Salmon, Coconut Thai Rice, and Stuffed Zucchini

I am a very big fan of cooking. I'm not exactly sure when it started, but I think it must have been in high school when I started to bake stuff for my friends when it was their birthday. I remember the first time I did this: for my best friend Lindsay, sophomore year, when I made a strawberry rhubarb pie. I'd never heard of rhubarb, making pie crust versus buying it seemed like such a foreign idea, and all I really knew how to bake was your basic chocolate chip cookies.. instructions carefully followed from the back of the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip bag. And the pie turned out AMAZING! Now, 8 years later (dear god, I am old), I still make desserts for my friends, but I have also branched out and enjoy making healthy dinners as well.

My friend Carter and I have started trying to have a "family dinner" every week, where the two of us hang out and cook, and others show up to hang out and eat. Granted, this may be more of an excuse to invite peoples' respective shmoopies (significant others) over than anything else, but it's still a fun night where we get to eat good food.

This past Tuesday, Carter decided to make salmon, and I was put in charge of making sides. This may seem boring, but I loooove picking good side-dishes (with the help of Pinterest, of course). I decided to do stuffed zucchini that I found on Pinterest, and coconut thai rice. The zucchini, while a lot of chopping, was DELICIOUS. I added garlic to the recipe, and sauteed that along with the onions, otherwise following the recipe step-by-step. For the rice, I took idea from a few different recipes, and this was the final combination that I ended up with:

- 2 cans coconut milk

- 1-2 tbsp sugar

- pinch of salt

- juice from half a lime (I might double this to a full lime next time)

- about 2.5 cups of rice (long-grain white, it's way cheaper than the jasmine rice most recipes wanted)

Bring everything but the rice to a boil, then mix in the rice, cover, reduce heat, and simmer until done. I added a bit more water for stickier rice, but you can do it based on your preference. When the rice was done, I added some sliced almonds on top.

Carter did the salmon, and rubbed on some Dijon mustard and brown sugar, then cooked it in the over at 400 degrees for about 20-30 minutes. Everything turned out amazing, and we had a great dinner with some La Crema chardonnay. For future posts I will remember to take pictures of the finished product; I'm very sad I didn't for this dinner, the presentation was pretty sweet.