Happy St. Patrick's Day: Green Eggs with 'Ham'

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We are heading to Dublin City Center to enjoy the parade (in our silly green hats). But first we enjoyed green eggs (made with spinach) and sausage rolls (vegetarian) . If you would like to make these very green eggs, just blend a cup of raw spinach per each egg and scramble.

Salmon en Croute

The 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Simone of Junglefrog Cooking. Simone chose Salmon en Croute (or alternative recipes for Beef Wellington or Vegetable en Croute) from Good Food Online.

Salmon en croute:
Ingredients
Mascarpone or creamcheese 5.2 ounces/150 gr
Watercress, rocket (arugula) and spinach - 0.6 cup/4.2 ounces/120 gr
Shortcrust pastry - 17.6 ounces, 500 gr. Use a butterversion such as Jus-rol which is frozen or dorset pastry. or... make your own!
Salmon fillet (skinless)- 17.6 ounce/500 gr
egg - 1 medium sized

Directions:
1.Heat the oven to 200°C/390 F. Put the mascarpone or cream cheese in a food processor with the watercress, spinach and rocket and whizz the lot until you have a creamy green puree. Season well.
2. Roll the pastry out so you can wrap the salmon in it completely (approx. 2-3 mm thick) and lay it on a buttered or oiled baking sheet (it will hang over the edges). Put the salmon in the middle. If it has a thinner tail end, tuck it under. Spoon half of the watercress mixture onto the salmon. Now fold the pastry over into a neat parcel (the join will be at the top, so trim the edge neatly), making sure you don’t have any thick lumps of pastry as these won’t cook through properly. Trim off any excess as you need to. Make 3 neat cuts in the pastry to allow steam to escape and make some decorations with the off-cuts to disguise the join if you like. Brush with the egg glaze.
3. Bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and browned. To test wether the salmon is cooked, push a sharp knife through one of the cuts into the flesh, wait for 3 seconds then test it against the inside of your wrist; if it is hot, the salmon is cooked. Serve with the rest of the watercress puree as a sauce.

This was my first Daring Cooks challenge so I also made the short-crust pastry. I have never enjoyed making pie crust, but I got out the kitchen scale and gave it a try.
It was so so hard! I hated rolling it out. Next time I will just buy the short-crust ready made.
Wrapping the salmon was very simple and fun. I change the filling. I mix 1 cup cooked spinach, feta, dried dill and cumin.

So tasty!

Beet, Clementine, Feta and Spinach Salad

Beets used to be a important crop in Ireland. Until a few years ago they made sugar out of them. Now the factories are closed and all the sugar is imported. Its very sad. Those kg's of sugar (found in someone's tea) used to be local and Irish. Thankfully we can still get the beets, and boy are they sweet!

Beet, Clementine, Feta and Spinach Salad
Severs 4 (if you like salad and I do!)

Into a bowl:

3 cups Spinach washed
3 small beets chopped (roasted and pealed, or pickeled)
3 Clementines pealed and seperated
1 tsp of feta
1 tsp Olive Oil
1/2 vinegar or lemon juice
few drops of balsamic vinegar syrup
Salt
Pepper

Mix and enjoy before the beets turn the feta pink!