My Father's Day Dinner- Honey mustard glazed salmon with dill

I was on the radio!!

I am including my Father's Day dinner here, but this was the most exciting thing that happened to me this week. I realize this is kind of late to post about the dinner, but it's been a busy week. I was on the Robins Falls Story Time for Kids show on Blog Talk Radio yesterday and preparing to be on the show - actually anticipation of being on the radio was a little stressful. It was my first time and I read my story, "The Trouble with Follow the Leader". I was going to put the message to go listen to me on the blog, but I didn't get to post this. So here is the post I was going to post on Monday talking about my Father's Day dinner.:) I am also including the entire program here. So if you didn't get a chance to hear it you can hear me reading the story and discussing why I wrote it. I am the 4th person speaking. It's about 25-30 minutes into the show.

Getting the Ingredients and Cooking the Dinner

We went to Stew Leonard's, which was featured on The Next Food Network Star, on Saturday afternoon to get the ingredients for my husband's Father's Day dinner. By the way, we got there at the best time to get the most samples. This was good, because we hadn't eaten any lunch. You can fill yourself up for free if you time your shopping visit right.:) As we passed the Seafood section, I couldn't resist the wild Alaskan salmon. So I decided to make my honey mustard glazed salmon with dill, garlic mashed potatoes, and found the thinnest asparagus I ever saw.

On Sunday I sauteed the asparagus in butter after I'd microwaved them for a little over two minutes and ran them under cold water to stop the cooking. I had found sun-dried tomato and basil panko crumbs at Stew Leonards, so I toasted them in butter until they were golden brown. I sprinkled some on the asparagus. When you cook salmon you cook it with the skin on so it stays moist, but there is a trick to removing the skin when it's cooked. If it's cooked properly when you put a spatula between the skin and the meat you will find that the skin will stay in the pan and you won't have to peel anything.

The one thing to remember when dealing with fresh fish and a car ride is to make sure you get ice to put the fish over before you leave the store. At Stew Leonard's they had an ice machine by the seafood department. When you get home put the fish into the refrigerator on top of the ice. You might need a bowl to hold the dripping. Don't keep fish in the refrigerator longer than a day. It can be frozen if necessary, but it will not be as good. It's best to use it right away, which is what I usually do, but there were only two of us for dinner on Saturday night. My husband was working and my older daughter had a date.

To get started preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pat the salmon dry and check for pin bones. If there are any make sure you take them out. All other salmon bones and the skin can be eaten, but I like to serve it without the skin. Place the salmon on a sheet pan or any shallow pan. Grind fresh pepper over the piece or pieces and a little bit of salt. Since it's salt water you don't need that much salt. Make the glaze with dijon mustard, about a half cup. Add about a teaspoon of honey to taste. Also add lots of garlic powder, about 2 teaspoons, a dash of Italian seasoning, a half teaspoon of onion powder, a dash of cayenne, and a sprinkle of thyme. Squeeze about a half a lemon over the fish before you glaze it. Also squeeze half a lemon into the glaze. Mix it thoroughly until it is one color. You might want to add more honey. The honey cuts the bitterness of the dijon mustard and helps to give it more of a glaze. Take a pastry brush and brush the mustard glaze onto the salmon. Keep brushing it on until almost all of the glaze is used. Take some fresh dill, about a tablespoon chopped very fine and sprinkle it onto the salmon. Then take the pastry brush and brush one more time to incorporate the dill. Put into the oven and set the timer for about fifteen minutes. The salmon is done when it starts to flake with a fork. Remove the pan if everything else is ready or you can turn off the oven and leave the salmon for another five minutes at the most.

When you are ready to serve it take a spatula and do that trick I talked about earlier. It's always fun to serve it together with the vegetables. Sometimes I put it over spinach, but not Sunday night. I arranged the asparagus next to the salmon and sprinkled more toasted panko crumbs on top. When my daughter saw it she said it looked so good we should take a picture, but as usual we were too hungry and forgot to do it. If you get a little over a pound and half of fresh salmon it will serve four people.

For the mashed potatoes I used Yukon gold and also added about six cloves of garlic. This is funny and it wouldn't have happened if I'd drained the potatoes, but I put the garlic in without peeling it. My daughter who is the mashed potato maker, didn't notice the peels and mashed everything together thinking I'd peeled the cloves like she does all the time.:) During the meal I started finding these small white pieces and thought maybe it was salmon cartilage. But when I found it in my potatoes I realized what had happened.:) So if you use unpeeled cloves remember to take out the peels after you drain the water.

I can tell you this meal was a great success!! My husband loved it and the crunchiness of the crumbs combined with the salmon and the asparagus was a real treat! It was also very filling!!

Tell me how you spent your Father's Day. We usually go out to eat, so this was much cheaper, even if it was wild salmon.:) Also please leave your comments about either my reading of the story or the story itself.

Until the next time, please scroll down to the end of the page to take a little quiz about you. :)