Cruciferous crunch from Trader Joe’s

On the week leading up to the Super Bowl, we decided to celebrate the spotlight on our city with a Seattle-themed week of food.

We had all sort of delicious items and Seattle week turned into more of a salmon week, which was ok for us too.

My favorite dish of the week were the salmon tacos that I put together on my own, based on a lot of flavors from the quinoa dish a few weeks ago. We used Tom Douglas (a Seattle legend)’s fish rub and grilled the salmon, adding some orange and lime juice and zest as the fish was resting. I added some cilantro and lime to some sour cream and added that with some steamed ‘cruciferous crunch’ veggies from Trader Joe’s: kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and green and red cabbage.

Citrus-y salmon tacos with cilantro

We steamed these veggies later in the week and they turned out really well. I plan on steaming some shredded Brussels spouts this week. It would be a first for me. Weird, right?

As I mentioned, it sort of turned into salmon week. We had smoked salmon pasta the following day, with shallots and peas in a light cream sauce.

Smoked salmon pasta in a light cream sauce

The last salmon dish of the week was a delicious chop salad from Juno that I plan on making again. This salad included baby arugula, cous cous, tomatoes, salmon lox, parmesan cheese, pumpkin seeds, black currants, dried sweet corn, pesto buttermilk dressing. It’ll be perfect in the summer, eaten out on the patio with either lox or grilled salmon and a crisp glass of Efeste’s Riesling. Yes, please.

Juno’s chop salad

To bring it back to Seattle week, I had the fun opportunity to enjoy one of Seattle’s newest and hottest restaurants: Din Tai Fung. There was a bit of a wait, but it was worth it. Everything we ordered at the dumpling house was fantastic and while we felt like we ate for hours, the bill was reasonable and we weren’t too full. We had soup dumplings, chicken fried noodles, the pork chop fried rice (hands down my favorite), sauteed green beans with garlic, and the rice and pork shao mai. Man, was it good. And re-writing it here makes me crave it even more. I visited Din Tai Fung with some girlfriends and I’m eager to take Brandon. I know he’d love it!

The Din Tai Fung spread. So delicious!

We capped off Seattle Week with a visit to Molly Moon’s. Seattle/Salmon week was a huge success. Up next week? “Winner, winner chicken dinner” in honor of the Superbowl. Our second favorite team won, so we’ll celebrate them. Besides, that way it’s the perfect set up with Seattle Week!