Sunday Supper: Lemony Salmon and Greek Zucchini Pasta

During the week, getting dinner on the table ASAP is often my goal but Sundays are different.  Sundays we can take our time prepping and cooking which means my Sunday suppers are often a bit more involved.

Bear is currently on a salmon kick where the boy, I kid you not, can sit down and eat a half pound of salmon or more.  At age 3 1/2.  It is kind of impressive.  And I absolutely love cooking him something he gets so excited about so I've been trying to make sure he gets his salmon every 1-2 weeks.

Lucky for me, our local grocery chain King Soopers does an awesome fish program called "Easy for You" where they put the seafood of your choice in an oven ready foil bag with tons of great seasonings and herbs.  It even tells you on the back of the bag the appropriate temperature and time to cook it based on the weight.  Our favorite right now is salmon with butter, dill, lemon, and the lemon pepper seasoning.  For 2 lbs of salmon, you bake it at 380 degrees for 40 minutes and it comes out perfect every time.  

When cooking fish, it is always better to err on being underdone and sticking it back in the oven for a few minutes.  If you overcook it, it will often have that not so pleasant fishy taste that makes people think they don't like fish.  In reality, they don't like overcooked fish.

If your grocery store doesn't offer a similar program, you could make your own foil envelope and just top the salmon with the following:

• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• Healthy shakes of lemon pepper seasoning
• Slices of lemon
• Sprigs of dill

While my salmon was cooking, I got to work on the pasta.  

Ingredients:

• 3 zucchini (small, spiralized to about twice as thick as typical spaghetti)
• 1 bunch of asparagus (cut into 1 inch pieces)
• 1/2 cup of pitted kalamata olives (cut in half lengthwise)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes (cut in half)
• 1/2 cucumber (cut in slices and quartered)
• 1 small jar pesto sauce

Directions:

• Spiralize and cut all veggies, keeping the zucchini noodles and asparagus separate from everything else.
• Put a large pot of boiling water on to boil.
• When the salmon has 5 minutes left to cook, drop the zucchini noodles and asparagus in the boiling water.
• Boil for 3 minutes.
• While the asparagus and noodles are boiling, stir the pesto into the other veggies with some freshly cracked pepper.
• Drain the asparagus and noodles in a large colander.  
• Push down on the asparagus and noodles with a paper towel or clean dish towel to release some of the excess water.
• Mix the asparagus and noodles into the other veggies.
• Plate the pasta with the salmon and top the pasta with a little bit of crumbled feta.

My kids can't tell the difference between zucchini noodles and regular pasta, especially once it has a sauce on it, so this is a great way to sneak some extra veggies in.  When serving this up, I made sure Bear got extra tomatoes and Beast had as few olives as possible since those are their preferences.  I left the feta off the top of the kids' plates because my kids gag on "weird white stuff" (feta, cottage cheese, and mashed potatoes).  Not a battle I wish to fight since they are great about eating virtually everything else including their veggies.  The feta and cottage cheese I can understand but I think they are really missing out on the mashed potatoes.

This went over well in our house and I hope it will in yours as well!

Happy Cooking!