Warm Salmon Salad Nicoise

Today began my food challenge which you can read about here. I've challenged myself to cook 524 recipes in 365 days. So far we're off to a rough however extremely delicious start. Since my book has yet to arrive, I had to google recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking and print from the web. This was fine except instead of preparing properly (i.e. printing my first 10 recipes, and making a list of the ingredients ahead of time) the Senator and I spent the better part of the evening at the local Farmer's Market and Giant almost killing one another gathering ingredients. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. We finally got home around 8:45/9:00pm and I still had to unpack all the bags, put everything away, and clean the kitchen because who can cook in a dirty kitchen? Not I. Just as I was preparing counter space, to slice and dice my garlic and shallots, the dish washer began to literally flood the kitchen floor. This added more weight to the already huge elephant in the room. Senator called maintenance and he came down to fix it. Did I mention that we were supposed to be house sitting for MIL this weekend? Did I hear you just ask me why we are still home and it's 11:37pm at night? Well, it's because on top of us bickering, we're also exhausted. OH! and I burned my foot really badly just because I thought it would be cool. Just kidding. It was a horrible accident involving my salmon filets and 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil. I've always been afraid of the stove and things that snap, crackle, and pop.

I finally got rolling in the kitchen around 9:45pm. I was/am determined to complete this challenge. De-Termined. It wasn't that bad. The recipe serves 4. Active time 45 minutes [2hours for moi]. We've got two 5 oz pieces of salmon left over and some potatoes. When it was time to eat, Hubbs was good and ready. It wasn't until I tried to engage him in conversation between him shoving food in his mouth that I realized he didn't have an attitude, he was effing hungry! He loved it. He ate all of his and mine. We talked about how I could cook this meal for family & friends, and he said he would eat it again. Take a moment and check out the menu on the left side of my blog. I'd love to have company, if you feel like cooking any of the recipes. We could compare notes/experiences. Just as I'm typing I'm trying to decide if I want to take the time to list all the steps for this meal. Seeing as I will have to do this for each and every dish I cook from now until the challenge is over. I think I'll list it's ingredients for you and give you a link. How does that sound? Please say yes, or else I'll have to sit up and type all those words and I just don't feel like it..... Thanks, I knew you'd understand.

~Warm Salmon Salad Nicoise~

Serves 4

Active Time 45 mins

Total Time 1 hr

~Preparing Your Mise en Place~

(I don't know what this means, by the way)

8 small Yukon gold potatoes (I used Russet)

1 tsp table salt - for potatoes

28 green beans

1 tsp table salt - for beans

2 cloves fresh garlic

2 small shallots

1 tbsp fresh chives

2 tbsp fresh basil

4 oz. hearty salad

~Making the Vinaigrette~

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

1/4 tsp table salt (0r to taste)

1/8 tsp freshly cracked pepper (or to taste)

6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

~Cooking & Serving the Salad~

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp table salt - for eggs

2 large tomatoes

16 Kalamata or Nicoise olives

1/4 cup olive oil

salt (to taste) freshly cracked Pepper (to taste)

20 oz. salmon (four 5-ounce filets)

Bon appe'tit!