Sconehenge 2010

Happy Friday Morning y’all!  We’ll get to the title in just a sec (along with a fun poll!)  But first, dinner last night!

We had honey-mustard glazed salmon, brown rice risotto cakes, and a big green salad!  Here’s the non-colorful portion of the meal:

The glaze for the salmon was super simple:  2 tsp dijon mustard, 2 tsp honey, 1 tsp olive oil.  Coat the salmon in that mixture then cook in a skillet over medium-low heat for about 3 minutes on each side.  SO GOOD!

The risotto took a LITTLE more time though.  Let me first start out by saying that I really prefer risottos made the traditional way with arborio rice; however, I didn’t have any on hand.  I did have about 2.5 cups of cooked brown rice though, so I improvised!

• 2.5 cups cooked rice
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1/2 small yellow onion, diced
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 Tbsp olive oil, divided
• 2 Tbsp dry sherry
• 2 Tbsp flour mixed with 1 Tbsp of water to create a paste
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan over medium heat, saute the onion until translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and saute another 1-2 minutes.  Add sherry and cook until most of the liquid has been evaporated.  Add stock and then whisk in the flour/water mixture.  Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until mixture coats the back of a spoon.  Add the rice and heat through.  Take off the heat and then stir in the cheese.  Ideally you’ll want to refrigerate the mixture for a couple of hours to better form the “cakes”; however, I didn’t have that patience, which is why my first ones were a little flat!

In a nonstick pan heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil over low heat.  Drop the risotto cakes (about 1/4 cup of the mixture apiece) into the hot oil, making sure that they don’t touch one another.  Fry for about 3-4 minutes on each side, or until browned, then flip and do the same on the other side.  Since you’ll likely need to repeat for the whole batch, make sure you use 1 Tbsp of olive oil each time.  I really loved these, and although they were a little more work than I thought they would be, it was well worth it!

Here’s the big green salad:

We had to have some color in there somewhere   Last night we were fairly lazy, and other than doing laundry didn’t get a whole lot done.  The house is a WRECK and I’m really hoping to take some time this weekend to work outside, so I better figure something out soon with the interior!

Breakfast this morning was my first attempt at a Chocolate Covered Strawberry Green Monster:

This had about 1.25 cups of nonfat milk, 2 cups spinach, 5 large frozen strawberries, 1 packet of Truvia, and 1 heaping Tbsp of cocoa powder.  It was OK – definitely needed a banana in there too, and maybe some more chocolate flavor.  I’m hoping to try it again soon though since it had some promise! Plus I knew that today was SCONEhenge 2010 at work!  No, not this kind:

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THIS kind!

One of the sweet women I work with make 3 different types of scones:  wild blueberry, red raspberry, and lemon ginger.  She also brought some toppings:  Double Devon Cream, Blood Orange Jam and Rhubarb Raspberry Jam.  Nate and I each had half of a wild blueberry and half of a red raspberry, and I topped mine with a combination of the Double Devon Cream and Rhubarb Raspberry Jam.  Y’all, it was incredible.  Plus, how awesome is the name?!

Today’s question is kind of silly, but it would REALLY help my marriage if y’all would leave your thoughts.  Which direction do you prefer the toilet paper roll when it’s on the roll in the bathroom?  Over or under – which is right? I’m not going to leave my thoughts because I don’t want to sway this one way or the other, but this is something Nate and I have been debating since BEFORE we got married!

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