Grilled Curry Salmon

Another excellent recipe I created using the camila oil from Three Farmers. The oil and spices created a nice glaze on top.


This fish was probably the best I've ever made, however, as I've mentioned before (salmon recipe from a couple weeks back), the quality of your ingredients can affect how your dish turns out, and in addition to the high-quality oil, the cut of fish was top-notch.


Grilled Curry Salmon

1 salmon fillet
salt
1 tbsp camelina oil
1 tsp curry powder

1. Preheat the grill to medium-high.
2. Make a tray out of three sheets of tinfoil and place the salmon on it, skin-side down and lightly sprinkle with salt.
3. Brush the oil evenly over the salmon.
4. Sprinkle the curry powder evenly over the salmon - use more if necessary.
5. Place the foil with the salmon on top onto the grill and let grill for 15-20 minutes, until the salmon flakes easily.

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Grilled Baba Ghannouj with Chinese Eggplant and Zucchini

I was contacted by the people at Three Farmers in Saskatchewan (Canada) asking if I'd like a sample of their new oil from a seed called camelina. Rarely do I turn away free stuff, so I agreed, and several weeks later, a teeny, tiny package arrived at my door:

Clearly, this must be some hot stuff if they only sent me about a half a cup's worth of the stuff. I imagine it's related to the amount of processing required to render a high-quality cold-pressed oil. It's only available at high-end retail outlets such as Pusateri's and The Cheese Boutique. You can check their website for other places in the GTA and across Canada.

Camelina is what's referred to as an aincent grain. The oil itself is rich in omega fatty acids, has a slight nutty flavour and an earthy smell (Meredith: "it smells like dirt, but the food tasted so good with it!")

According to the Wikipedia article on camelina, the seed has been busy in areas like biofuel production and animal feed as well, so it's clearly starting to pick up again in terms of popularity, even if it's not in the human consumption department.

Three Farmers has some good ideas behind it - a small collective of farmers working together to make a specialized product. Neat from a technical standpoint: each bottle comes with a QR code to help geographically locate where the seeds were harvested from.

Anyway, the day the oil arrived, I was already preparing Meredith a nice meal of grilled vegetables and fish. With the addition of the oil, I decided to do something different using those ingredients. To use more of the oil, I decided to turn the vegetables into a baba ghannouj, and I also used the oil on the fish before grilling to help the spices stick around.

Salmon served with the baba ghannouj, a baked potato and
some of the Haggis and Herring's famous salad with
balsamic vinaigrette.

Both dishes turned out spectacular. The oil wasn't overpowering and blended well with the flavours.

Grilled Baba Ghannouj with Chinese Eggplant and Zucchini

3 Chinese eggplants, cut into 1/2-inch rounds
1 zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch rounds
1 tbsp camelina oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
sea salt to taste
3 tbsp tehina
1/4 cup camelina oil

1. Toss the sliced eggplant and zucchini in 1 tbsp oil
2. Grill the eggplant and zucchini until soft on the inside and a bit crispy on the outside
3. Quickly puree lemon juice, garlic and salt in food processor.
4. Add tehina and camelina oil and puree again.
5. Add eggplant pulp and puree until smooth.

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Linked to Jane Deere's Fusion Fridays

Banana Bread

Apparently, custard does not freeze well.

We had a three-tiered cake at our wedding. The bottom was chocolate, the top was carrot and the middle was vanilla custard cream. With a fairly decent dessert table, not much of the cake was eaten. We took a small chunk of the bottom tier home with us, and Meredith's mom took the carrot cake (which we enjoyed last year) and my mother took the middle layer home.

This year, to celebrate our third anniversary, my mom took the cake out of the deep freeze. The cake looked perfect. No freezer burn or other disfigurements. We ate some partially frozen (the custard was still mostly frozen), and it wasn't bad. We took the rest home to serve during the weekend and at our Labour Day barbecue.

On the Sunday, we served some more cake to our friends after dinner, and it was a disaster. The cake had finished defrosting and the moisture from the custard had soaked the bottom of the cake. Gross. More than half of the cake ended up in the garbage.

Needless to say, on Labour Day morning, Meredith got to work on making some dessert for the barbecue. She decided on her banana bread recipe since everybody loves it.

Banana Bread

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups (3 bananas), mashed
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine, melted
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1. Grease two 7 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 2 pans and preheat oven to 350-degrees.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and make a well in the centre of the bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, bananas, sugar and margarine and add to flour mixture.
4. Stir until moist (still lumpy) and fold in chocolate chips.
5. Divide mixture and pour into pans.
6. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when stuck into the centre of the bread.
7. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes, remove from pan, and let cool completely on the wire rack.

Loosely based on Better Homes and Gardens banana bread recipe.

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