Spinach & Walnut Pesto Salmon and Cauliflower Parsnip Puree

Busy week... seeing as though I am off tomorrow, tonight's dinner was a perfect way to start my weekend.  Glass of red wine with the wife as she prepared everything, very relaxing (for me).   Well deserved after a day of snowblowing and shoveling driveways after we were hit with 7" of snow over night.

Spinach & Walnut Pesto - we love pesto so much we made it without the standard ingredients!   Spinach instead of basil and walnuts instead of pine nuts... turned out awesome and went really well with the fish. 

Lemon, parmesan, olive oil and garlic along with the spinach and walnut, all into the food processor and there you have it.  As for the salmon, seasoned with salt and pepper and thrown in the oven for 15 minutes at 375... added the pesto on top for the last 10 minutes or so.

Cauliflower Parsnip Puree.... Jo steamed both vegetables and then threw them into the food processor along with sour cream, a dash of milk, fresh garlic, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese.  

Served with some green beans.... lots of green on the plate but it was awesome.   Pesto went so well with the salmon.  Very healthy as well, we had grean beans, spinach, cauliflower and parsnips all wrapped into this meal. 

As for the standard photo of Reed at the bottom of the post lol.... with the Eagles and Phillies off he has the Flyers Fever going on!

Can't wait for Saturday, headed to Bob and Nic's for our warmup to NOLA feast!  Using Theresa's cookbook to make some of Mrs. Toni's famous jambalaya and shrimp casserole... plus we found some Pat O' Brien's Hurricane mix.   Will finally get some use out of all the Pat O glassware we have stored in our kitchen!   Should be a good time, unless of course you are a newspaper or magazine rack.... beware cause Jo might take you out.

My Little Lamb Chops

The inspiration for this whole blog thing was the fact that we loved food so much that we started taking pictures of it... this started on our Honeymoon, we took pictures of everything we ate (future post?).   So I am going back to the photo library for one of my most random, yet favorite meals...

Reed picking our tree...

It was just this Xmas season, Jo, Reed and I were planning our day which revolved around decorating our tree.  We planned on having some cheese and crackers as a snack while we decorated the tree and then after Reed went to bed we wanted to cook an awesome meal together.  Jo simply asked me what I wanted for dinner, I paused and out of nowhere said "Lamb Chops."   Don't really know why or how I came up with the idea but a quick search online and moments later we were at ShopRite grabbing a rack of lamb, some pesto and other ingredients for our first ever lamb dinner.

 This was a very simple recipe... just season the rack with salt and pepper then throw it on a very hot grill pan with some EVOO to seal in the juices (about 3 mins per side).   Then throw it into the oven for around 20 mins. 

Meanwhile Jo was working on the mint basil pesto...  pretty much your standard basil pesto (pine nuts/olive oil/basil/parm cheese) but with mint mixed in which is supposed to go well with lamb.

Jo also was working on some veggies for the side... roasted some carrots, sweet potatoes, red onion and parsnips.  They were seasoned perfectly with salt, pepper, olive oil and some fresh rosemary!

Back to the lamb, cooked it for about 22 minutes or so and then let it rest... had fun trying to cut it into individual chops but when we finally got a chance to eat it we were blown away.   An awesome surprise, especially for our first time working with lamb.  It was so tender and moist and almost melted in our mouth, the pesto and vegetables were perfect.   Couldn't have asked for a better meal!

Hoping to make this a few times each year.... just so good and so simple!  Oh and I learned later on that you can almost get 2 racks at Sam's for the price of 1 at ShopRite...