Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Maple Dijon Salmon with herbed rice!

Happy Sunday folks!

C’mon in.

Before we get going on today’s menu I wanted to give you a little insight on the day-to-day work experience of your humble narrator.

Let’s start with distance. Seems kind of important considering that I use the LA freeway system to commute to and from my job.

The distance between home and work is 17.7 miles. Each fucking way.

I’ve used surface streets in the past to make this drive and while it does lower your basic stress level – which is mighty goddamn important! – it takes twice as long as the freeways.

If you haven’t experienced the outright fucking JOY of using the LA freeway system, let’s just say it’s the old motherfucking west. Dog eat dog. Every motherfucker for him/herself.

It’s shit, it’s a grind, it’s pure fucking insanity and I get to do it 5 days a week. EACH WAY!

Good days and I can make the drive in under 25 minutes. Bad days can take over an hour. Average days are about 35-40 minutes.

These are minutes of my life. Or my “aging ass still working 40 hours a week away from home” life.

Add that shit up.

The real punch right in the dick is, apart from the 8 years we lived in El Segundo, I’ve been making this same daily commute since…

1998

I bring all of this up because I just went under the 3 year 5 month timeframe to retirement.

I.E. If I keep the same job and continue to live in the same place, I’m going to continue to make that drive, lose those minutes and create that anxiety on the motherfucking freeways for that same length of time as well.

Could you do that?

Or would your ass do everything possible to gain those hours back and try to eliminate that absolute fucking chaos from your Monday through Friday existence?

Yeah. Me too.

I’ve been trying for the last month or so to relocate back to my old home in El Segundo, which is the actual city where my job is located.

Thought I might have had it too.

Twice!

It fell through both times for various reasons.

The biggest reason this is proving to be a challenge is that the rents in El Segundo have gone up, I shit you negative, about $1,000 per month since the pandemic.

Shit, they’ve gone up probably 500 bucks a month just since the fires in January.

Let’s do some quick calculations. Between the Palisades fire and the Eaton (Altadena) fire there were 12,000 homes, structures, schools etc burned and lost. So all of these displaced people needed to find permanent or temporary housing. For the record, Altadena is very much an LA community. I know because my girl lost her former house in Altadena.

For reference, Pacific Palisades is circled in blue and El Segundo is circled in red here and Pedro is ALLLL the way at the bottom of the map. Altadena would be just north of Pasadena if it were listed here.

So all of these people needing homes, maybe looking for a beach community and the rents just happened to increase exponentially?

You wouldn’t think a group of people as noble as realtors would have something to do with that would you?

Why, that would be COLLUSION!

People?

That is fucked up.

While I still have my feelers out there for a possible relocation, I’m not getting my hopes too high. I’ll keep waiting for the “Goldilocks” apartment chance but in the meantime, just know I’m out there. Driving those freeways, feeling that stress and losing those minutes every goddamn week.

Then again? I’m banking a shitload of cash while doing it.

Ehh, I’ll make it.

Shit, sorry!

Welcome to Sunday Gravy everyone!

It’s June and time to get ready for beach season.

Does anyone here really get ready for beach season? Shit man, I live on the goddamn beach and never go.

What I’m driving at is we have a crazy healthy dish for you that doubles down the delightfulness by being ding dong delicious at the same time.

WEE!

Of course the inspiration for our meal was this.

Yep. That’s the good shit. Bought at YYZ duty free. Real Canadian Maple syrup. Pure. The uncut shit.

Of COURSE we had to use this in a recipe. Sure I went through a bunch of ideas, lots of desserts but eventually settled on our menu today.

Especially since this…

Is pretty much the only other ingredient for the sauce. That kicks ALL of the ass.

Maple Dijon Salmon!

recipe courtesy of somethingnutritiousblog.com

1.5 lbs salmon fillet

Salt & pepper

Maple Dijon Glaze

2 tbsp dijon mustard

2 tbsp pure maple syrup

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

Handful of fresh herbs, chopped- I used parsley

Speaking of, whip up that sauce real quick.

That is a brilliant idea for such a simple sauce with the pungency of the mustard and the sugary sweet maple syrup.

Now this meal comes together fast, fast, fast so let’s get our prep work out of the way first.

Our side dish today is perfection. You’re going to want to make this shit time and time again.

Herbed rice!

recipe courtesy of yourhomebasedmom.com

2 Tbsp butter

¼ cup finely chopped onion

1 tsp salt

black pepper a few grinds

1 tsp garlic minced

3 cup chicken broth

1½ cup rice

1/2 tsp rosemary, basil, thyme, dill (use less dill), oregano, or parsley – use your favorite combo. I used fresh rosemary, parsley and thyme as I am wont to do.

Small mince on that onion and garlic please.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Pretty critical step to avoid sticking and a possibility of leaving yourself with a clean up disaster on par with the Exxon Valdez.

Our salmon will bake on that.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

We will be using fresh parsley for the rice and also in the sauce for the salmon.

Nice thing about this much parsley is I can toss what I don’t use into the freezer and then grab a handful when I make my weekly veggie stock for my workday soups and just toss that shit right on in there.

Handy!

Let’s go ahead and prep our star protein.

Price first.

Not too terrible of a price considering this is about 1 1/2 pounds of “wild caught” salmon, if you believe in fairy tales.

Now let’s see what she looks like.

Pretty.

That will work for our application.

Salt and pepper your salmon, then go ahead and make, then apply the sauce. Set this whole thing aside for the moment.

Let’s get our rice started since it cooks longer than the salmon.

Add the butter to a small pot, heat, then add in the onion and garlic.

Cook just until golden then add in a cup of rinsed white rice.

You know, I never really bothered rinsing my rice in the past.

It’s true. Just measured and tossed it in the pot. The rinsing really does reduce the overall stickiness of the rice and we want that today.

Cook the rice until it is golden brown and aromatic.

Next add in the chicken stock and the fresh herbs. It was about a tablespoon of parsley, 1/2 tablespoon of diced rosemary and equal amount of fresh thyme.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat to very low, cover and cook undisturbed for 20 minutes. When done, give a few stirs and let rest for about 5 minutes to allow the rice to finish absorbing the stock.

It should look like this.

This rice is goddamn dynamite all on its own and was a perfect accompaniment to the fish. Just delicious! Say you have a leftover piece of chicken, make this rice to serve with it. That would be killer. This shit works with ANY protein. A keeper.

While the rice is cooking get the salmon in the oven. Cook at 375 for 15-18 minutes.

When done?

See what I was saying about the clean-up factor. That’s maple syrup on there.

Fuck, do I love parchment paper.

Let’s plate our meal already.

Oh shit. That will do.

And look how healthy we’re being. Got your standard side spinach salad, our salmon and our rice.

That salmon is wonderful. It’s super moist. Almost like the glaze worked as a crust to keep the moisture inside. It’s tender and flaky with the kiss of sweetness from the maple, the tang from the dijon.

Hell yes. Serve this shit to anyone even if some dumb motherfucker says they don’t like fish, let them try this. This is a paradigm shifter.

Sorry about that last bit. All this talk about commuting kicked my work week brain on for a second.

This is worthy of a bookmark kids. Trust me.

This week’s “fun” holidays courtesy of A Bit of Good News: “June 8 is International Knit in Public Day, World Oceans Day, National Best Friends Day, National Upsy Daisy Day, Ghostbusters Day, Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day, Strawberry Cheesecake Day and Young Eagles Day.”

Looks like I just missed Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day.

In case you missed it.

Much more strategic placement.

Appreciate you good folks. Impressive that you all listen to my ramblings and yet still come back each week.

That’s so fucking cool.

Let’s do this again next Sunday, shall we?

Until then…