roasted salmon with brussels sprouts and beer baked beans

We just had to try these Beer-Baked White Beans since stumbling upon the recipe from Everyday Food magazine April 2011 issue. They were just too interesting not to try, but I also imagined they could potentially go so wrong. The recipe requires a Belgian style white ale so after Nuno came home with Mill Street’s Wit I decided to run out and buy a couple cans of Rickards White to use instead. We used Great Northern beans for this particular recipe but you could always use cannellini or navy. It really wasn’t very appetizing assembled in the pot, but then as they baked the magic happened! They thickened up and made the entire house smell like a pub. Once we tried them we agreed they really are something different and delicious - if you like the flavour of beer. You don’t have to be into beer to enjoy them, but this recipe in particular brings out all the great qualities of a Belgian white. They obviously didn’t fly with Owen since he loves that traditional molasses sweetness you get from a Boston baked bean. But we'd definitely have these again.

Along with the baked beans we started out with the idea of making the Roasted Salmon with Brussels Sprouts recipe from Everyday Food Light, but I got a little side tracked. I decided to buy an entire fillet of salmon and prepare it according to Mark Bittman’s recipe in Everyday Food magazine’s April 2012 issue. It’s Roasted Salmon with Butter and I just loved the simplicity of how he recommended cooking it. As it was roasting, the melting butter (half a stick) had the fragrance of a fine restaurant which eliminated the pub smell quite nicely. On the side are Roasted Brussels Sprouts which we prepared according to Everyday Food Light. This has got to be my favourite way of eating brussels sprouts. More and more we are roasting our vegetables (such as broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and sweet potatoes). The flavour is much nicer and you get great texture from your vegetables. It also gives you more nutrition and control over the done-ness of your vegetables compared to boiling. I can really only see myself boiling potatoes for mash from now on. Amazing dinner but I'm glad we rarely attempt three dishes in one night - the clean up, arg!