Pink and Red For the Valentines

Pink And Red for the Valentines

Baked Salmon Fillets

• One Pound Salmon Fillet with skin. cut into three or four pieces
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1/4 cup water
• * 1 tsp butter melted
• *1 tbs crushed Red Pepper
• * 1 tbs Lemon Juice

Preheat conventional oven to 350 degrees F.

Wash the Salmon. Pat dry with Paper towel.

Mix the Salt and the Garlic Powder in the water. Pour this mix in an 8 x 8 x 3 baking pan. 

Gently place the Salmon in the pan making sure that the water does not get on top of the Salmon. This will help the Salmon absorb the Salt and the Garlic powder rather than drying it out and burning the Garlic. Bake for twenty to twenty five minutes. 

If there is no skin on the Salmon turn the Salmon after fifteen minutes only once.

Make sure that the water is all absorbed by the Salmon. This might take a little longer or even a little less time. The Salmon will cook as it is a very gentle fish.

Once the Water is absorbed , take the dish out. Make indentations in the Salmon either side ways or diagonally. Now pour the melted butter on top of the hot Salmon. Sprinkle the Red Crushed Pepper and the Basil . 

Pour the Lemon Juice little at a time depending on your taste or eat by itself.

Serve with any side dish except for white Rice or White Bread.

I served mine with buttered noodles, steamed Broccoli and steamed Carrots.

I served Pink Lady Apples for after the meal cleaning of teeth. I do not serve dessert as yet. I still have to figure out a healthy way to serve sweets.

I know that my husband would rather have fried Chicken, Potato wedges and an Apple Pie slice but he just has to get used to the baked fish until I come up with a recipe for a healthy method of getting the taste of fried chicken.

"I know that Pink and Red Roses are good to look at but Pink Fish is good for you to eat " I told my husband.

"I hate Salmon" he snapped.

"Tough" I snapped back. Then I softened a little. "How about some buttered noodles with it"

"Oh come on !" he was bored.

"Ok, then, - - - - we can talk to your Cardiologist about the fluid mechanics of the Cardio - Vascular System ?"

What is this?

I have always believed that recipes should be true to their ingredients from each gram of ghee ( clarified butter) to each grain of salt. However as we stepped in 1980 and from then on, there was a big awareness of dangers of butter and of salt all over the world. So, what was I supposed to do?  I started using margarine in place of butter in my recipes and then my husband started using it on his toasts in the morning and eventually we even used vegetable shortening in cookies and a lot of other baked goods. 

A few years ago, it so happened that a loved one brought home a list of foods to avoid in order to lower cholesterol. That list had the words "hydrogenated fats"and foods containing hydrogenated fats.  So we checked every jar of peanut butter in our home and what do you know, they all had partially hydrogenated fats in them.  Then we checked the margarine tub, that too had the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in them. Bad News? No not really. We now shop very carefully, read every single ingredient and have started using natural peanut butter and cooking oils like Canola oil, Olive oil and  vegetable oil.

Now the question still remains. what do I do when I have to make recipes that require Ghee? I started using real butter, except that I use may be a tenth of the required amount and make up for the rest with oils. I used to be embarrassed about doing this, because this was the method used by either people who could not afford "Ghee" or by people who were extremely thrifty. Also a lot of other foods like brown rice and foods with a lot of fiber were used by servants in India. Today I not only eat simple servant  like foods I give them to my husband,( even if he yells at me).  I tell him that we have to get used to this lifestyle and be an example for our children and grandchildren. This life style of simpletons back home is what is good for us all.