hold-onto-summer salmon & fruit salsa

trainer-approved recipes

- Beth Beauchemin (Read About Beth)

scenery, prairie-style

I’m just back from a visit out to the family farm in Alberta… how wonderful are 2 week holidays!!!  Travelling with 1 kid (2 if you count my husband!), I needed those 14 days to fully recover from the trip out, relax, and then prep for the return trip!  I won’t bore you with what we did (suffice it to say that with a toddler son “t-r-a-c-t-o-r”  time filled up MANY hours!), but I did spend some time with my mom making healthy – and flavourful – family meals.

It is CONFUSING out there in the supermarkets!  Between fat free, low fat, sugar free, low in sodium, cholesterol free, low cholesterol, organic (and the list goes on and on and on!!!), what is a gal to do?  I consider myself quite educated in nutrition and even I get overwhelmed by the variety of choices and labels out there.  Your best bet? Learn how to cook (if you don’t already)!  Generally speaking, when you make your own meals and snacks food will be fresher, have higher nutrient values, be lower in fat and salt, and taste exactly the way you like it (once you get the hang of it!).  There are tons are great cookbooks out there that can help you on your way to gastronomic greatness; in the meantime, here is one of my favourite family meals.  Fruit salsa is so ridiculously easy and so amazingly delicious.  I bought a mini chop just to make this!  It goes with fish, chicken, and of course, tortilla chips!   We serve it with brown rice and some raw veggies.  You can prepare your salsa up to a day in advance and refrigerate.

Yields 4-6 servings.

Fruit Salsa

• 2 cups diced sweet fruit (nectarine, peach, pineapple, strawberry, kiwi, mango, or a combo)
• 1/2 cup red pepper, diced
• 1/4 cup red onion, diced
• 1/4 cup fresh (2 tbsp dried) chervil or cilantro
  

  wild is best, but farmed salmon is better than no salmon at all...

• 1 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded & chopped
• 1 tbsp honey (or 2 tsp agave nectar)
• 1 tbsp lime juice

Salmon

• 2-3 salmon fillets, skin on
• sea salt & fresh ground pepper
• crushed red pepper flakes to taste
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• lime juice

1. Stir all the ingredients together in a bowl.  To save time, you can put everything in the mini-chop (washed and cut into big chunks) and whirl away! 2. Grease grill, then heat BBQ to high.  3. Season both sides of salmon with spices, and lightly drizzle with lime juice and olive oil.  4. Place salmon flesh-side down on  grill.  5. Cook, mostly covered, about 8 minutes (salmon should lift easily from grill), then another 2-4 minutes on skin side.  Skin will probably stay on the grill.  6. Slice fillets lengthwise to create 6 portions and serve with a spoonful (or 2 or 3!) of fruit salsa.

Nutrition Information (6 svgs): (per serving; varies slightly depending on fruit) 451 calories; 26 g fat (of which 22 g are unsaturated) ; 39.8 g protein; 11.7 g carbohydrate; 0.7 g fiber