Salmon 3 Ways: Salad, Stuffed Tomatoes & a Sandwich

First and foremost, a huge congratulations to the three winners of my Balance Bar giveaway last week!

                Melissa C.

                Jordan

                “G” (I could not find an email address, G, so you have until tomorrow at 3pm EST to contact me

with your mailing address)

Thank you so much, everyone, for participating! I wish I could have given everyone a box just for entering. Winners have 24 hours to claim their prize before new winners will be selected (also via random.org).

Now that March is ending, I can’t deny any longer that it’s Spring. Everywhere I turn, there’s another reminder: the horrifyingly large bee standing guard at my car yesterday, daring me to come closer; the bin of scarves and gloves that I brought back to my parent’s house because I surely won’t need them at school anymore; the buttercups and crocuses peppering my backyard with color; and the buzz of Spring cleaning coming over both myself and the people around me.

In addition to the Spring cleaning I’ve been initiating throughout my room at home and my apartment at school, I’ve started another, much more daunting “Spring cleaning” task: sorting through the literally thousands of recipes that I have bookmarked. After several solid weeks, I finally eliminated all broken/dead links. Now, I’m moving back through my collection to figure out if I really, truly need every single one of these recipes after all, and recategorizing them to make it easier to search for recipes as I need them. I know that I have a lot of unnecessary recipes saved because so many of them are just minor alterations of others. A cinnamon sugar baked doughnut sitting next to a cinnamon sugar baked doughnut muffin. Twenty different ways to make a roasted tomato salsa. And dozens upon dozens of “recipes” that I really don’t need a recipe to rely on in order to make to begin with.

Recently, I bought a can of salmon as my main protein source for the week, and unearthed three “different” recipes to make using that one can. The first was called a “Wild salmon salad over greens,” and I paired it with a ginger dressing. The second was called “salmon stuffed tomatoes,” and I bulked the meal up a little (since it was really intended to be an appetizer) with a side of plain almonds.  And the third was a recipe for salmon burgers, which I slid into a wrap along with some greens and grated ginger. They sound like very unique recipes, don’t they? In truth, they might as well be the same darn thing, except one is plopped on top of mixed greens , another is spooned into a hollowed out tomato, and the last is shaped into patties and sautéed. These are the kinds of recipes I’m targeting with my Spring cleaning – it isn’t that they aren’t wonderful on their own or that I think one is less worthy; it’s just that I don’t need all of them taking up space in my bookmarks, when we really get down to it. Similarly, I couldn’t really justify taking up your time three times by splitting these recipes apart. Instead, I’m going to blend them together, marrying their flavors for you, and encourage you to try them as a salad, a stuffed tomato, or a sandwich – whichever you prefer. The filling is the base; how you present it to your guests is what makes it special.