Baked Salmon with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

 The cool thing about salmon is that it's easy and relatively quick to cook and crammed full of nutrients. Here's a favorite recipe of mine that uses only three ingredients: salmon portions, sun-dred tomato pesto and Italian breadcrumbs. Ifyou can't find sun-dried tomato pesto, you can get the regular basil pesto instead. But trust me, sun-dired tomato pesto really kicks it up a notch or two.

Ingredients:

* 2 to 4 salmon portions (4 to 6 ounces each), fresh or thawed

* 1/2 to 1 tablespoon pesto for each salmon portion

* 1/2 cup of Italian breadcrumbs

Directions:

1) Reheat oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil

2) Pat each salmon portion dry with paper towel, and lay each on the baking sheet, skin side down.

3) sread petso generously on the top of each salmon portion with the pesto, and then sprinkle each with the breadcrumbs, ehough to make a thin coat on each portion.

4) Bake the salmon for about 15 to 18 minutes. When done, poke each portionwith a fork to see iif they are done -- they should be flakey. If not, bake for a few minutes more, but not too long, asyou don't want to overcook the salmon.

5) Serve with sides of your choice and enjoy.

* small

Angeli's Special Recipe Tartar Sauce

 I prefer to make my own tartar sauce since store-brought tartar sauces in general aren't very good. One usual issue is that these have a sweetener such as high-fructose corn syrup, added, which makes the sauce taste... wrong. I mean, tartar sauces are supposed to be savory and salty, not sweet. Anyway, this recipe is quick to make, and the secret ingredient that kicks it up a notch is choooped fresh shallots. I usually serve it with fish (such as air-fried Gorton's fish fillets...don't judge me but it's good). The sauce also tastes good with French fries.

Salsa Verde Pork Stew

 As I've mentioned in a previous post, pork stew meat is a great value, and here's another very tasty recipe for pork stew with Mexican flavors, that uses Herdez's salsa verde. In fact, this recipe is based on a similar recipe on Herdez's website with a few tweaks of my own.

Simple Pork Stew in Tomato Broth

 Inflation being what it is these days, meats have become more expensive. However, if you look hard, you'll find some good deals, such as pork stew meat. It goes for less than 3 dollars a pound at my regular food store, which is a darned good bargain, considering that the average pirice for beef stew meat is about 3 times as much as pork stew.

Here's an easy recipe that I serve regularly at home. It's cooked in chicken broth, sherry and tomato sauce and flavored with Worcestershire sauce and paprika. (Note: though I havne't tried this yet, it probably will work with cut-up chicken as well ifyou want a chicken stew instead.)

Roast Pork Tenderloin with Quick Chipotle Cream Sauce

 This is a great, easy recipe that takes only half an hour. One awesome thing about pork tenderloin is that it takes only 20-25 minutes to roast, and you can make the smoky-spicy sauce in a saucepan which takes minutes while the pork is a-cookin' away in the oven. You can use plan pork tenderloin or one of these flavored pork tenderloin like peppercorn-garlic -- I won't judge you. :-)  Note: if you can't find La Costea diced chipotle sauce (Walmart and supermarkets catering to Hispanic customers should have it), you can use canned chipotle instead. Take 2 or 3 peppers out of the can along with some of the sauce and mash them altogether in a small bowl.

Easy Pot Roast

 It is a tradition at our house to cook pot roast instead of turkey for Thanksgving. One reason is I'm not a big fan of turkey -- I like turkey bacon and turkey jerky, but that's aobut it. Another is that turkey would be too much for just two of us. Besides, pot roast is relatively easy to do, and at around 3 hours or so, doens't take as long as turkey. Oh, and you can count on it being juicy and very tasty. (Note: most recipes for pot roast usually calls for 3 to 5 pound chuck roast which is too big for a small household, so this recipe below uses a 2.5 lb chuck roast.

Korean Meatball Soup

 This isn't an authentic Korean recipe, but it has been inspired by spicy Korean tofu soup. In fact, the recipes for both are pretty similar except that you use meatballs instead of chunks of tofu.