Cilantro pesto. Are you freaking KIDDING me? With SALMON!?!? We just had to try this.

We are about to head out to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day a little bit early, but before we head out dinner is a must. Tonight, we are borrowing a recipe from a good friend.  This was a “Woodland Salmon” recipe that Brittany had on her blog, btypes.  Bytpes is always linked along the left side of my blog – because her blog is just that great.

 

This week at Brain School, Kristin and I learned “that it’s great brain food so even though it’s kind of expensive, it’s definitely worth it!!” — KH.

For our sides, we decided to make mashed potatoes with freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese.  For good measure, we also threw in some Bird’s Eye SteamFresh Broccoli – one of the many go-to frozen sides that we keep on hand in our freezer, cause they’re often on sale and are always easy and delicious.

Potatoes always seem to take so long so we started with them.  A trick to make them finish faster is to cut them into smaller pieces.  This genius but simple idea hadn’t occurred to either of us until we saw a Food Network star doing it on her show

  

For the pesto, we toasted the pine nuts, as Brittany had suggested.  But the first batch didn’t quite turn out for us.  Kristin actually burned them pretty badly while distracted trying to take a picture of Charlotte.  So make sure you pay attention!  They toast pretty quickly.  Throw all the ingredients into the food processor and process until it has the consistency you prefer.

You can set the pesto aside and start working on the salmon.  Simply sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic powder, and rub with olive oil.

As a small aside, Justin wants to share a small kitchen organizing tip with you.  Spices were a challenge for us when we were trying to determine how to better organize the kitchen.  But then Justin found these little gems.  They can hold spices and are magnetic.  The best part about them is they don’t take up any cabinet space, which is important in our small kitchen.

    

And in case you are wondering where Charlotte is, she was very busy helping us in the kitchen and sniffing around on the floor to make sure she can keep it clean for us.

 

By now the potatoes were done.  So we let the salmon sit for a little while while we finished them.  For our cheesy mashed potatoes, we shredded our own cheese.  Not only is it less expensive, as stated by in this blog post it is “meltier, cheesier, and much more full of flavor”. Not to mention it doesn’t have the anticaking agents and kids enjoy helping out with it.  Kristin remembers as a kid loving to help her parents with dinner by being in charge of the cheese grating. That’s not to say we never buy preshredded cheese, we just prefer to shred our own if possible.

 

Then you just mash up the potatoes, add some milk, butter, cheese and garlic powder in the quantities you want and wala!  We were done with our mashed potatoes.

 

Meanwhile, Kristin was searing the salmon on medium heat until done and a nice crust is formed on the outside.

Top the salmon with the pesto and you end up with this beautiful dish!

Salmon and Cilantro Pesto