Pan Seared King Salmon and Summer Salad

Tonight Bryan and I went to Reading Terminal Market after work and picked up a few vegetables in season--corn and tomatoes. I also bought some pesto stuffed brie and one pound of King Salmon.

While Bryan worked on cutting up the 2 green bell peppers, a purple bell pepper, 4 ears of corn, four tomatoes, 1 cucumber, and a red onion, I made our favorite summer cocktail--mint cucumber gin and tonic.

Bryan finished the salad with Kalamata olives, olive oil, lemon juice and oregano. We didn't have feta cheese to make it a true Greek Salad (plus corn), so we set aside some blue cheese and will call it a summer salad. Cheap and delicious and huge.

Total cost for the salad: $10.00

Cost for tonight's serving: $2.50

Cost per person tonight: $1.25

Next we took our salmon filet and quartered it. We saved two filets for later in the week and coated the other two with olive oil and a mixture of spices--salt, garlic, basil and parsley.

Then we fired up a skillet and cooked those suckers up something nice.

Total cost of fish: $20

Cost for tonight's serving: $10

Cost per person tonight: $5

We drizzled a little more olive oil and lemon juice over the fish and plated with the salad.

For one of the hottest days of summer, this was a refreshing, tasty quick, easy and inexpensive meal.

So, how much does it cost to eat great in a recession?

Appetizer (pesto stuffed brie): $3.80

Fish: $10

Salad: $2.50

Total: $16.30

Per person: $8.15

Also each cocktail cost < $2.50

Mint: $0.80

Cucumber: $0.50

Tonic: $1.00

Lime juice: $0.05

Tanqueray: $6.40 (~$0.80/oz)

More pictures now...