Belated Mother's Day Dinner

Since Brandon was out of town for a baseball tournament on Mother's Day we had his parents over for dinner this Sunday to celebrate. We decided on a very spring menu. The main course was spice rubbed grilled salmon (http://www.marthastewart.com/312489/spice-rubbed-grilled-salmon-with-spicy-c) with spicy cucumber salsa (http://www.marthastewart.com/262044/spicy-cucumber-salsa). The side dishes were spicy roasted broccoli and Mediterranean pasta salad. It was delicious and everything turned out great.

For the salmon it was just a spice rub with sugar, salt, pepper, dill, coriander, mustard powder, and cumin. Let it sit at room temperature for 45 minutes before putting it under the broiler until medium rare (again, since we don't have a barbeque set up). The cucumber salsa was jalapeno, cucumber, shallots, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and a little olive oil. It was very refreshing, spicy, but a little too much onion for me. I don't like raw onions anyways, but everyone else liked it.

The side dishes were super easy also. I bought a bag of chopped broccoli and poured it on a jelly roll pan with oil, salt, pepper, and red chile flakes. Mix it up and roast until it gets just a little blackened. The pasta salad was from a recipe from a stand at Pike's Place Market that sells their own pasta. The pasta flavor was Italian pesto blend, but I only had half a pound and the recipe called for a full pound to feed that many people, so I added half a pound of farfalle. While the pasta is cooking I sauteed onions, garlic, asparagus, and red bell pepper. Then I added balsamic vinegar and let it reduce. The recipe called for sun dried tomatoes but I had fresh grape tomatoes and used those. Then I added some feta. The recipe called for kalamata olives but Brandon doesn't like olives so he made me omit them. It was good without them, but it would have been great with them.

The dinner was a great success, everything turned out the way it was supposed to and everyone loved it. It feels good when things happen the way they should.