Springer

Yes, it's truly spring. The farmers' market is starting to have some real food available (not just greens and other winter carryovers), and the chinook are running in the Columbia. Saturday's dinner was almost entirely fresh from the farmers' market, and fixed in just about the simplest way possible: baked salmon fillets, blanched asparagus, and boiled baby potatoes. I drained the potatoes and tossed some butter in the pot to melt, then realized that I had frozen cubes of chopped herbs in EVOO left from last summer. I tossed one of those in, too, and oh, the deliciousness.



The salmon was sold unfilleted, as "roasts," i.e. the whole fish, gutted and then chopped rather unceremoniously into 2-3 lb chunks. So yay--my first experience with doing the filleting myself. I learned as I went, and the second half was rather neater than the first. It was a tad more than we needed for one meal, so I saved all the little bits, and last night adapted the Chowdah for the salmon, substituting it for the chicken, adding additional veggies (cauliflower and broccoli), using 2% instead of whole milk, and using a couple more of those frozen herb cubes (which probably contain a mixture of parsley, cilantro, basil and dill, though I can't be 100% sure) instead of freshly-chopped parsley. Besides cheddar, we also had a little locally-made dill havarti. Could not have been easier, or more delicious.



I didn't have bread to go with (need to mix up another batch of Simple Crusty Bread), so I made up a spare box of Jiffy corn muffins (bargain of the century at 69 cents a box). Perfect.