Hi folks! We hope you are enjoying your summer and living your best life. For this blog post, we decided to cook, which is a great option if you feel like staying in and not driving anywhere. On this warm, rainy day in early July, we decided to make a three course meal using all new recipes that we have been wanting to try out. For the first course, our appetizer of choice was a Mushroom and Goat Cheese Bruschetta. We followed that with a Chipotle Lime Salmon topped with an Avocado Salsa, and paired it with Damien's famous Roasted Broccoli. And we ended our evening with a decadent Flourless Cheesecake Brownie for dessert.
We started our cooking adventure by prepping the ingredients for the Mushroom and Goat Cheese Bruschetta appetizer. One of the most important things to do in cooking is to wash all of your produce, so we started our prep by thoroughly cleaning the parsley and mushrooms. Mushrooms are usually full of dirt, but this appetizer will make you cherish your clean mushrooms. The fresh parsley that we bought was incredibly effervescent while it was being chopped, which made us excited for this course. We opted to use La Bonne Vie's Goat Cheese, which was creamy and spread really well once it was room temperature. The recipe for this appetizer calls for either Italian or French bread---we chose French bread because it was the first bread that we saw in the bakery. According to Simone, French bread is meant to be used in its entirety, so we did not leave off the ends when we sliced it up to bake it. We would definitely suggest broiling your bread at the end of the baking process if you want an extra crispy crunch to your bruschetta. After cutting up the bread, we started creating the delicious sautéed mushroom mixture, which smelled like heaven with the shallots, parsley, garlic, seasoning, and fresh lemon juice. Once everything was cooked, it was time to put this appetizer together and we could not wait!
We truly fell in love with the creamy and crunchy flavors of this Mushroom and Goat Cheese Bruschetta. The goat cheese and mushroom mixture is an absolute perfect pairing, and each brought out the best flavors in the other. The mushroom mixture definitely had an earthy flavor thanks to the combination of the sautéed mushrooms, shallots, and garlic. And we feel that the lemon juice really came through as the low key star in every bite. If you love lemon, you could certainly add a little bit more of the lemon juice to the mushroom mixture. This appetizer was superb, sophisticated, and incredibly delicious, and would be great for a fancy party with friends.
While we were enjoying our appetizer, we moved on to making the Avocado Salsa. Salsa can be fast, furious, and delicious, and this Avocado Salsa was no exception---it was rather easy and quick to make. You literally cut up the ingredients, combine them in a bowl, and season to taste. This particular Avocado Salsa is sort of like a deconstructed guacamole, and since we both LOVE guacamole, we definitely enjoyed this spread. Overall, the Avocado Salsa was refreshing and would pair well with any protein such as salmon, or shredded chicken or pork in tacos. We would definitely make it again in the future.
Salmon (like most fish) cooks fairly fast, so we decided to prep the Flourless Cheesecake Brownies. We decided to do flourless brownies because we enjoy being healthy, but also indulging in sweets from time to time. The recipe for these brownies is a bit more time consuming in contrast to boxed brownies, but it was certainly worth it. For example, neither of us had used raw honey before---it is hella thick and difficult to get out of the jar, but it definitely has a better, richer taste than conventional honey. Despite the involved prep, moist and delicious do not do these brownies justice! The combination of the chocolate base and cream cheese topping made these brownies subtly sweet and amazing. Initially when you bite into the brownie, you meet chocolate head on, especially because of the chocolate chips, but then you taste the vanilla and the velvety creaminess of the cream cheese as you continue to devour it. The marbled cream cheese on top created a roller coaster of delicious flavors in every single bite. Simply put, this dessert will make you very happy. In the future, we would potentially use regular sized chocolate chips instead of the mini morsels (they are just what we had on hand), but this dessert was ev-er-y-thing.
Lastly, we prepped for our main course---the Chipotle Lime Salmon and Roasted Broccoli. The preparation for the salmon was really quick and easy. If you do not have a food processor, you could certainly just chop up the ingredients by hand to be as small as possible. From there, you simply rub the salmon with the chipotle mixture and it is ready for the oven. Despite having a beautiful piece of salmon and presentation, we were sadly let down by the recipe when we bit into the cooked fish. The salmon was cooked through and really nice and flaky, but the zest of the lime in the chipotle mixture was abrasive and overbearing. We do not completely blame the recipe because our lime yielded little juice, so we overcompensated a tiny bit by adding more zest to the chipotle mixture. In the end, we ended up scrapping most of the rub off the salmon to enjoy the fish. Despite that bummer, the salmon topped with the delicious Avocado Salsa that we made (and absent of the rub) was rather tasty.
And finally, Damien's famous Roasted Broccoli was the side dish to the Chipotle Lime Salmon. It was prepared with olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and minced garlic, then baked at 450 degrees for just under 20 minutes. The Roasted Broccoli was crispy, flavorful, and had a little kick, and accompanied the salmon perfectly. This quick and easy side dish made Simone audibly say "this broccoli is in it to win it."
Overall, we would give the Mushroom and Goat Cheese Bruschetta a 5 out of 5, the Chipotle Lime Salmon a 2 out of 5, the Avocado Salsa a 5 out of 5, and the Flourless Cheesecake Brownies a 5 out of 5. The Chipotle Lime Salmon may be worth another try with way less lime zest next time, and that could potentially raise our rating of it. However, everything that we made was pretty easy to make and delicious (though the Chipotle Lime Salmon will haunt us). Until next time, we hope you find time to cook up something yummy in your kitchen soon!
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| Mushroom and Goat Cheese Bruschetta |
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| Ingredients for the Mushroom and Goat Cheese Bruschetta appetizer |
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| French Bread ready for the oven |
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| Mushrooms washed and ready to be chopped |
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| Before adding the mushrooms... |
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| ...after adding the mushrooms :) |
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| French Bread fresh out the oven! |
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| Close-up of perfection :) |
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| Ingredients for the Avocado Salsa |
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| Close-up of the raw, chopped ingredients |
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| Avocado Salsa |
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| Ingredients for the Chipotle Lime Salmon |
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| Some of the ingredients before meeting the food processor |
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| Salmon ready to be lathered up |
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| Salmon ready to be cooked! |
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| Chipotle Lime Salmon fresh out the oven! |
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| Pre-roasting... |
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| ...post roasting! |
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| Our entree: Chipotle Lime Salmon and Roasted Broccoli |
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| Ingredients for the Flourless Cheesecake Brownies |
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| Some of the dry ingredients ready to be mixed |
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| Action video :) |
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| Ready for the oven! |
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| Look at that marbling :) |
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| OMG. |
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| Did we say OMG?! Close-up of the Flourless Cheesecake Brownies :) |
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