Time to chillax

I've been a bit of a stress ball lately and I'm realizing it's about time I took some time to chill out and detach from things. I spent a couple hours getting checked out by a doc and while I walked out with a clean bill of health, I decided I needed to start learning how to leave work at work and stop taking on so much at once. Easier said than done.

First thing I did when I got home? Made myself a large, beautiful, well-balanced meal.

I was so worked up today that I only had a banana and some Cheerios around 3pm, post doc visit. I figured I earned some quality kitchen time and a pretty meal :) Do you cook to de-stress?

I had one fairly large piece of salmon defrosting from yesterday, plus I had an urge to make a mustard sauce. Salmon + mustard = yum! Did I mention I also stashed a lonely sweet potato in my grocery basket this weekend? I think sweet potatoes go wonderfully with mustard. Wait, who am I kidding...I think everything goes great with mustard haha.

To start things off, I troasted some diced sweet potatoes. Kept them simple and only sprayed them with some olive oil.

Why did I troast? Because there's no reason to use the whole oven for just one sweet potato! These babies troasted for about 25 minutes at 400 degrees.

While those were cooking, I got started on the spinach and TJ's Harvest Grain Blend. All together, I think this meal took about 45 minutes to make? A glorious and relaxing 45 minutes :) The most stressful part was trying to cut the Harvest Grain Blend proportions in half. Who has a 5/8 measuring cup?? Thanks, Google for informing me 5/8 c equals 10 tablespoons!

Sweet Potato Grains

10 tbsp Trader Joe's Harvest Grain Blend

1 tbsp butter

1 c chicken broth

1/2 onion, diced

1/8 tsp allspice

pinch salt

1 sweet potato, diced and roasted

Heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion, allspice and salt until onion is softened. Add grains and stir for a minute or so until coated. Pour in chicken broth and stir in sweet potatoes. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Oniony Spinach

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1 tsp olive oil

1 tbsp chicken broth

3 c baby spinach

Heat olive oil in a pan over medium high heat. Saute onion until it starts to brown. Add spinach and broth. Stir and cover for 1 minute. Uncover and cook until spinach is wilted.

Sweet Whole Grain Mustard Sauce

3 tbsp whole grain mustard

1 1/2 tsp greek yogurt

3/4 tsp milk

1/2 tsp mirin

1 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp maple syrup

Melt butter in a small saucepan. Whisk in mustard, yogurt, mirin and maple syrup. Add milk slowly until desired consistency. Continue whisking over heat for 1-2 minutes.

Take all those elements and combine them with a simply pan seared salmon fillet and you've got quite a meal!

The sweet potatoes went wonderfully with the grains. They added a nice flavor and texture - not too mushy either! I was worried since a few pieces weren't totally troasted, but those 10 minutes in the broth made them perfectly soft. The mustard was EXACTLY what I was looking for with the salmon and potatoes :) What are your favorite ingredient combos?