Happy New Year!

This has been an interesting month. I wrapped up 2011 being sort of sick, which kind of killed the week I had taken off from my day job. I've made a few things, some memorable and some less so. I'm going to talk about a couple of the less memorable ones, that might be able to be saved.

The first one was an herbed chicken I put together. I've used yogurt and spices as a successful coating for baked chicken before. My vision was marjoram and black pepper and nice juicy chicken.  

I think I goofed in trying to use Greek yogurt for this one. I did thin it out a little bit, but it was more like a frosting than a coating. I just wasn't thrilled with the results. My sweetie liked some of it, but we agreed that this was not my best effort. I will be experimenting some more with this one.

Another one, I made last night. I didn't make a New Year's resolution to eat more fish, but we are starting to do so. Salmon is very low in mercury (unlike two of my favorite, tuna and halibut), so I think I'll be looking for a lot of salmon recipes in the future. Fish is also the easiest protein for me to chew these days. I can only eat so much soup, yogurt and quiche.

Now I like the herb dill as much as the next chef. Heck, I have a friend called Dill (though that's short for Dillanger). Still, I wanted something a little different. This gets challenging with a couple of different palates in the house. The sweetie doesn't like teriaki, and the mustard/brown sugar glaze I made when we still lived with Austin didn't go over too well either.

So you can imagine my delight when I found this recipe. That is, until I made it:

• 3 lbs salmon (I actually had about 3/4 of a pound, two small fillets, and this recipe was just enough to marinate.
• 1/3 cup soy sauce (I use Kikoman)
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 3 T oil (I used vegetable, as my other choices were peanut, olive or sesame and I wasn't sure any of them would work)
• 1 large clove garlic, crushed (or in my case, pressed)
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• Handful fresh chopped parsley. (Whose hand, I ask you? My hands aren't very big, someone who's over six feet is going to have  much bigger ones. I decided on a generous quarter up)

Marinade for 2-3 hours. Broil

Definitely trying for three hours next time. On my sweetie's suggestion, I will be cutting down on the soy sauce. It overwhelmed everything. I think I will also increase the lemon peel, cut down on the oil and add a little more garlic. Possibly, there will be some thickener to make the marinade into a glaze afterwards. We'll see how it goes.

Comments? Questions? Recipes to try? Let's hear from you!