we had leftover grilled pineapple and it took it up a notch)
toasted sliced almonds
toasted coconut
balsamic vinegar (I used fig balsamic)
extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Shred the lettuce and put it in bowls.  Place the pineapple chunks around the edges.  Mound chunks of the salmon in the center. 

Sprinkle on the raspberries.  Top with the toasted almonds and toasted coconut. 

Drizzle with the oil and vinegar.