so i was craving fish today … fish and veggies … AND a simple dish that wouldn’t make a huge mess in the kitchen … nuttin’ is easier than baking fish fillets or steaks with veggies in foil packets …

living in poughkeepsie, THE place to go for the best fish and produce is adams fairacre farms market. their price-to-quality ratio is very good for meats and veggies … they also have very good prepared foods … AND we bought our gravel from them when we landscaped last summer … meat, fish, produce, heavy farm equipment, landscaping … what more can you ask for?!

now onto tonight’s dinner …

baked salmon

there really isn’t anything spectacular about what i did with the fish … foil packets with broccoli, bell peppers, green beans, carrots, lemon, and salmon steaks seasoned with salt, fresh-ground pepper, olive oil, and dried thyme …

the innovation is in what i set the salmon and veggies on when i plated …

mashed red potatoes and parsnips with marscapone and cilantro!!!

i made this one up all by myself!!!

i boiled red potatoes and parsnips in salted water until fork tender. (peel the parsnips, but not the potatoes.) i drained and mashed them up, adding a good amount of freshly ground pepper. once i had them roughly mashed, i incorporated a cup of marscapone, mashing until smooth. finally, i added about one-half cup of finely chopped fresh cilantro, folding it into the mashed marscapone/potato/parsnip mixture.

the marscapone is rich and flavorful, but lighter in texture than butter or cream. and the cilantro was such a terrific foil to the richness of the cream cheese: clean and herbal in taste with a burst of bright green color. also, the cilantro played very well with the thyme and lemon that baked into the fish and veggies.

holy crap, was it good!

***

a quick note re: pepper … there is no way we would use anything but fresh-ground pepper in our cooking, especially after ordering whole peppercorns from penzey’s spices. we make our own concoction of four peppercorn varieties: india tellicherry, malaysian sarawak white, india green, sarawak black, and — finally — pink peppercorns (which isn’t really pepper, but who cares) … when we first decided to try doing this (over a year ago), we worried that we would be spending beaucoup bucks on pepper and it would be a “one and done” kind of adventure. NOT SO! penzey’s is amazingly affordable! AND IT IS SOOOOOO WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!!