Salmon en Crote avec les Police

Otherwise entitled "How fulfilling my 2011 goals ended in a visit from the sheriff."
Monday was a busy day. I babysat in the morning and then set out with 3  kids in tow to do the bi-monthly grocery and sundries shopping trip.  When I got home I hustled to make a pumpkin pie from scratch and make dinner before friends arrived for games and dessert (see pumpkin pie above, and fulfillment of 2011 goal "socials" and continuation of 2010 goal "Find a Friend for Boba Fett.")


Pie:  There wasn't quite enough time to bake a pie and let it cool before our guests arrived so I ended up serving warm pumpkin pie.


Dinner:  On the menu was Salmon en Croute from Jamie's Food Revolution.

  I am really keen on this book not because I don't know how to cook but because I am serious in my kitchen laziness.  I want delicious healthy food fast with little trouble or clean up.  I am going to share the recipe/process with you here because the point of this book is to SHARE the recipes with friends.


First a little olive oil on the pan.


Then roll 2 sheets of puff pastry out together to fit the pan.


Next a little more olive oil and a salmon fillet on top.
I used a much smaller piece of salmon than I usually use for a salmon meal for my family.  I was pretty concerned about it but it turned out fine and I even had leftovers.


Then spread a bit of black olive tapenade over the salmon. 
I couldn't find a black olive tapenade and I know that I don't care for other tapenades; I was going to skip this step all together but I felt that there should be some sort of zing to the recipe so I added about 2 tsp of mayonnaise mixed with lemon juice for an impromptu ailoi sauce and spread that on the salmon. 


Next layer some fresh basil leaves over the salmon.


Then crumble a generous amount of fresh mozzarella cheese over the leaves.


Then lay out sliced tomatoes on the cheese.


Salt and pepper the cheese and tomato layers.


The final step is to pull up and pinch the puff pastry around the sides of the fish like a fish baby in a blanket.  I thought it looked so cute.


Bake in a 400 degree oven for 35 minutes
I had a pie in the oven so I had to bake it at 350 and that was unfortunate as we shall see.

The Review:
This was delicious!  Moose liked it, I liked it, Camrock liked it.  Boba Fett and Nutmeg thought that they would rather die than eat it, but they did eat it and they didn't die.


As any mom knows 3 out of 5 is a win!


The consensus was that it would have been much better if the pastry had been cooked at a hotter temperature it would have been crispier.  It was a bit doughy on the bottom which makes sense considering it was cooked 50 degrees too low.
 
I was also fairly inexpensive.  As I mentioned I usually use twice as much salmon for a meal for our family so this was half the salmon price plus a box of puff pastry which wasn't bad.  The mozzarella wasn't too pricey, and if you have basil or tomatoes from the garden...
It was a very posh feeling meal for so little effort.


The Gathering:
Our guests arrived just as dinner was put away and the pie came out of the oven.
We played games and had a good time while the boys ran around the house being boys.  We ate warm pie, it was good.


The Police:
Just as we were finishing up our pie one of the boys said that Boba Fett had called 911.  Just as we turned to look at Boba Fett the newly-installed-in-the-library-that-very-afternoon phone rang.


Boba Fett's face turned to one of despair as he cried "I thought it was a fake phone!"  Moose answered and told the nice 911 operator that it was a mistake and got the lecture and he hung up.


Our guests were packing up to leave when there was a bang-bang-bang on the side door.  It was the sheriff's deputy he had been wandering around the house looking for the front door.  He didn't find it.  When Moose showed him into the dining room Boba Fett hid under the table crying.


It was chaos.


I hope our guest will come back again sometime.


Dinner was good.