Better than eating out

I sense a recurring item in a lot of my blog posts...food! Considering we eat many times throughout the day I guess food is a large part of our daily lives. And lately I have really enjoyed baking with Sevea. I tend to never buy premade cookies or desserts anymore because I told myself I will enjoy them more if I make them....and I probably won't eat a whole batch at one time unlike some cookies :)

Well this post is about something other than dessert but equally as delicious. Carissa/Andrew had invited us along for some dinner out. Troy and I have always been suckers for going out to eat. We've come a long way but still go out more than we would like. We want to get to a point where it is more of a treat. Anyway Troy was the responsible one and informed me that we should decline the offer to join them since we were trying really hard to eat healthy and we just didn't need to spend the money. As much as I pouted about it, it turned out to be an excellent choice. We had salmon florentine! I've made this once before but didn't follow the recipe all that close. It still turned out great but nothing spectacular. Well this time I was prepared with the sundried tomatoes and used the red pepper....only thing I didn't have was ricotta cheese which we think would make this even better (we substituted with some shredded cheese which worked fine). This is a must make dish if you like salmon. We CANNOT wait to make it again...leftovers were soooo good! Nutritious and delicious!

Ingredients

• 2 packages (10 oz each) frozen spinach, thawed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup minced shallots (I used onions)
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 5 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
• 1/2 cup part-skim ricotta
• 4 skinless salmon fillets (6 oz each), rinsed and patted dry
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Preparation

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Squeeze spinach of all excess liquid. Set aside. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add shallots; cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add garlic; cook 1 minute more. Add spinach, tomatoes, salt, pepper flakes and pepper; cook, stirring, 2 minutes more. Remove from heat; let cool about 15 minutes. Add ricotta; stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Pack about 1/2 cup spinach mixture on top of each fillet, matching the shape of the fillet. Place fillets on a rimmed baking sheet or in a glass baking dish; bake until cooked through, 15 minutes.

Sevea loved the salmon as well. We have such an amazing little eater on our hands. I couldn't be happier that she will eat almost anything we give her. Although she gets some special treats here or there we are trying to make sure she eats healthy food...with that kind of appetite and willingness to eat she could surely be on her way to being the chubby kid like her mom was. That is a road I never want her to have to take...no fun!

Anyway back to the topic at hand. We paired the salmon with a salad. And what do you know...she ate the salad as well. She must take after her cousin Makenzie who loved salads as a young girl. Since I can't seem to leave Sevea out of a post here are some pictures of her too :)