Herb Dijon Salmon & Cruciferous Mix Salad

After work last night I hit up Trader Joe’s to get a few ingredients needed for a dinner MM and I are cooking for our friends (who just had a baby!) tonight, but I also wanted to grab something quick and easy to make for last night’s dinner as well. Before I get into the recipe, let me tell you about my Trader Joe’s experience.

If you live in NYC and shop at TJ’s you know what a nightmare it is. For those of you not in NYC, to give you a glimpse into the craziness: the line typically wraps around the entire store so instead of shopping and then getting in line you are forced to shop while going through the line plus at certain times the store gets so crowded that they start a line outside just to get into the grocery story. How crazy is it to wait outside to go grocery shopping?? So even for me, Trader Joe’s can be a panic-inducing experience. Last night the woman shopping next to me had FOUR children with her (ages seemed to be about 1, 3, 6 & 8) I can’t even imagine how she was doing it but talk about a super mom. Just watching her try to wrangle in her kids made me exhausted.

Anyways, back to my dinner! Since I wouldn’t be getting home until around 7pm I didn’t want a complicated dinner. Here’s what I made in under 30 minutes:

Trader Joe’s sells already-marinated salmon, I opted for the herb dijon variety. It’s so simple. Cover a baking sheet with tinfoil, spray the tinfoil with PAM, place the salmon on top and put it in the oven at 375 for about 15 minutes.

While that was baking I worked on my salad. I chopped up fresh butternut squash, sprinkled it with olive oil, salt and pepper and placed this in the oven to bake. Then I mixed my salad dressing: ¼ cup olive oil, ¼ cup balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon whole grain djion mustard, juice of 1 lemon. I put Trader Joe’s Cruciferous mix (chopped brussels sprout, kale, broccoli, green & red cabbage) in a frying pan, poured on the dressing and mixed over low heat until the lettuces cooked down.

When my butternut squash was soft, I added this to the salad, removed the pan from the heat and sprinkled sliced almonds on top.

That’s it, dinner was done in less than 30 minutes, was healthy and the cleanup took only a minute or two (that’s an estimate, I went to bed and made MM clean up, ha).