Beef Valencia (Woman's Day Month of Menus)

I take back what I said yesterday, I don't like cooking.  Not after this.  The 18 minutes is a joke.  I guess it does say for medium-rare but it was very rare in my opinion, had to cook it much longer.

Beef Valencia

• Active Time: 8 minutes
• Total Time: 18 minutes

Recipe Ingredients

• 1. Four 3/4-in.-thick boneless shell steaks (about 6 oz each)
• 2. 2 navel oranges, peel and pith removed, cut into sections
• 3. 3/4 cup Goya Alcaparrado (Manzanilla olives, pimientos and capers)

Recipe Preparation

Season steaks with 1/2 tsp pepper and 1/4 tsp salt. Heat 1 tsp oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.Add steaks and cook, turning once, 6 to 7 minutes for medium-rare. Meanwhile, mix oranges, Alcaparrado and 1/4 tsp pepper in medium bowl. Serve steaks topped with mixture.Different TakesAdd some sliced red onion and chopped cilantro to orange-olive mixture.Rub steak with ground cumin before cooking.Use pork chops instead of steak.

My Experience:
The Process-
I will NEVER cook steak on the stove again.  Never have before this recipe, and never will again.  It doesn't taste nearly as good, doesn't cook as thoroughly, in my opinion, and was just not effective.  If I had cooked over medium-low instead of medium-high my results may have been different, but I had to cut the steak up smaller in order to get it to cook through to the medium cook my husband and I like, well he doesn't mind medium rare, but I do.
It was a hassle to have a pot of rice boiling over and practically overflowing and steaks cooking and trying to peel the oranges at the same time. 
Once dinner was served though, things got better.

(can't find the picture for this anymore... no idea why)

The Result-
This food was really, very good!  The steak was slightly chewy probably because of how I cooked it but I really liked the oranges and cilantro, surprisingly they complimented each other very well.  The rice wasn't cooked the way I would have liked, and I wish I had added more salt but that's not the recipe's fault.
I would rate the recipe only three stars because even though it tasted good, it was not a very practical recipe for me.

Glazed Salmon on Greens and Orange Salad (Woman's Day Monthly Menu)

I changed up the order of the recipes for this month so today I am doing this recipe. Mainly because we have a delicious salmon given to us in Alaska that I am eager to eat!

The recipe for today is Glazed Salmon on Greens & Orange Salad with a side of sesame breadsticks.

Glazed Salmon on Greens & Orange Salad
http://www.womansday.com/Recipes/Glazed-Salmon-on-Greens-and-Orange-Salad
* Active Time: 10 minutes
* Total Time: 30 minutes

Recipe Ingredients

o 4 (5-oz) salmon fillets
o 1/3 cup Asian ginger salad dressing
o 2 Tbsp clementine or orange juice
o 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
o 8 cups salad greens (I used lettuce and arugula, maybe not the best mix but it's what I did)
o 4 clementines, peeled and sliced
o 1/3 cup chopped unsalted toasted almonds I left these out

Recipe Preparation

1. Place salmon skin-side down on foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Spoon on or brush salmon with 2 Tbsp of the dressing. Let stand 15 minutes.

2. Put remaining dressing and the juice in a large bowl; add onions and toss to coat. Heat broiler.

3. Broil salmon 8 to 10 minutes or until just cooked through.

4. Add salad greens and clementines to bowl with onions; toss to mix and coat. Arrange salad on serving plates. Lift salmon off foil, leaving the skin behind. Place salmon on salad and sprinkle with almonds.

My Experience
The Process-

Okay, so I've never actually broiled anything before but it turns out there is an actual "broil" setting on the stove so you don't turn it to a specific temperature, it's just "Broil". And our oven took a really long time to heat up, so I wish I had started pre-heating sooner.
Anyway, so being from Alaska and all, my husband is pretty picky about his salmon so I was pretty apprehensive about this. Also, I've never cooked a salmon before, ever so I was nervous. Of course the first thing my husband says when he gets home is, "why are you cooking it in the oven?" As if this was the worst possible thing you could do to a salmon (he always fries it in bread crumbs).
So having a high standard to meet, this was a challenging recipe but pretty quick to prepare. And P.S our salmon was given to us as a gift in Alaska so it came cleaned and skinned already. I don't think I would ever cook a salmon with the skin on, in my opinion that is what gives it the fishy smell and taste.

The Result-

The first time I pulled it out of the oven (after 8 minutes) it turns out the salmon was not cooked properly. You can tel because when it's cut the center looks like one big chunky center and when it's cooked it's more lined and falls apart. If that makes sense...
So after popping it back into the oven we tried the food. I thought the salmon really didn't have any flavor whatsoever and I didn't really like the taste of the arugula so I ended up just picking the orange segments out of my salad and not eating much else.
Despite his earlier doubts, the Husband enjoyed the meal and said it tasted pretty good. I did have him add some lemon zest and black pepper seasoning to it though because I thought it was lacking in flavor. He gave it about a 3 and 1/2 but I only give it a 2, which brings this recipe's score up to about a 3.
I'd skip this recipe and just grill the salmon or cook it in a trusted seasoning that you like.

Boat Food

In honor of me being in Alaska this week (which probably explains all the guest posts to you now), I have decided to share with you not so much a recipe but a cooking method.
My husband grew up in a very small town in Alaska. His dad is a commercial fisherman. In our newlywed days when we didn't know how to buy groceries for just the two of us, or what to make for us, many of our evenings we had what my husband likes to call "boat food".
Boat food is what they would eat while out fishing. It basically means you scan the cupboards for whatever you've got (usually canned or boxed), throw it all together, and eat it! Think of it like a stove top casserole I suppose.

Anyway, boat food can be a variety of things but today I am going to give you a general recipe to give you an idea. You can use the same technique to use up leftovers without it being the same meal as the night before.

Boat Food
prep: minimal

Ingredients
box of spaghetti, macaroni, whatever you have!
1 can creamed corn
1 can peas
1 can cream of chicken soup

Directions
Boil pasta, add in other ingredients. Cook until warm, serve!

You can serve this with some bread and butter if you have it. It's a fast, easy thing to do when you're trying to cook with your food storage or just trying to avoid going to the grocery store.

The Review
Boat food usually is pretty good, as long as you don't get carried away and add the wrong things. Which brings me to another cooking lesson- Don't Get Carried Away. When you're cooking, if you're confident you may feel comfortable changing up the recipe, adding to it and making it your own. Which I think is a beautiful thing and something I am working towards. But if you are too confident, you may mess up and go overboard, maybe put too much seasoning, or two items that won't go well together. With boat food, vegetables will pretty much always compliment each other and mix well together but different kinds of meat won't always go well together, nor will soups or veggies with fruit so just be careful.

Overall this should work-out well for you and as long as you are not using raw meat, the only cooking time is just as long as it takes to warm up the food. It's not as pretty on the plate as if you were to make each thing separate, but it is a lot faster to make and it all ends up in the same place anyway. For ease of cooking and a pretty good taste it gets **** but loses a star for "plate appeal".