Clean Plate Club

OMG! OMG! OMG! Yep, that about sums it up. The salad was delectible, but then we had the fish. Fresh-caught Black Cod, marinated in an Asian-butter sauce and baked in the oven. OMG! You gotta try it!

First of all, Happy Valentine's Day! What a sweet ending to a day it is. I walked in from work after dark, and what do I find to greet me? A freshly-washed man holding two glasses of Cayucos Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon. He was excited for me to look at the vegies we received today from SLO Veg. Okay, okay! Just let me take my coat off! So we opened the box and see its stuffed full of all this Bounty! Broccoli, potatoes, fresh bread, lettuce, red turnips, spinach, strawberries, butternut squash, blood oranges and tangerines. Oh, and fresh orange juice! Awesome! They even included a little houseplant with some little purpley-pink flowers. What a nice surprise! I was already planning to make a Honey-Balsamic Strawberry Spinach salad, but what about the fish? Black Cod? Okay (never heard of it), google some recipes. "I found one," Lee says. It calls for Teriyaki sauce to marinate the fish in, and then you bake it. It's his job now. Where's the teriyaki? Don't have any...how about this Asian salad dressing? I guess it will have to do. Butter, melted. Sauce, stirred. Garlic, crushed. Pepper, ground. Fish is in the marinade. Lee's says 25 minutes, then bake. Uh, Honey, its 7:45 pm...we'll give it 10 minutes. 

Okay, so I started the rice in the rice cooker (did I mention it is my favorite appliance??? Set it and forget it). I am slicing strawberries and spinning the spinach for the salad. Wow, really brought the farm to the table...lots of chunks of mud in this spinach. Oh well, that is why God created salad spinners, huh? Now for the vinaigrete...a little honey, a couple of shots of Balsamic vinegar, and some olive oil. Taste. Another shot of Balsamic. For good measure, I cut one of those tangerines in half and squeeze the juice into the oil and vinegar mixture. Now grind the pepper and shake in some coarse salt and shake (with the lid on the jar, of course). Okay, put the spinach in a mixing bowl, add the strawberries and pecans, drizzle with vinaigrete and toss. Put it in some salad bowls and add a couple of pinches of Parmesan cheese. Salad course is ready!
I slice a few thin slices off the baguette that also came in tonight's box and arrange them on a small plate. I add some Balsamic dipping sauce with oil and our first course is ready to eat. Meanwhile, the rice and the fish are cooking away! Mmmmmm...I can smell the fish as it bakes.
Okay, salad--awesome! The strawberries are sweet, the spinach is fresh and the pecans add a nice crunch. We clean the plate with our bread and eat every last morsel of salad. Wonderful. Our wine glasses are low, so we top them off and Lee dishes up the rice and fish.
Lee said it first, "Mmmm...buttery! Better than salmon (which we had the previous night)." Oh yeah. I bit into the fish, combined it with a morsel of rice...mmmmm, yeah, not bad! Not bad at all.

I start my blog. Lee starts a movie. Its "Overboard" with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, the same movie Lee and I watched on our first date. Awwh...I think I will keep him!