On Sunday, August 30, for dinner, my husband and I cooked up some broiled salmon with a side of mashed garlic potatoes and a Mediterranean Medley of Veggies. This was my first time EVER making mashed potatoes, and they turned out to be SO GOOD.

I shall start with the sides…

(Note: We used a lot of garlic in this meal, so I should tell you a little tidbit about garlic. After you slice, chop, mince or press your garlic, you should let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes before eating or cooking. Click here to see how to Bring Out the Health Benefits of Garlic.)

Mediterranean Medley
• 2 cups of Broccoli florets cut into quarters
• 2 cups chopped curly kale
• 1 medium carrot
(Mediterranean dressing which includes…)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 TBS extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• sea salt and pepper to taste

Healthy steam your veggies! (This is a gentle way to prepare your veggies to enhance their flavor, bring out their color, make them tender and preserves most of its ingredients.) Bring steaming water to a boil in your steamer pot. Add Broccoli, kale and carrots, cover and steam for 5 minutes…adding the garlic to veggies for the last 2 minutes of steaming. Transfer to a bowl and toss with the remaining ingredients while veggies are still hot. They give you the amounts for the dressing, but I wing it….do what you want to what you like!

Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• 2 medium-sized potatoes
• 3 TBS extra virgin olive oil
• 3 cloves of pressed garlic
• 3 TBS soy or low-fat milk
• sea salt and pepper to taste

First you want to ‘Healthy Steam” your potatoes. (While most will want to boil their potatoes, you probably shouldn’t as that will make them become watery and lose some of their flavor. Healthy steaming will enhance their flavor and preserve most of the nutrients.) Cut potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes using peeled potatoes. (For non-mashed potatoes, you can leave the skin on though ) Once the steamer pot is ready, steam the potatoes for 10 minutes. (Potatoes are done when you can easily penetrate with a fork.) Mash together with the rest of the ingredients.

What made these interesting, is that we have been using vanilla soy milk with our cereal in the morning, and that’s all we had…so we had hints of vanilla flavoring in these potatoes. Pretty darn good!!! Especially for my first mashed potatoes!

And finally…

The  “Quick Broiled” Salmon
• 1 lb Salmon fillet, cut in half
• 2 tsp + 1 TBS fresh lemon juice
• Sea salt and pepper to taste
• 2 TBS extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium clove garlic

Preheat the broiler on high and place an all stainless steel skillet (handle stainless steel too!) under the heat for about 10 minutes until it gets very hot. The pan should be 5 to 7 inches from the heat source. While pan is heating chop up your garlic and let it sit. Rub your salmon with the 2 tsp of fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper. (Note: you can leave the skin on, as after you broil it, the skin should peep right off.) Using a hot pad, pull pan from heat source and place Salmon on hot pan, skin side down. Return to broiler. Should take about 7 minutes, depending on thickness. Test with a fork for done-ness, as it will flake easily when it is cooked. Tis best with it’s still pink inside. Dress with the olive oil, 1 TBS lemon juice, garlic and salt/pepper to taste.