Steelhead Trout Season

We found this recipe that called for baking a whole trout with tomatoes and potatoes, and have been waiting for a chance to try it. Fresh, wild caught, steelhead trout is now available in our markets, and we jumped at the chance. As we are wont to, we took our own path and substituted fillets for the whole fish (no pesky bones to deal with).

Whole Baked Trout with Cherry Tomatoes and Potatoes
Source: “Martha Stewart Living”, May 2014
Active time: 15 minutes
Total time: 1 hour
Serves: 4

2 Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and thinly sliced
12 oz. cherry tomatoes, broken into smaller clusters if on the vine
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh oregano
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp.  olive oil
1 tsp. coarse salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 whole trout (about 9 oz each,) scaled, gutted, and cleaned
6 thin lemon slices (from 1 lemon)

Preheat oven to 425’.  Toss together potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, oregano, 1 Tbsp. oil, and ½ tsp. salt.  Season with pepper.  Arrange potatoes in a 9 x 13 baking dish, overlapping, them; top with tomatoes.

Roast until tomatoes are juicy and potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Rub fish with remaining 1 teaspoon oil, dividing evenly.  Season inside and outside of fish with remaining ½ tsp. salt; stuff with lemon slices.  Arrange on top of potatoes, shifting tomatoes alongside. 
Roast until fish are cooked through, about 20 minutes; serve immediately.

Steelhead trout, nestled on a bed of roasted potatoes,  ready for the oven

Twenty minutes later - out of the oven. A one pot wonder!

Meg found the baby squashes at Costco and couldn’t resist how cute they were. (We are probably lucky to be eating them, she was that enamored). We steamed them and drizzled them with butter and lemon. Yum!

Baby vegetables. Those zucchinis are about finger size!

A bottle of  2011 Spanish Tempranillo by Tapena followed Meg home from Raley’s one day. By buying six or more bottles (and who wouldn’t take a deal like that?) it was only $7.19. The label mentioned that it went well with salmon, so we thought it was a good choice for the steelhead trout. It was.

2011 Spanish Tempranillo by Tapena 

Strawberries also followed Meg home from Costco. They are so picture perfect and luscious looking that we decided to simply eat them.

Oh all right, they are adorned with orange or lemon or ginger flavored turbinado sugar. And at the last moment, Meg opened a bottle of Red Chocolate Decadence wine.  We can only be so simple.

Our unsolicited and biased opinions:

The recipe called for a clove of garlic smashed, but we grated a very large clove and left it in the olive oil for a couple of hours. We used grape tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes on the vine. Rather than add the tomatoes with the potatoes for the total cooking time, we chose to add them for the last twenty minutes with the fish. Because we did not use whole fish, we put lemon slices both under and on top of the fish.

We loved this dish!  It can easily work as a week night meal or company dinner. Steelhead trout is similar to salmon in taste and texture. Buy what is fresh and adjust your baking time accordingly.

The strawberries were truly delicious on their own. Meg’s whim of making the dipping sugars turned out to be a really good idea. The crunch of the sugar crystals contrasted nicely with the juicy strawberries. The ginger sugar surprised Sue and was both of our favorites. Orange was a close second, though.

Each sugar combination was made with a quarter cup of turbinado sugar and a heaping half teaspoon of zest and/or fresh grated ginger.  There was lots of sugar left over for further dipping or baking.

Welcome summer and all its bounty!

Just Roll With It

We love it when a plan comes together, but we love it even more when a last minute substitution is possibly better than the original idea. We planned to grill fish kabobs and fresh vegetables, but after checking 3 stores, Meg said “no fish this week”! So Thursday night we brainstormed and decided to “roll with it”. Meg is a big fan of the torta rolls from Costco and happened to have bought a package of them. We took stock of our pantries and refrigerators and came up with these wonderful sandwiches.

Both sandwiches included:

• Split toasted torta rolls
• Provolone cheese
• Roasted garlic aioli (recipe below)
• Roasted red bell pepper
• Grilled eggplant slices

Sue’s sandwich also had:

• Grilled red onion
• Grilled zucchini strips

Meg’s sandwich had:

• Fresh cucumber strips

Roasted Garlic Aioli
Recipe developed by Sue & Meg For Saturday Night Specials  06/14/14
Makes about ½ cup

6 garlic cloves, roasted
1 tsp. white balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
3 Tbsp. really good olive oil
2 Tbsp. beaten egg

Add all of the ingredients except olive oil to a blender and blend on high until thoroughly mixed. Drizzle in olive oil until emulsified.

Do not eat it all before you put it on the sandwiches.

The heirloom tomatoes have been beautiful and abundant the last couple weeks and inspired our Caprese salad. It doesn’t get much better than fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil. A drizzle of the good olive oil, salt and pepper completes the salad. Can you say “summer”?

We chose a 2012 Nevada Frontenac included in Sue’s latest mix of wines from Tahoe Ridge Winery in Minden, Nevada. It went very well with our sandwiches. Frontenac was a new variety for us and we checked online and found that the 2014 Frontenac from Tahoe Ridge is a gold and silver medal winner. (Sue is checking to see how many bottles of this vintage she got in her case.)            

We were going to have fresh fruit for dessert, but Meg was still in pie mode and a Galette came to mind. It was Sue’s task to get simple vanilla ice cream, but she came home with Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean Gelato (because she could).

Blueberry Galette

Cream Pastry Crust
2  2/3  cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
7-8 Tbsp. half & half

Filling
4 cups blueberries
2 Tbsp. minute tapioca
1 Tbsp. sugar
Juice from ½ lemon
2 Tbsp. turbinado sugar
2 Tbsp. cream

Vanilla ice cream or gelato to serve

In a large bowl, combine flour and salt.  In a food processor or mixer, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Add the half & half, 1 T at a time, until dough clumps together.  Gather the dough with your fingers.  Wrap one third of the dough, refrigerate and reserve for future use.    Wrap remaining dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least ½ hour.

Mix blueberries, lemon juice, tapioca and sugar in a bowl and let sit for an hour.

Preheat oven to 375

Roll out pastry on a lightly floured work surface.   Transfer to a parchment lined cookie sheet. Pile blueberries in center and fold edges of crust over berries. Brush top of crust with cream and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden on top and berries are bubbly.

Serve topped with ice cream.

Our unsolicited and biased opinions:

We loved these sandwiches! Yes, we picked ingredients that we love, but the combination of the toasted rolls with melted cheese, grilled vegetables, and the garlic dressing were stellar. This would be a great “build your own sandwich” idea for a party. Toast the rolls and melt the cheese on the top half. Lay out all of ingredients on platters and stand back.  One cautionary note: it can be juicy (read finger- licking good).

For the Galette we only used one tablespoon of sugar in the berries, so the true blueberry flavor came through. We got a little extra sweetness and crunch from the turbinado sugar on the crust. This may have taken care of the pie cravings around here (at least as long as the leftovers last).

We are looking forward to a “berry” good summer!