- Hey guys, I'm back this week
with another Real Time Recipe for you,
dinner in 15 minutes or less.
So it's been awhile since we've got to one of these,
but I know you're all headed back to school,
and some of you might be going to college
for the first time, learning to cook,
and you need a quick and easy dinner.
And this one is a great one.
Now, before we get going,
I have to thank you all so much
for your amazing comments
on the Life Update video last week.
I sat up last last night
and read every single one,
and there were about 600 comments and counting right now.
You have no idea how much all of your words of encourage
and support and funny stories.
It made me laugh, it made me cry, it was amazing.
So thank you so much.
And if you're just joining us,
and you missed the Life Update video,
you can click the link in the description,
and you can hear everything
that's kind of going on with me right now
as well as a big announcement I have to share.
Okay, let's get to dinner.
So, this is a great one.
This is something that we made a lot this summer
when I was in France,
and I made it as an entree
for a big party we had.
We had 16 guests for lunch.
But it makes a great dinner.
So what we're gonna do first
is start with some watercress.
So watercress is a fantastic green
that actually grows in water,
and we're gonna use it as the base of our salad.
what I like about it
is it has a really nice peppery bite to it,
so it's kind of like arugula.
If you can't find watercress,
you could use arugula.
But it's packed vitamins.
I've learned all this stuff about watercress,
I had no idea.
The fact that it has more Vitamin C than an orange,
go figure,
more calcium than milk,
and more iron than spinach.
And it has like 17 other benefits, too.
I'll leave you the link in the description
of the article I read.
I was blown away by it.
Okay, so we got our watercress.
Then we are going to take a little olive oil,
grape-seed oil, whatever, whatever, can't even talk,
whatever type of oil you like.
I'm still choked up from that Life Update video.
And we're just gonna sprinkle a little on there
just to give it some nice flavor,
and then you can add a little bit of salt,
and just a crack or two of pepper.
There you go.
So we've got our base.
And then the other thing I like to do,
oh, actually no, we're gonna wait till the end for that.
So now we have our cucumber.
This is a large cucumber
and we're obviously not gonna use
all of this for our salmon.
So what I like to do is just kind of peel off
only what you need
because that's gonna protect your cucumber
when it sits in the fridge for a few days after
and keep it from drying out.
So that's my little meal-prep tip for you:
only peel what you need.
See, we're gonna go like, probably that.
This is just for one,
but you could make this for several people.
Hey, I made it for 16 people.
So you just double, triple, or quadruple the recipe.
Okay, so then we're gonna chop off our end here.
This is a English cucumber.
I like these English cucumbers.
I don't know why they call them English cucumbers.
My friends in England,
are these the only kind of cucumbers you have?
I don't know why they call them English.
But I like them because I find
that they have less seeds to them.
So I look for that.
And we'll put this over here,
and then we're just gonna make
like a very tiny dice.
In fact, we might only use half of this.
Let's see.
Then we can kind of cut it up the side,
and then give it a little chop.
Okay, that'll give you a nice dice.
Okay, and we can set that right like that,
then we're gonna put these over here.
Okay, I'm gonna tidy up my little workspace here.
There we go.
Then, the other thing I like to add
are some radishes.
So I like a good bite
when it comes to things paired with salmon.
So if you don't like radishes,
or if they're too like kind of spicy for you,
you could use capers would be really good in this.
We're basically creating the filling
that's gonna get rolled up
into our smoked salmon.
And this is a really great little dinner
if it's still really hot where you are.
Here in California, it's still really hot.
In fact, our summers go to like October.
So sometimes I'll make this for a dinner
when it's just too hot to cook
and turn on the oven.
All right, there we go, we got our radish,
looks really good.
But you could also serve this as an entree,
entree, I'm saying the French way, an appetizer.
They call the appetizer the entree
and the entree the plat, so, or the plat I guess.
There we go.
So we're ready to go.
Now, for our smoked salmon.
I usually like to find salmon
that's packaged large, kind of like this,
because you get bigger pieces that way,
which makes it a little bit easier to roll up.
So sometimes it can be kind of hard to see
kind of where it was cut,
but use your best judgment,
and then we're just gonna take like a good,
here, wait, this is not coming apart.
Here, let's try over here, here we go.
Oh yeah, this is good.
You just want a good amount
so you can roll it up, there.
Something like maybe that, that'll do.
Okay, maybe another piece on the side.
You can kind of fake your way to make some semblance
of a triangle or a square, put this over here.
And you'll see why in a minute.
So we're gonna put this over here.
Just kind of spread it out a little bit, there.
Then, we are gonna use some cheese.
Now, you can use whipped cream cheese
that you put a little herbs into is good.
I really like to use Boursin cheese
which you can get at the grocery store,
which you can see, it's a very soft cheese
that already has herbs and garlic
and some spices.
It's just really flavorful
and makes this really quick,
because there's not much else you have to do with it.
See, we're gonna just spread it out like so.
Let's see, there, this looks great.
Something like that, maybe we'll do one more.
Just 'cause we're hungry, right there, let's see.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
You're gonna make like a little bed you see,
and then we're gonna take our lovely vegetables here,
I'm just gonna sprinkle them in like that.
Anytime I'm working with salmon,
I love to pair it with cucumber.
They are such natural flavor mates.
They really do go well together.
And again, in the summer, it's so cooling.
Okay, that's probably good.
If you can't fit it all in,
that's all right, you can save this
for a little salad later in the week.
Okay, now, here comes the fun part.
I'm hoping my lovely crew can see this.
Is this okay if I roll it like this?
Yeah, okay, good, they're nodding,
so I guess that's good.
All right, so we're gonna roll it up like so,
and I'm gonna try to do this very gingerly.
There, see.
And you have like this lovely little log,
and that is gonna go flying in to the center here.
I'm feeling like I might need a little assistance
with my knife.
There, see how lovely?
And that's okay, actually,
well this just gave me an idea.
What we could do with our extra cucumbers and radish
is really kind of, some of it fell off,
I don't know if you can see that,
but we can probably just sprinkle some of this
on the side, see, isn't that lovely?
That's actually really pretty, yeah.
And in fact, here, one more radish.
There, so this is looking good.
Now, the final step is to take a lemon,
and we're just gonna cut it into like one wedge,
get that ready,
and we're gonna take a little bit of freshly cracked pepper,
put that on the side.
And then just a little sprig of parsley.
In fact, you could put some dill inside the salmon,
that would be great,
or a little sprig of dill on top
would also be lovely.
And before we put the sprig on,
we're just going to squeeze a little bit of lemon.
And see how I'm holding the lemon like this
instead of going like that?
That will prevent the seeds
from spilling all over your salmon.
So we're just gonna go like that.
And then I also like to go over the watercress as well
to give that a little more flavor.
And then you can kind of put that on the side
if people want more.
Then we're gonna put a little sprig like that.
There you have it, a delicious dinner
in 15 minutes or less.
So let me cut into this
so you can kind of see what it's like.
Of course, I forgot my fork and knife,
so hang on one sec, and I'll go,
can you still see me?
Sorry, this is always what happens.
Maybe in editing I'll throw some
nice elevator music in there
while I go get my fork and knife.
So we're just gonna bite into this,
and you'll see how you've got the salmon,
and then maybe we'll give you another shot like that,
you can really see.
See, and you've got the cheese in there,
and the cucumbers and the radish
with the delicious watercress.
It's so refreshing.
Let's see, see if it's as good as I remember.
Mmm, oh, that's really good.
Oh, it's better than I remember.
You have to try this, it's so good.
So that's all I got.
Dinner in 15 minutes or less.
I hope you guys give this one a try
and let me know what you think.
Sorry, my mouth is full and I'm talking.
Until next time, I'll see you back here
with another quick and easy recipe.
Hope you try it, it's quite good, see you then, bye.
(relaxing music)