I forgot to title this post!

YJDKIY has been light on the meal posts lately, so tonight I took the time to stop and wash my hands a bagillion times so I could take photos mid-cook. You're welcome.

Fresh ingredients pre-cooking! Farmer's market beets, family grown shiitake mushrooms, HT asparagus, and Wild Alaskan Salmon (eco-best!). I only got the salmon in case I hated the mushrooms, like all other mushrooms I've ever tried. For the glaze, I used 1 can of leftover pineapple juice, low sodium soy sauce, a spoon of brown sugar, lemon juice, garlic powder and ginger. Bring to a boil and simmer until thickened. Grilled the salmon with this brushed on top.

 
For the beets, I cut off the tops (we had those last weekend, sauted with something spicy and lots of garlic....yum! But, YJDKIY wasn't the cook, so I can't claim that meal*), and boiled for about 40 minutes. The skins peeled right off!

Bloody murder!? Once they cooled with the help of some ice water, I grated them and added two wedges of Laughing Cow Creamy Swiss Light and lemon juice and mixed until creamy. Chill before serving (I had to keep tasting this since the recipe was TOTALLY invented...it was so tasty the whole bowl could have been a goner if I wasn't intent on saving some for the finished photo! Whew, that was close!).

The shiitakes and asparagus were headed for the grill with the fishy, so shake n' bake style was the best option. The tiny little shoestrings of asparagus got olive oil, fresh ground black pepper and an itty bit of garlic salt. The shiitakes, which, were my first stab at preparing AND eating, got olive oil, garlic salt and ALL of the rosemary in my three shelves of spice cabinet (that was a lot). 

The mushrooms took about 6-10 minutes, same or less for the asparagus. The salmon, not so much. YJDKIY was being extra lazy and didn't cut the skin off, which made it take forever. AND meant it couldn't get that nice caramelized glazey crust. Alas, it was still tasty tangy-sweet.

Voila! I'm happy to report I loved the mushrooms. There was no normal gross mushroom flavor or ick texture whatsoever. I normally cannot even manage to swallow a bite of portobello, crimini or even common grocery store mushrooms. Cooking on the grill fixed the texture and coating in said shake n' bake fixed the flavor. :)


* beet green meal (and some beets with balsamic and spinach, and rice/spinach balls with tomato sauce, and pears, and homemade bread!)