Lyn's Kitchen #1, The Challenge

Disclaimer: I'm skinny. Seriously skinny. I wear a size double-Ethiopian-- I'm that skinny. My blood pressure is so low, for all intents and purposes I can be treated as a zombie. As a result, all of my recipes show no regard for weight-loss; they are not intentionally low-carb, low fat, or low sodium. It will probably not fit into your diet.


Today, from Lyn's kitchen, we have:

Three Season Salmon

You will need:

1 small pot

1 small fry pan

1 knife

1 fork

1 spatula of the plastic variety

Ingredients:

1 piece fish (however much you like)

Basil to taste

Two tablespoons (ish) butter, unsalted

Egg noodles of any variety (I used spaghetti)

1 small purple (that's not red, seriously. Are they fuckin' blind?) onion

1.5 tablespoons Mustard

Dill to taste

Garlic Salt, lots.

First, fill the small pot with water and start it boiling. In the small fry pan, put one tablespoon of butter, and start simmering at low heat. The goal right now is to melt the butter. DO NOT BURN THE BUTTER. Burned butter is not tastey. Chop up some onion (as much as makes you happy) and dump that in the melty butter. Add garlic salt just until you can smell it. Allow this to simmer.

By now, the water in the small pot should be boiling-- add however much pasta you'll want to eat. Don't add salt to help it boil, you'll ruin the effect. Let the pasta boil awhile. Cut the fish into pieces roughly the size of your palm. Leave the skin on one side. Dust the non-scaly side with garlic salt and basil, and throw it in with the onions and all that butter, spice-side down. Once you start to smell the basil sizzling, turn the fish scaly side down. Idly flip the onions around the pan to amuse yourself while the fish is cooking.

Check the noodles. They're probably not done yet. After about a minute and a half, when the boredom is beginning to eat at your last nerve, flip the fish spice-side down again, and use the edge of the spatula to peel off the skin. Throw the skin in the garbage, or compost it if you're not having anyone over to your house for a good long while. Dust the now-bare side of the fish with garlic powder and a little basil, and flip it newly-spiced side down.

The noodles are probably nice and squiggly now-- if it sticks to the wall when you throw one, take the pot off the burner and drain the water out. Use that fork to prevent the noodles from escaping to the sink, then put the noodles on your plate. Put the remaining tablespoon of butter on the noodles, and flip them around with your fork until they're all coated.

Go back and flip the fish. Is it done? It should be light pink all the way through. If it is, turn off the heat, but leave the fry pan on the burner and pretend you're using every last bit of the coal-generated electricity it took to heat that burner.

Put some basil on the noodles. Some. Not a lot. Be careful, it's strong. For a single serving of pasta, I used about 1.5 teaspoons. Whatever. Stir that around with the fork.

Use the spatula to remove the fish and the onions from the buttery sludge on the bottom of the pan, and place these on the noodles. Put some mustard on your plate and add dill to it until it tastes right. The mustard is for dipping.

Wash your hands, then go eat.

This dish is high in fat, but the fish oil and all that garlic salt will probably make your arteries so slippery, the fat will slide right off. Also, carbs and starch are a big thing here. Mmm, carbs.

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The Lyn's Kitchen Challenge

Everyone has been in the situation of lacking essential grocery items. After a long couple of weeks with no time off of work, sometimes you find yourself with a package of chicken ramen, a potato, three sticks of celery, some ketchup, and a bag of flour. This is seldom a no-win situation-- ingenuity will most often see you to a semi-tastey, mostly-edible meal. For example, in the situation above, dice the potatos, boil them; when they're almost squishy, throw in the ramen without the seasoning package and boil until the noodles are gooey, adding three or four tablespoons of flour to adjust the consistancy. Dice the celery and throw it in for crunch, drain some of the water out. Add 1/4 of the seasoning bag (that shit is strong), and ketchup to taste. Voila; a sodium seizure on a plate (or in a bowl, or the pot, depending on what's clean).


So I issue our meagre readership a challenge-- send me the list of groceries you have at your disposal, and I will create something mostly-edible for you.