Kyoto Salmon with Baby Bok Choy

This is a light, healthy meal, and I really like the sauce. I serve this over rice, but I'm not including the instructions for that. I'd give credit to whomever I originally took this recipe long ago, but I don't remember which one it was anymore, there's a few out there. I'll add a photo next time I make it.

Ingredients
1 lb Salmon, cut into 2 (this is enough for 2 people)
1 tablespoon ginger diced small (I substitute garlic if I don't have ginger)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds (could probably substitute jarred mustard for this)
Pepper to taste
1 cup orange juice
1 cup soy sauce (or enough to cover the salmon while marinating)
1 Baby Bok Choy, leaves separated

1. An hour or two before you want to eat, mix the orange juice, ginger, mustard and pepper in a bowl.
   
2. Add in the salmon and pour in enough soy sauce so it's pretty well covered.
3. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
4. Heat a pan with some olive oil to medium high.
5. When the pan is hot, add in the salmon.
6. Pour the marinade in a sauce pan and heat to boiling, and then simmer while the salmon cooks.
   
7. Cooking time depends on how rare you like your salmon. I never time, but it's probably around 4 minutes on each side, enough to brown a little.
8. After one side has cooked and you've flipped the salmon, place the bok choy leaves over the top of the salmon (keeping part of the leaves elevated will keep them from getting soggy).
9. About 2 minutes into cooking the second side of the salmon, cover the pan, turn the heat down and cook for another couple minutes- this will steam the bok choy and cook the salmon through.
10. Serve over rice and spoon the sauce over the salmon and/or rice.
    

Turkey Sausage, Pea Pods, Sun-dried Tomatoes and Noodles

Quick and easy. As often happens, I didn't really measure on this one, but it's pretty hard to go wrong. I was cooking for two, so adjust accordingly.

Ingredients
4 links of turkey sausage (the big ones), sweet or spicy
Olive oil
1 clove garlic
Handful of snow pea pods
Half a handful of sun-dried tomatoes
A splash of white wine or rice vinegar
1/2 package of egg noodles (I know, that totally depends on the size of the package, but I forget)

1. Heat up some water for the noodles.
2. Cut the sausage up into bite sized pieces.
3. Heat up a frying pan on medium-high with some olive oil, roughly a tablespoon.
4. Add the sausage to the pan.
5. Cut up the garlic into small bits.
   
6. Add garlic and sub-dried tomatoes to the pan when the sausage has browned a bit.
7. When the water is boiling, add the noodles.
8. Add the pea pods (I cut the tips off of them first) to the pan.
9. Salt and pepper to taste.
   
10. Splash in some white wine or rice vinegar and cover the pan. (Told you I use that trick a lot). Let that cook for just a couple minutes.
    
11. Drain the noodles and mix everything together in the pan.
    

Sweet Potato Pie

I modified one recipe for the filling and one for the crust. Since this was the first time I've ever made sweet potato pie, I was quite happy with the way this came out.

Crust Ingredients
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 1/4 cups flour, and some extra for rolling
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons ice water

1. Soften the butter.
2. Mix the flour, salt, sugar and cinnamon.
3. Combine butter with the flour mixture. I did this by hand with a spoon, which is great exercise, but you can use a food processor as well.
4. Add in enough ice water so the mixture becomes doughy.
5. Kneed for a minute or two.
   
6. Refrigerate while you prepare the filling

Filling Ingredients
2 largish sweet potatoes (the original recipe called for 1 lb)
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup Silk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Peel and quarter the sweet potatoes. Boil for 15 minutes or until softened.
2. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
   
3. Mash the sweet potato with the butter.
   
4. Add in the sugar, Silk, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla, mix and then add in eggs. It will be a bit liquidy.
   
5. Take out your chilled pie dough and shape into a ball, and press out into a circle big enough for a pie dish. If it's too sticky to work with, add more flour. I just did this by hand, no roller, and it came out great.
   
6. Press the crust into the pie plate and shape until it's evenly covering it.
7. Pour in the filling.
8. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. You should be able to insert a knife and have it come out clean when it's done.
   
9. Try to refrain from eating while the pie cools :)
   

Apple Stuffed Cornish Hen

You should make this if for no other reason than to experience how it makes your home smell while it bakes. It's essentially an apple pie with a chicken substituting the crust. I usually do this recipe with an orange, but today I had an apple at hand so I decided to try that, and I'm glad I did.

Ingredients
1 apple
1 Cornish hen
2 tablespoons butter, softened

1. Remove any plastic bags and hen bits from the Cornish hen. Do not forget this step.
2. Slice up an apple.
3. Coat the hen with the butter and stuff if full of as many apple pieces as you can. If you can't fit the whole apple, just set those pieces aside for when you bake.
4. Place the hen in a deep skilled with a cover at medium heat.
5. Salt and pepper the exposed side.
   
6. When the hen has browned a bit (probably at least 5 minutes for this), flip it and let that side brown for about 5 minutes. Salt and pepper the newly exposed side.
   
7. Flip the hen back over and then pour in enough white wine to cover the bottom and quickly cover. The old "wine and cover" trick.
   
8. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
   
9. If your pan has a metal handle, transfer the entire thing to the oven. If your pan has a plastic handle, for God's sake, don't do that and transfer the hen to a baking pan or pie plate instead.
10. Bake for 40 minutes, remove from oven. You could try adding broccoli and covering it for a few minutes right after removing the hen from the oven, that was my original plan but there was a small incident.
    

Sweet Potato Fries- half fried, half baked

This recipe works with regular potatoes too. The half frying, half baking process results in the best of both (crispy but not greasy).

Ingredients
2 sweat potatoes. Or yams, I always forget which is which.
Oil- canola works well for this since it heats to a high temperature.
Garlic salt and pepper

1. Cut up the sweet potatoes. I find these come out better if I cut the sweet potatoes to be somewhere in between the size of fast food fries and steak fries. Too small and they'll get mushy; too big and it's hard to cook them through.
2. Cover the bottom of a frying pan with oil and add the sweet potatoes on medium heat. I don't fully submerge fries when I cook them, since I finish the process with baking which cooks them through. Just enough oil to brown one side of the fries at a time.
   
3. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
   
4. Flip the sweet potatoes every few minutes until they've all browned a bit on more than one one side. So long as they don't char, don't worry about over-browning- the browning carmelizes them and makes them quite tasty.
5. Now transfer them for baking to finish. I have a vegetable steamer that opens up flat, so I put that in a baking dish and put the fries on top of it. This let's the excess oil drip down and gives them a nice air baking. But if you don't have a means of doing that, a cookie sheet will do too.
6. Garlic salt and pepper them.
   
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes. I'll usually make burgers while they're baking.