This dish is on regular rotation in my house, especially on nights when we don’t think we have much on hand to prepare and eat. It relies heavily on pantry staples, with the chard being the only fresh ingredient needed. Feel free to substitute the chard with cooked nettles, beet greens, mustard greens, turnip or kohlrabi greens, or a mixture of any and all.
Sweet Onions & Peppers, Fluffy Rice, Yogurt & Arugula
Red rice is a traditional Southern dish (and a tradition in other cultures as well), and I love the nostalgia of it. This version is an update that makes it into an easy one-pot meal where you don’t have to cook the rice ahead of time. And there are so many variations. You can add cheese. You can serve it as a side instead of a main. You can make a vegetarian version. My children love it. My favorite thing is the way the rice gets crispy on top. It gives the dish that extra bite and texture that makes me happy.
The combination of salmon, broccoli, and red potatoes makes for a wonderful meal. But how to cook them all on one pan without any one component coming out overcooked or undercooked was a puzzle we needed to solve. Our first step was to look at the roasting time for each. Since the potatoes required the most time in the oven and the salmon required the least, we started by roasting the potatoes and broccoli together for the first half of the cooking time and then swapped in the salmon for the broccoli halfway through roasting. Cooking in stages prevents overcrowding the pan, ensuring even cooking. A vibrant sauce of chopped chives, whole-grain mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, and honey completes this one-pan meal. To ensure that all three components emerge from the oven well browned and cooked just right, we roast the potatoes the entire time on the baking sheet (they take the longest) but remove the broccoli before placing the salmon fillets on the sheet.