Balsamic-Soy Glazed Salmon with Corn and Tomato Salad over Arugula

I warned you that there would be some serious blogging this week. I’m just not a happy girl if I don’t get to do this. Putting a post together with pictures of food that my family has enjoyed while drinking a glass of wine is like therapy for me 😉

Max, my 8 year old food critic, declared this dinner as “The best dinner you have ever made me”. As for myself, I would not say it is the best thing I have ever made…but it was darn good. I think that any time you cook with ingredients that are in season and at their prime, your food will just taste really good. Wild salmon is readily available right now and summer corn is delicious and sweet. California avocados are at the market and seem to be ripe whenever you need them. As for tomatoes…well…that’s sort of a sore subject around here. My husband has been working really hard on his tomato garden and so far we have only had a few available to eat. Any day now…I’m sure there will be a windfall of tomatoes and I will be scrambling for recipe ideas. For right now, I had a small handful of these amazingly sweet cherry tomatoes that came from our garden, and the rest came from the grocery store.

The hubby is usually in charge of grilling salmon around here, but with him at work I decided to go with the oven. I’m not much of a griller. You could definitely go that route though if you are good with the grill. The glaze I put on was really delicious. Maybe that’s why my boys loved it so much.

For as many steps as there are to this dinner, I found that it came together pretty quickly and easily. You could do some of it ahead of time too, which would come in handy if you were cooking for company…and this is definitely company-worthy!  The glaze for the salmon and the dressing for the salad could be done in advance as well as prepping the corn.

Balsamic-Soy Glazed Salmon

For the Glaze:

• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
• 1 minced garlic clove

In a small sauce pan, whisk together the vinegar, maple syrup, mustard and garlic over medium heat. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until thick, about 12 minutes. Set aside to cool while you cook the salmon.

For the Salmon:

• 1 two pound salmon filet or 4 individual salmon filets
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Put your oven rack in the center of the oven and pre-heat to 425. Cover  a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Rinse and pat salmon dry. Lay skin side down on the parchment and coat with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast for about 10-15 minutes. Mine took 15 and was cooked perfectly.

Remove from the oven and drizzle some of the glaze over the salmon. Cover with foil and rest for 5 minutes.

Corn and Tomato Salad with Basil

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• handful of basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 ears of cooked corn (I rub a little olive oil on mine and put them in the oven at 425 for about 10 min)
• 1/4 cup of chopped sweet onion or red onion
• 2 cups of small grape or cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• 1 avocado, diced
• salt and pepper
• thinly sliced basil to garnish

Directions