Salmon BLT Delicousness

 While trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight I recalled a conversation with my friend Davis (Primal Bacon-lover) about whether he missed a good BLT.  He said that you could probably make a good BLT salad with mayonnaise dressing so today that's just what I did and it was delicious.

 Salmon BLT Salad (served 2 adults and one 4 year old)

1 14.75 oz can Wild Caught Salmon (skins removed if you like)
6oz cherry tomatoes cut in half
3-4 TBS Olive Oil Mayo
1 TBS capers
2 TBS liquid from the capers
1/2 package of bacon cut into small pieces*
Spring Mix Lettuce
fresh ground pepper

1. Cook Bacon until crispy
2. Combine mayo, capers, and caper juice.  Toss in tomatoes and give a good grind of pepper.
3. Fill serving bowls with spring mix and top with salmon.  Then top with tomato-mayo concoction.
4. Sprinkle bacon on top and enjoy!

*I use my kitchen scissors to cut the raw bacon into small pieces before cooking it.

This is my Mother's Spaghetti...well almost

 Last I was home in Mississippi my Mom cooked a delicious spaghetti squash lazagne for dinner one night.  I thought it was delicious so I made it myself, with a few alterations.

Spaghetti Squash Lazagna

1 Spaghetti Squash cooked (I baked at 375 for 40 minutes, my brilliant mother uses the microwave)
1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce, I used a marinara by Simple Truth Organic
4 oz regular cream cheese
~3/4 cup shredded parmesan
1 cup whole milk Greek yogurt
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper
optional: pepperoni chopped up in the tomato sauce, yummy!

1. Spread out cooked squash "noodles" in casserole dish.
2. Pour spaghetti squash on top and cover evenly,  give the dish a shake to get it down in the "noodles"
3. Combine cream cheese, yogurt, Parmesan, and oregano. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. Spread cheese topping over the top of the sauce.
5. Bake at 350 for about 40 miuntes, turn on broiler for a few minutes to get some browning on top. Watch it closely.

Decorate a Cake (no icing bag required)

I have become the celebratory cake baker around here and try to come up with some creative ways to decorate without artificially colored icing.  Here are some ideas:

 Here is the dinosaur cake from my daughters recent 4 year old birthday.  It's a chocolate beet cake covered in 72% chocolate.  I baked this one in a spring form pan, when it was still hot I removed the pan and place squares of chocolate directly on the cake and they melt.  Just spread that delicious melted dark chocolate around and instant chocolate shell.  I added yogurt raisins, to the melted chocolate for Flintstones-esque rocky accents and a $1 T-Rex figurine.  The foliage is from my daughters play food (plastic cherry stems and scallion greens).

This was a lemon cake that I baked for well...Doug.  Thin slices of lemon fashioned into letters and placed in the lemon yogurt/cream cheese icing.

A going away Amaretto Apricot Butter cake for Anna and Davis.  I used some white paper board that came out of some kind of food packaging.  Using my daughters markers I drew and cut out the words and taped them to three bamboo skewers.  By the way apricots simmered in Amaretto are absolutely delicious.

photo by Anna Wa

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