Hello and Happy Friday!
I realize I’ve been neglecting the blog this week and to be honest, I don’t really have a worthy excuse. I’ve just been so darn tired these days that most of my free time in spent sleeping. Take for example yesterday. I got home after working all day; fell asleep on the couch for almost two hours until John got home. I made something to eat and then fell back asleep until he carried me into bed, where I slept all night. I keep hearing that now is the time to catch up on sleep so I guess my body is just in hibernation mode.
Anyways, I don’t have anything terribly exciting to share with you either. Lame, I know! But I did promise you a recipe earlier this week and a recipe you shall get!
If you remember from Sunday, I posed a picture of one of the best dinners we’ve had all summer, Peach and Tomato Panzanella Salad with Pan Roasted Organic Salmon. I want to make this all over again this weekend and probably will. The idea came to me when I noticed a stale whole-wheat baguette sitting in our fridge all week. Rather than toss the thing, the first thought that came to mind was to make some kind of panzanella. Bread salads LOVE stale bread. Typically, I think of making panzanella with tomatoes, fresh basil, and some kind of cheese drizzled in evoo and balsamic vinegar. But in the midst of summer, I knew I wanted to place some kind of seasonal spin on my usual go-to recipe. Peaches were calling my name so in they went, along with goat cheese and white balsamic vinegar with a touch of agave. Ultimately, this turned out perfect and I wouldn’t change a single thing.
You can serve the salad with pretty much any protein but I feel it goes best with chicken or salmon. In our case, organic salmon was on sale, which is always such a treat! I simply pan seared the salmon with olive oil, salt and pepper and let the flavors of the salad stand out.
Give this one a try and let me know what you think!
Enjoy!
- For the Salad:
- 1 loaf of whole wheat crostini sized bread (preferably stale)
- 2 peaches, pitted and chopped
- 2 tomatoes, chopped
- 1 whole avocado, chopped
- 4 cups baby spinach
- ½ cup fresh basil
- ⅓ cup crumbled goat cheese
- ¼ cup white balsamic vinegar
- 2 T agave (more to taste if you’d like it sweeter)
- salt and pepper to taste
- For the Salmon:
- 1 pound salmon
- 1 T olive oil
- salt and pepper
- Cut the bread into 1 inch cubes. Lay flat on a baking sheet, coat in olive oil and salt and pepper. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until toasted. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, combine peaches, tomatoes, avocado, spinach and fresh basil. In a small separate bowl, whisk vinegar and agave. Once the bread has cooled, add it to the large bowl with the peaches and tomatoes. Pour the vinegar mixture in the large bowl and fold everything together. Lastly, gently mix in the goat cheese.
- For the salmon, season the fish with oil, salt and pepper. Heat a pan to medium high and gently lay salmon in hot pan. Cook on one side for 5-6 minutes, flip and cook on other side until done.
- Serve the salmon over the salad.
